Geodetics had a wide range of products available at the Association of Unmanned Vehicles International‘s Xpontential show, held May 2-5 in New Orleans. Jeffrey Faman, Ph.D., discusses the company’s Geo-PNT, Geo-iNAV and Geo-iNAV1000 inertial navigation systems; the Geo-MMS lidar mobile mapping system; and the Geo-Pointer GPS-based heading system.
Tag: lidar
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Quanergy announces new lidar sensor at Xponential
Quanergy Systems, a provider of lidar sensors and smart sensing solutions, is offering a new sensor.
Quanergy’s S3 lidar sensor The S3-Qi is a miniature solid-state lidar sensor that is 15 percent the size of the previous solid-state model, the S3. Quanergy is displaying the new sensor along with its other products in Booth 767 at AUVSI’s Xponential May 3-5 in New Orleans.
The S3-Qi, offered four months after the original S3, has a smaller 1 inch by 1.5-inch footprint, weighs about 100 grams and has low power consumption. The small form factor, combined with a cost-effective design, makes the S3-Qi well suited for applications such as drones, intelligent robotics, security, smart homes and industrial automation.
Mass production of the S3-Qi is targeted for the first quarter of 2017.
“We are excited to raise the bar, once again, with the expansion of our product portfolio,” said Louay Eldada, Quanergy CEO. “We continue to push the boundaries on behalf of our customers. The S3-Qi is a testament to our focus on the user and our investment in innovation for game-changing smart sensing solutions offered at price points that make their use ubiquitous. In drones, payload and battery runtime benefit greatly from our compact sensors.”
Quanergy’s lidar sensors have applications in more than 30 market verticals including security, transportation, terrestrial and aerial mapping, and industrial automation.
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Fugro awarded contract to provide hydrographic surveys in Canada
Fugro has been awarded a supply arrangement by the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) to provide vessel-based hydrographic survey services. Under the contract, CHS will procure hydrographic surveys as needed, anywhere in Canada, to enhance its capacity for data acquisition and processing in support of its nautical charting program.
Hydrographic survey data from ports, harbors, nearshore and offshore regions will be acquired and processed using Fugro’s vessels, equipment and personnel. The resulting data will be used by CHS to update its nautical charts.
The supply arrangement, together with a supply arrangement for airborne lidar bathymetry (ALB) awarded in 2013, will enable Fugro to support Canada in its plans to implement an integrated multi-platform methodology to hydrographic surveying anywhere in Canada, including the Arctic region.
Fugro provides International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) compliant survey services to numerous governments throughout the world.
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ASC sells auto division to focus on 3D flash lidar
Advanced Scientific Concepts (ASC), supplier of 3D flash lidar vision systems for terrestrial, aerial and space applications, is creating of Advanced Scientific Concepts LLC, following the sale of its ASCar division to Continental AG.
With the acquisition of ASCar, Continental plans to mass produce flash lidars at an affordable price to support the commercial automotive industry.
Advanced Scientific Concepts LLC will continue to focus on providing 3D flash lidar custom and standard product solutions for space, manned airborne and underwater applications. This includes also providing UAS, autonomous vehicle and 3D mapping solutions for the domestic and international military markets.
“ASC’s product line for military and aerospace has matured over the past couple years to a high technology readiness level (TRL) through rigorous design and development,” said Jim Curriden, president of ASC LLC. “ASC LLC will now be entirely focused and well positioned to provide affordable solutions for the military and aerospace community by providing either off the shelf or tailored products to meet a user’s unique requirements.”
Advanced Scientific Concepts LLC is aimed at concentrating on the key markets at the foundation of their technology, ready to invest in the future advancement of 3D flash lidar.
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PNT Roundup: Inertial, acoustic, lidar, Wi-Fi and beacon news
Independence, redundancy at sea
Acoustically aided inertial navigation technology will enable a specialized sea vessel maintain dynamic positioning through GNSS disruptions in challenging environments.
Sonardyne Inc.‘s dual Ranger 2 Pro DP-INS systems aboard the ultra-light intervention vessel Brandon Bordelon will track remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) during inspection, repair and maintenance activities, providing an independent position reference for the ship’s Marine Technologies Class 2 dynamic positioning system.
