UTARI Seminar is held the last Friday of each month at 12:00PM (noon). Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.
Speaker
Surya Sarat Chandra Congress and Cody Lundberg
Topic
Infrastructure Monitoring Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Coupled with Close Range Photogrammetry (UAV-CRP) Technology
Abstract
The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) researchers from Sustainable and Resilient Civil Infrastructure (SARCI) Center have been exploring Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology with Photogrammetry in several application areas including civil infrastructure works. Various sensors including visible light camera and Infrared (IR) camera are being used on the UAV platform for photogrammetry studies. Prior to any project work, we perform comprehensive calibration studies to ensure high standards in our UAV data collection from the sensors. We are capable of performing Real Time Kinematic (RTK) and Post Processing Kinematic (PPK) of high precision Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data for accurate geo-referencing of the collected imagery. As a part of various research projects funded by different government agencies, we have been utilizing UAVs to monitor health condition of infrastructure assets including highway pavements, bridges, embankments, dams, levees, railways and transmission towers; to estimate material stockpile volumes; and perform reconnaissance surveys as a part of post disaster emergency response surveys. Our on-going data collection and analyses show that we achieve excellent results explaining infrastructure conditions with near survey grade accuracy. Our UAV platform is also equipped with top gimbal that facilitates monitoring of hard to access areas such as tall transmission towers and underside of the bridge decks. This presentation covers some of the areas including UAV photogrammetry studies, data collection procedures and data mining as well as data analysis that provide infrastructure condition assessments to quantification of distress.
Bio: Surya S. C. Congress
Surya Sarat Chandra Congress, doctoral student in Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington is currently working on TxDOT and NSF funded research projects under the supervision of Dr. Puppala, Associate Dean of Engineering UT Arlington. As a part of these projects, he has been involved in the monitoring of civil infrastructure health condition by collecting pavement, railway and bridge distress data using unmanned aerial vehicles coupled with close range photogrammetry. His areas of research interests include sensor-based infrastructure, ground improvement techniques and smart city concepts using innovative sensor and smart monitoring technologies.
He received his Bachelors in Civil Engineering degree from Gayatri Engg College affiliated to JNTU University and received his Master of Technology in Transportation Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. During his masters studies, he received a highly competitive and highly prestigious DAAD IIT-Masters Sandwich Scholarship Award (2013-14) for research internship in Germany. As a part of his internship at TU Darmstadt in Germany (2013-14), he worked on 3D optical microscope and British Pendulum tester to estimate the surficial properties of pavements. During his masters studies, Mr. Congress worked on various material characterization studies related to Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA and treated pavement layers as well as in the studies focusing on the assessment of pavement conditions. During his undergraduate studies, he studied the behavior of expansive soils stabilized by the inclusion of waste materials and arrived at material proportions that has enhanced both California Bearing Ratio test (CBR) and Unconfined Compressive Strength properties.
During on-going doctoral studies, he has been involved in various experimental studies on geomaterials. Additionally, he has been involved in studies focusing on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), visual, thermal and vegetation index based sensors to monitor the civil infrastructure and is currently exploring other sensors for similar types of applications. As infrastructure forms the skeleton of urban smart cities and transportation system, these studies ranging from infrastructure monitoring, reconnaissance surveys, and smart instrumentation knowledge for infrastructure health monitoring would provide foundation blocks for a robust and strong transportation infrastructure for cities including smart cities.
Bio: Cody Lundberg
Cody Lundberg joined the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI) in March 2014 as a Research Scientist I. His initial work is with UTARI’s Robotics Division, focusing on commercialization with our cooperate partners and expanding the capability of our PR2 robot.
Lundberg began working under Dr. Dan Popa on microscale robotic systems in 2011. In 2012 he started at The University of Texas Arlington Research Institute (UTARI) as a student intern, prior to completing his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Arlington in May of 2013. During his undergraduate studies, Cody served as a research assistant in the field of micro- and macro-scale robotics. From 2011-2013, he worked on the UTA Microrobotics Team for the 2012 and 2013 Mobile Microrobotics Challenge, organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (2012) and IEEE (2013). He traveled to both St. Paul Minnesota and Karlsruhe Germany for the challenges held at IEEE ICRA.
Date
Friday, November 17, 2017
Time
12pm (noon)-1pm
Location
7300 Jack Newell Boulevard South
Fort Worth, TX 76118-7115
817-272-5900
utari.uta.edu