Seamless Positioning and Navigation in Urban Environment

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

New geomatics techniques for bees monitoring: the BEEMS project

Bees provide essential pollination services to natural ecosystems and agricultural crops. However, bee populations, both wild and farmed, are in decline around the world. To better manage and restore bee populations, long-term monitoring programs are needed. Direct monitoring of bees is expensive, time-consuming and requires a high level of expertise. Therefore, economic indicators for bee diversity and community composition are essential. The BEEMS Project, a project of Scientific and Technological Cooperation between Italy and Israel (Scientific Track 2019), aims to evaluate the cost-benefit ratio of new aerial Geomatics techniques compared to classical terrestrial methods to collect biotic and abiotic indicators of diversity bees and the composition of their communities. This work aims to present the project's progress, focusing on the Geomatics techniques applied to collect environmental data and produce spatial information useful for the work's progress

Preliminary test on structural elements health monitoring with a LiDAR-based approach

The safety and usability of infrastructures such as bridges, roads, and buildings must be monitored throughout their useful life. Traditional inspection methods are time-consuming and expensive, and innovative solutions using LiDAR-based techniques have developed. This study presents a semi-automatic method for detecting deteriorations on structural elements of a bridge using an integrated dataset of point clouds and radiometric information. The method involves using a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) to obtain high-resolution georeferenced point clouds of the bridge beams, which are then filtered to identify four classes of deteriorations. Six Machine Learning Classifiers are tested and compared using Overall Accuracy and F1-score metrics. The Random Forest emerged as the best-performing. It was then optimised by reducing the input features through an importance analysis and the accuracies measured. The results show promise and can be explored further on a larger dataset. The study aims to generalise the methodology to transfer it to actual cases

Positioning Techniques with Smartphone Technology: Performances and Methodologies in Outdoor and Indoor Scenarios

Smartphone technology is widespread both in the academy and in the commercial world. Almost every people have today a smartphone in their pocket, that are not only used to call other people but also to share their location on social networks or to plan activities. Today with a smartphone we can compute our position using the sensors settled inside the device that may also include accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, teslameter, proximity sensors, barometer, and GPS/GNSS chipset. In this chapter we want to analyze the state-of-the-art of the positioning with smartphone technology, considering both outdoor and indoor scenarios. Particular attention will be paid to this last situation, where the accuracy can be improved fusing information coming from more than one sensor. In particular, we will investigate an innovative method of image recognition based (IRB) technology, particularly useful in GNSS denied environment, taking into account the two main problems that arise when the IRB positioning methods are considered: the first one is the optimization of the battery, that implies the minimization of the frame rate, and secondly the latencies due to image processing for visual search solutions, required by the size of the database with the 3D environment images

LiDAR and SfM-MVS Integrated Approach to Build a Highly Detailed 3D Virtual Model of Urban Areas

The three-dimensional reconstruction of buildings, road infrastructures, service networks, and cultural heritage in urban environments is relevant for many market segments and numerous functions in the management and coordination of public authorities. These stakeholders are showing increasing interest in modern acquisition and reconstruction technologies for digital models typical of the geomatic and computer vision disciplines. In this context, it is essential to methodically exploit the potential of active and passive instruments and apply multi-sensor integration techniques, to obtain metrically accurate and high-resolution products. This study proposes a multi-sensor and multi-scale approach for high-resolution 3D model reconstruction focused on a city portion of Turin (Italy). We performed an integrated survey based on LiDAR and photogrammetric techniques, both aerial and terrestrial. Then we produced a set of 3D digital products for (i) promoting the historical and artistic heritage through Virtual Reality (VR) applications, (ii) supporting the restoration of Baroque buildings, and (iii) providing advanced analysis concerning the alteration of the urban road system. The final output describes in detail the architectural elements investigated (e.g., 9,480,000 tringles to define the mesh of a statue). It emphasizes the need for deepening sensor integration and data fusion

Evaluation of Different LiDAR Technologies for the Documentation of Forgotten Cultural Heritage under Forest Environments

In the present work, three LiDAR technologies (Faro Focus 3D X130—Terrestrial Laser Scanner, TLS-, Kaarta Stencil 2–16—Mobile mapping system, MMS-, and DJI Zenmuse L1—Airborne LiDAR sensor, ALS-) have been tested and compared in order to assess the performances in surveying built heritage in vegetated areas. Each of the mentioned devices has their limits of usability, and different methods to capture and generate 3D point clouds need to be applied. In addition, it has been necessary to apply a methodology to be able to position all the point clouds in the same reference system. While the TLS scans and the MMS data have been geo-referenced using a set of vertical markers and sphere measured by a GNSS receiver in RTK mode, the ALS model has been geo-referenced by the GNSS receiver integrated in the unmanned aerial system (UAS), which presents different characteristics and accuracies. The resulting point clouds have been analyzed and compared, focusing attention on the number of points acquired by the different systems, the density, and the nearest neighbor distance