The Lodestar motion sensing instrument platform (attitude and heading reference system, or AHRS) is tightly integrated with Sonardyne’s acoustic positioning components, providing power and control of surface and subsea transceivers as well as instruments such as Doppler velocity logs. The seamless integration of acoustics and inertial technologies exploits the long-term accuracy and precision characteristics of acoustic positioning with the continuous availability and fast update rate from high-grade inertial sensors.
Specialized vessels such as this normally rely on GNSS and ultra-short baseline (USBL) acoustics as their primary sources of dynamic positioning reference data. However, a vessel’s station-keeping capability can be compromised if the USBL is affected by noise or thruster aeration and the GNSS signal is simultaneously interrupted. GNSS signal interruption is particularly common around Equatorial regions and during periods of high solar radiation.
Wideband Acoustic. The integrated acoustic-inertial system addresses this vulnerability, exploiting the long-term accuracy of Sonardyne’s Wideband 2 acoustic signal technology with inertial measurements.
The resulting navigation output can ride through short-term acoustic disruptions and is completely independent from GNSS.
The equipment includes Sonardyne’s ship-mounted inertial navigation sensor and two HPT 7000 acoustic transceivers. The HPTs have been installed on the Brandon Bordelon through hull deployment poles and are optimized for tracking and dynamic positioning in ultra-deep water.
The equipment includes three ring laser gyroscopes that measure the angular rate and three accelerometers that measure the specific force of the moving platform. The INS output is low noise and accurate in the short term, but degrades over time. Therefore, it must be seamlessly aided with complimentary acoustic positioning observations.
Ranger 2 DP-INS uses a tightly coupled integration of range and bearing measurements from seabed transponders to aid the INS and control integration drift.
Industry effort pushes beyond-LOS UAV flight
At the International Lidar Mapping Forum in February, two organizations announced an industry consortium to push for removal of barriers to use of drones in long-distance inspections.
The presentation by Sharper Shape and Edison Electronic Institute made the point that UAVs — specifically, lidar-equipped UAVs — offer potential for more frequent and more affordable inspection and data capture for overhead assets such as power lines. Currently, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations restrict commercial operations to visual line of sight (VLOS). The EEI Sharper Utility project will advocate for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights.
The presentation explored such issues as:
- Types of information obtainable during UAV inspections and how that information can be used to improve infrastructure and asset management programs.
- How UAVs provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional inspection methods, and the critical factors contributing to cost-efficiency.
- Why industry-wide coordinated effort is required to institute change.
- Steps and the key principles to enable commercial-scale drone operations for the electricity industry.
- Identification of stakeholders and the regulators.
- The anticipated date of permitted BVLOS drone flights in U.S. utility inspections.
The Eyes of Texas. In related news, Xcel Energy announced a UAV flight research and development mission that traveled beyond the operator’s line of sight during survey of a transmission line in the Canadian River Breaks region north of Amarillo, Texas, in early February. Two contractors piloted the lidar-equipped Vapor 55 drone. Xcel began using unmanned aircraft to visually inspect substations in 2015, and is the first utility to receive and use the FAA’s certificate of authorization to perform a mission for research and development purposes beyond visual line of sight.
Xcel Energy inspects 320,000 miles of electricity and natural gas infrastructure, including more than 1,000 substations, gas regulator stations and dozens of major power plants in eight states. GPS World will carry further news of this flight in a subsequent issue.
Indoor Nav at Vast Mobile World Congress
Add Infrared Aiding in Retail Show
A scalable indoor positioning hybrid technology from Pole Star of Toulouse, France, combining GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, and motion sensors, and MOCA of Barcelona, Spain, with a location-based mobile engagement platform, provided show navigation, guidance and tracking for the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February.
The joint solution delivers three service levels that combine users’ geolocation with other data to provide expanded contextualized messages. As many as 95,000 show attendees — iOs and Android users alike — were guided through the 240,000 square meters (2.6 million square feet) of the FiraBarcelona, receiving personalized notifications from an intelligent recommendation system based on proximity.
Using geofencing, the 2,200 exhibitors could interact with attendees and attract them to theirs booths. Finally, indoor location analytics enabled the event organizers to visualize and correlate behavior and preferences of attendees.
