USE OF ASSISTED PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR INDOOR AND OUTDOOR NAVIGATION PURPOSES

Nowadays, devices and applications that require navigation solutions are continuously growing. For instance, consider the increasing demand of mapping information or the development of applications based on users’ location. In some case it could be sufficient an approximate solution (e.g. at room level), but in the large amount of cases a better solution is required. The navigation problem has been solved from a long time using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). However, it can be unless in obstructed areas, such as in urban areas or inside buildings. An interesting low cost solution is photogrammetry, assisted using additional information to scale the photogrammetric problem and recovering a solution also in critical situation for image-based methods (e.g. poor textured surfaces). In this paper, the use of assisted photogrammetry has been tested for both outdoor and indoor scenarios. Outdoor navigation problem has been faced developing a positioning system with Ground Control Points extracted from urban maps as constrain and tie points automatically extracted from the images acquired during the survey. The proposed approach has been tested under different scenarios, recovering the followed trajectory with an accuracy of 0.20 m. For indoor navigation a solution has been thought to integrate the data delivered by Microsoft Kinect, by identifying interesting features on the RGB images and re-projecting them on the point clouds generated from the delivered depth maps. Then, these points have been used to estimate the rotation matrix between subsequent point clouds and, consequently, to recover the trajectory with few centimeters of error

GNSS methods in dam monitoring: case studies and future perspectives

GNSS receivers are nowadays commonly used in monitoring applications, e.g. in estimating crustal and infrastructure deformations. This is basically due to the recent improvements in GNSS instruments and methodologies that allow high precision positioning, 24h availability, semiautomatic data processing. In this paper, we use GNSS technique to monitor dam deformation behaviour comparing results with outcomes from pendulum observations that thanks to their reliability and high accuracy can be considered as reference. The study has been carried out for two dams in Sardinia: the Genna Is Abis on Rio Cixerri, and the Eleonora D’Arborea called also Cantoniera dam. Appropriate analytical models of dam deformation depending on time, reservoir water level, air and water temperature have been estimated using pendulum data (for Genna Is Abis dam) and GNSS data (for Cantoniera dam). Both reference models were able to properly fit respectively pendulum data and GNSS data, with standard deviation of residuals lower than one millimeter. Furthermore the Genna Is Abis reference deformation model deduced by pendulum was compared with estimated displacement from GNSS observations and standard deviation of the residuals was still lower than one millimeter. For the send model estimated at Cantoniera dam the comparison with pendulum data gave residual with mean around zero and standard deviation of lower than two millimiter. These encouraging outcomes open new perspectives in the study of deformations of structures that foresee the GNSS technique as complementary monitoring instrumentation especially for medium-long time intervals

Vision-Based Georeferencing of GPR in Urban Areas

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveying is widely used to gather accurate knowledge about the geometry and position of underground utilities. The sensor arrays need to be coupled to an accurate positioning system, like a geodetic-grade Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) device. However, in urban areas this approach is not always feasible because GNSS accuracy can be substantially degraded due to the presence of buildings, trees, tunnels, etc. In this work, a photogrammetric (vision-based) method for GPR georeferencing is presented. The method can be summarized in three main steps: tie point extraction from the images acquired during the survey, computation of approximate camera extrinsic parameters and finally a refinement of the parameter estimation using a rigorous implementation of the collinearity equations. A test under operational conditions is described, where accuracy of a few centimeters has been achieved. The results demonstrate that the solution was robust enough for recovering vehicle trajectories even in critical situations, such as poorly textured framed surfaces, short baselines, and low intersection angles

Covariance function modelling in local geodetic applications using the simplex method

Collocation has been widely applied in geodesy for estimating the gravity field of the Earth both locally and globally. Particularly, this is the standard geodetic method used to combine all the available data to get an integrated estimate of any functional of the anomalous potential T. The key point of the method is the definition of proper covariance functions of the data. Covariance function models have been proposed by many authors together with the related software. In this paper a new method for finding suitable covariance models has been devised. The covariance fitting problem is reduced to an optimization problem in Linear Programming and solved by using the Simplex Method. The procedure has been implemented in a FORTRAN95 software and has been tested on simulated and real data sets. These first tests proved that the proposed method is a reliable tool for estimating proper covariance function models to be used in the collocation procedure

Estimating and comparing dam deformation using classical and gnss techniques

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers are nowadays commonly used in monitoring applications, e.g., in estimating crustal and infrastructure displacements. This is basically due to the recent improvements in GNSS instruments and methodologies that allow high-precision positioning, 24 h availability and semiautomatic data processing. In this paper, GNSS-estimated displacements on a dam structure have been analyzed and compared with pendulum data. This study has been carried out for the Eleonora D'Arborea (Cantoniera) dam, which is in Sardinia. Time series of pendulum and GNSS over a time span of 2.5 years have been aligned so as to be comparable. Analytical models fitting these time series have been estimated and compared. Those models were able to properly fit pendulum data and GNSS data, with standard deviation of residuals smaller than one millimeter. These encouraging results led to the conclusion that GNSS technique can be profitably applied to dam monitoring allowing a denser description, both in space and time, of the dam displacements than the one based on pendulum observations

COVARIANCE FUNCTION MODELLING IN LOCAL GEODETIC APPLICATIONS USING THE SIMPLEX METHOD

Collocation has been widely applied in geodesy for estimating the gravity field of the Earth both locally and globally. Particularly, this is the standard geodetic method used to combine all the available data to get an integrated estimate of any functional of the anomalous potential T. The key point of the method is the definition of proper covariance functions of the data. Covariance function models have been proposed by many authors together with the related software. In this paper a new method for finding suitable covariance models has been devised. The covariance fitting problem is reduced to an optimization problem in Linear Programming and solved by using the Simplex Method. The procedure has been implemented in a FORTRAN95 software and has been tested on simulated and real data sets. These first tests proved that the proposed method is a reliable tool for estimating proper covariance function models to be used in the collocation procedure