An original application of image recognition based location in complex indoor environments

This paper describes the first results of an image recognition based location (IRBL) for a mobile application focusing on the procedure to generate a database of range images (RGB-D). In an indoor environment, to estimate the camera position and orientation, a prior spatial knowledge of the surroundings is needed. To achieve this objective, a complete 3D survey of two different environments (Bangbae metro station of Seoul and the Electronic and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) building in Daejeon, Republic of Korea) was performed using a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) instrument, and the obtained scans were processed to obtain a spatial model of the environments. From this, two databases of reference images were generated using specific software realised by the Geomatics group of Politecnico di Torino (ScanToRGBDImage). This tool allows us to generate synthetically different RGB-D images centred in each scan position in the environment. Later, the external parameters (X, Y, Z, ω, ϕ, and κ) and the range information extracted from the retrieved database images are used as reference information for pose estimation of a set of acquired mobile pictures in the IRBL procedure. In this paper, the survey operations, the approach for generating the RGB-D images, and the IRB strategy are reported. Finally, the analysis of the results and the validation test are described

MULTI-SOURCE 3D MODELS SUPPORTING ULTRASONIC TEST TO INVESTIGATE AN EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM IN BOLOGNA

The paper presents the workflow and the results of an ultrasonic 3D investigation and a 3D survey application aimed at the assessment of the internal integrity of an ancient sculpture. The work aimed at highlighting the ability of methods devoted to the 3D geometry acquisition of small objects when applied to diagnosis performed by geophysical investigation. In particular, two methods widely applied for small objects modelling are considered and compared, the digital Photogrammetry with the Structure from Motion (SFM) technique and hand-held 3D scanners. The study concludes with the aim to enhance the final graphical representation of the tomographic results and to subject the obtained results to a quantitative analysis. The survey is applied to the Egyptian naophorous statue of Amenmes and Reshpu, which dates to the reign of Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) or later and is now preserved in the Civic Archaeological Museum in Bologna. In order to evaluate the internal persistency of fractures and visible damages, a 3D Ultrasonic Tomographic Imaging (UTI) test has been performed and a multi-sensor survey (image and range based) was conducted, in order to evaluate the locations of the source and receiver points as accurate as possible The presented test allowed to evaluate the material characteristics, its porosity and degradation state, which particularly affect the lower part of the statue. More in general, the project demonstrated how solution coming from the field of 3D modelling of Cultural Heritage allow the application of 3D ultrasonic tomography also on objects with complex shapes, in addition to the improved representation of the obtained results

UAV data acquisition and analysis for a Cultural Landscape Heritage: the emergency area of the Vallone d’Elva.

In the last decades, the technology progress in the cultural and environmental field has had a loud growth. The authors applied drone and terrestrial photogrammetric techniques for a complete survey on a complex Cultural Landscape Heritage, requiring protection and promoting actions. These technologies were used to obtain even more detailed 3D point clouds, terrain models, orthophotos (also new quasi-vertical product) with a centimetre accuracy, for tourism development and landslide hazard prevention on road and villages, also reducing survey costs in a complex and limited orography site

Identification of a Novel p53 Modulator Endowed with Antitumoural and Antibacterial Activity through a Scaffold Repurposing Approach

Intracellular pathogens, such as Chlamydia trachomatis, have been recently shown to induce degradation of p53 during infection, thus impairing the protective response of the host cells. Therefore, p53 reactivation by disruption of the p53-MDM2 complex could reduce infection and restore pro-apoptotic effect of p53. Here, we report the identification of a novel MDM2 inhibitor with potential antitumoural and antibacterial activity able to reactivate p53. A virtual screening was performed on an in-house chemical library, previously synthesised for other targets, and led to the identification of a hit compound with a benzo[a]dihydrocarbazole structure, RM37. This compound induced p53 up-regulation in U343MG glioblastoma cells by blocking MDM2-p53 interaction and reduced tumour cell growth. NMR studies confirmed its ability to dissociate the MDM2-p53 complex. Notably, RM37 reduced Chlamydia infection in HeLa cells in a concentration-dependent manner and ameliorated the inflammatory status associated with infection