Infrared. Pole Star also announced at the Retail Big Show in New York in January that it is integrating its NAO Campus indoor positioning technology with the Pricer Product Location solution based on Infrared trilateration. The combination will enable shoppers, once inside a store, to optimize their shopping route and be guided to the products and promotions they are looking for. Hyper-local targeting for shoppers and Indoor location-based analytics for retailers and brands are among the benefits touted.
Pricer, based in Uppsala, Sweden, offers in-store automated product positioning using infrared (IR) communication, combined with tracking algorithms to calculate the position of its electronic shelf labels (ESLs). A typical Pricer label response signal is seen by multiple points in the communication network reading different signal strengths depending on the distance from the label.
Automated in-store product positioning in retail is a “holy grail” for retailers, according to the company. By mapping in real time where the products are placed on the sales floor using the IR technology, companies can engage customers in the aisles, help customers find products and manage product placement compliance.
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PNT Roundup: Inertial market outlook, 3D grows lidar, RoboParachute drops
Intertial
Inertial effort underway for MGUE
The U.S. Air Force’s Joint Service Systems Management Office (JSSMO) has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation an order to support embedded GPS/inertial navigation system (INS) pre-Phase 1 modernization efforts.
Integration of inertial technology with GPS systems across all military platforms — some, such as munitions, are already so equipped — could have far-reaching effects. The move reflects the military’s concern over GPS vulnerabilities in challenged environments.
The Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) program is developing M-code-capable GPS receivers, which are mandated by Congress after fiscal year 2017 and will help to ensure the secure transmission of accurate military signals.
Under the $4.8 million order, Northrop Grumman will perform trade studies, assess the state of development of MGUE for upcoming applications, and contribute to architecture development for next-generation GPS/inertial navigation systems.
The JSSMO is responsible, among other things, for a GPS lab in the Department of Defense that helps develop and test software for GPS systems used throughout the military.
One of the systems it maintains is the Blue Force Tracker (BFT), which is used by all military branches and can track friendly units regardless of their location. Not only can the system see where the unit is located, it can also determine whether or not a unit is moving and what form of transportation it is using.
Aviation Use. The updated GPS/inertial navigation system will also comply with the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen air traffic control requirements that aircraft flying at higher altitudes be equipped with Automatic Dependence Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out by January 2020. ADS-B Out transmits information about an aircraft’s altitude, speed and location to ground stations and to other equipped aircraft in the vicinity. The modernized system is expected to be available for platform integration starting in 2018.
Inertial market to top $8.9 billion by 2020
The inertial navigation system (INS) market is projected to grow from $4.64 billion in 2015 to $8.87 billion by 2020, according to a January 2016 reported from research firm ReportLinker. Factors driving the global INS market include the increasing number of aircraft, technological advancements in navigation systems, increasing demand for accuracy in navigation, and availability of smaller components at lower cost.
“Commercial platform application segment to witness the highest growth during the forecast period,” says the report.
Key applications considered in the market study are naval, airborne, land and commercial platforms. The overall INS market is dominated by the naval platform segment. However, the commercial platform segment is projected to grow at a comparatively higher CAGR during the forecast period of 2015 to 2020, primarily driven by the demand for new aircraft in response to the burgeoning rise in air travel and congestion of airspace.
Recent advances in inertial technology have replaced the mechanical components with electronic ones, particularly micro-electro-mechanical sensors (MEMS). Overall focus has remained on increasing the accuracy and reducing weight of the INS.
The major companies profiled in the report include Northrop Grumman Corporation (U.S.), Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.), Sagem (France), Rockwell Collins (U.S.) and Thales SA (France), among others.
Lidar
Lidar market grows with 3D
Anew market report on light detection and ranging (lidar) technology says that the demand for lidar is increasing in line with an increase in the demand for 3D scanning and 3D imagery.
According to the report, the global lidar market is anticipated to expand at 15 percent annually from 2014 to 2020, growing from a value of $225 million in 2013 to $605 million in 2020.
Lidar enables direct measurement of 3D structures and underlying terrain with high resolution and high data accuracy. The adoption of lidar technology is slowly penetrating in various government sectors such as roadways, railways and forestry management, among others.
