An-Najah Staff

Today's cities and urban areas are complex socio-economic systems depending on many core infrastructures including roads, utility services and much more. A vast myriad of pipes, sewers and cables exist under our street and pavements and the knowledge of the location of these assets is vital to the smooth flow and operation of traffic (goods, services and people). Unnecessary street-works inhibit the life flow of our urban centres leading to loss of revenue, reduced productivity and health and safety risks. In order to address this issue the University of Nottingham is working as part of the VISTA (Visualising integrated information on buried assets to reduce street-works) and Mapping The Underworld (MTU) projects. The aims and objectives of our role in the research are: research and development of (i) a prototype positioning system to conduct precise 3D positioning at a centimetre level, using currently available commercial GNSS technology along with Pseudolite/Locatalite transmitters, Total Stations, Inertial sensors and Laser Scanners (ii) a suite of algorithms and a software package for the data processing and simulation of GPS, Galileo and pseudolite measurements (iii) an Augmented Reality (AR) system based on GPS and INS to visualise asset location in situ. (iv) System validation conducted at Nottingham, as well as field trials in various urban centres in the UK. As part of the project, research was conducted into GPS/INS integration, the use of high sensitivity GPS, future GNSS constellation simulation, GPS/GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) integration, laser scanning and augmented reality in order to aid accurate positioning and visualization of buried assets. The paper highlights some of the results achieved so far.