However, the lidar market faces challenge related to the complexity in interpreting the output data, because of the lack of data-set standardization.
The 80-page research study is titled LiDAR Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014–2020, available for sale from Transparency Market Research.
The lidar market can be segmented based on types into airborne and terrestrial lidar and based on applications into coastal, forestry, transportation, infrastructure, defense and aerospace, transmission lines and flood mapping, among others.
Geographically, the lidar market is dominated by North America owing to high adoption of advanced 3D imagery technologies by the U.S. government. Europe follows with a minimal difference in the market share. A large number of key players are based in Europe and are involved in making innovations to meet the requirements of consumers in different applications.
The report has been segmented by type, application and geography. It also includes the drivers, restraints, opportunities and value chain of the global lidar market.
Imagery
RoboParachute drops
The U.S. Army’s Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) has developed a new capability exploiting a navigation alternative to GPS. In recent tests, JPADS were dropped from planes, and immediately determined their location using optical sensors to compare local terrain with commercial satellite imagery. The new system demonstrated navigation to its intended point, using nothing but imagery to guide it. The new JPADS also works with little knowledge of the aircraft’s location at the drop point.
JPADS, largely guided by GPS, has already proven its importance in supplying troops with necessary materials and equipment, relying less on vulnerable convoys.
Contractor Draper will continue developing the system to eliminate current obstacles, such as cloud cover that degrades the vision-aided navigation system’s ability to compare vision sensor inputs with satellite imagery. These imagery-data analysis technologies could be used to help guide military freefall paratroopers and autonomous aerial vehicles.
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MAPPS presents excellence awards, bestows highest honor to Teledyne Optech
From (L to R) John Palatiello, MAPPS executive Director; Jim Green; Mike Sitar and Michel Stanier of Optech Teledyne. Teledyne Optech‘s ALTM Titan lidar sensor earned the 2015 Grand Award in the ninth annual MAPPS Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards, MAPPS recently announced in a news release. The awards ceremony was held Feb. 2 at the Green Valley Ranch in Henderson, Nev.
Teledyne was also presented with an award in the Technology Innovation category.
The company said in a news release that Titan is easy to handle in complex scenarios, such as acquiring three wavelengths simultaneously; incorporating a metric camera imbedded in the system; creating a sensor that fits in a 16-inch gyro-stabilized mount; and increasing the depth penetration of the bathymetric sensor. To achieve this, Vaughan, Ontario-based Teledyne Optech had to develop new fiber lasers and a triple wavelength receiver which allowed for the collection of bathymetric lidar, topographic lidar and multispectral lidar in one single sensor.
“Teledyne Optech’s ALTM Titan is a marvel in lidar engineering,” said Robert Burtch PS, CP, professor emeritus at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., and chairman of the panel of judges. “This development allows the collection of bathymetric lidar, topographic lidar and multispectral lidar in one single sensor.”
The MAPPS awards competition recognizes the professionalism, value, integrity and achievement that member firms have demonstrated in their projects and technology developments over the previous year.
MAPPS also honored winners in six technical categories.
Woolpert of Dayton, Ohio, was selected in the Photogrammetry/Elevation Data Generation category with the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Headstone Mapping Project that utilized lidar to locate and map 4,320 headstones and 280 battlefield markers.
The winning project in the Remote Sensing category was by Aerial Services Inc. of Cedar Falls, Iowa, for The Race for Now: Maximizing Crop Yields Using Innovations in Remote Sensing project, which acquired imagery using multiple sensors during the critical growing phases to produce a web-based precision agriculture service in the State of Iowa.
In the GIS/IT category, Merrick & Company of Greenwood Village, Colo., was selected for GIS Models Visualize Ancient Flooding Problems in the country of Columbia. As project manager, Merrick provided technology transfer and GIS data and training, and introduced a new methodology, “monotonicity,” which guarantees that acoustic bathymetry, lidar and breaklines are correctly integrated.
The winner in the Surveying/Field Data Collection category was the Baltimore, Md., office of AECOM for its Protocol for Determining Grass Channel Credits project. Using GIS, lidar and aerial imagery, AECOM worked with the Maryland State Highway Administration to identify roadway ditches to assure compliance with the Department of the Environment grass channel treatment criteria.
TerraSond of Palmer, Ark., earned the award in the Small Projects category for the Bradley Lake Hydro Power project. TerraSond teamed to perform an inspection of a diversion tunnel to a dam and power tunnel inlet in Homer, Alaska to identify the quantity of debris that was covering the inlet screen by comparing the debris profile with the as-built drawings to determine the amount of debris that needed to be removed.
Titan, Teledyne Optech’s multi-spectral lidar sensor, also won in the Technology Innovation category.
A panel of independent judges evaluated projects submitted by MAPPS members for the awards program.
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Garmin acquires lidar company PulsedLight
Garmin International has acquired PulsedLight Inc., a privately held designer of optical distance measurement technology in Bend, Oregon.
PulsedLight makes sensor boards that are highly accurate, small and lightweight. PulsedLight developed and owns the intellectual property that enables this technology, Garmin stated in a news release.
PulsedLight is the maker of the LIDAR-Lite, an optical distance measurement sensor for automotive blind-spot sensing, smart city traffic monitoring, 3D image scanning, collision avoidance, industrial measurements, security system components and other applications.
“Optical distance measurement technology fits in nicely with Garmin’s core competencies of location and positioning,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin president and CEO. “We are delighted to add PulsedLight and their capabilities to the Garmin portfolio.”
“We are excited to have the support of a technology leader like Garmin. They are able to provide the resources and manufacturing expertise to integrate our technology into incredibly useful new devices that serve a multitude of markets,” said Dennis Corey, president and co-founder of PulsedLight. “We look forward to an exciting future under the Garmin umbrella.”
The PulsedLight office and its design associates will be retained by Garmin International. Financial terms of the acquisition will not be released.
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ENVI 5.3 adds lidar analysis
The latest release of ENVI software, version 5.3, adds significant lidar point cloud analysis and visualization capabilities that previously were only available in the ENVI lidar software package. The Harris Corporation software offers users a single software interface to work with hyper-spectral, multi-spectral, panchromatic and lidar data.
The out-of-the-box functionality includes 3D point-cloud visualization, derived terrain product generation (such as digital elevation models) and lidar analytics such as viewshed line-of-sight calculation.
For users who need point-cloud or terrain products in an area where collecting lidar is not feasible or is too expensive, the ENVI Photogrammetry Module is able to generate synthetic 3D point clouds from stereo optical imagery to take advantage of existing imagery archives.
The dimension of time can be critical for a thorough geospatial analysis of an area, and the new ENVI release has added enhancements to the Spatio-Temporal analysis toolset. Spatio-Temporal analysis visualizes change and derives statistics from data over time, enabling users to observe events of the past to better predict upcoming activities.
New additions were also added to the ENVITask system, a relatively new method for performing discrete bits of image processing programmatically through the ENVI object-based API. This programmatic approach to image processing can save time because users can chain together multiple ENVITasks, allowing the output from one ENVITask to become the input to the next. There are now 138 ENVITasks available in the ENVI API.
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Aerial mapping of UK rail network nears completion
NM Group is nearing completion on an aerial mapping project covering more than 16,000 kilometers of United Kingdom rail network.
In 2014, NM Group was engaged to map the rail assets with a mix of high-tech laser measurement and imaging equipment, as part of a project to improve asset maintenance, operational effectiveness, efficiency and safety.
The project used a mix of specially commissioned lidar and high-resolution multi-angle cameras mounted on helicopters, carrying out aerial operations and ground-control activities over a four-month period and completing it before winter. The survey information was rapidly transported to NM Group’s Technology Centre in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, where a team of specialists have been converting nearly a petabyte of raw data into a wide range of terrain, asset and imaging outputs.
“I am incredibly proud of the way our team has responded to this large and challenging project, completing the data capture within an unprecedented timescale and producing a high-quality output that will serve the rail network for years to come,” said NM Group’s CEO Kevin Jacobs.
NM Group’s contribution to the program provides the geospatial fabric on which other layers are overlaid, the basis for asset location mapping and the start point for the design of upgrades and modifications. Traditionally, this information would have been created by a visit to the site by a team of surveyors.
The new method will significantly reduce the need for future field work and trackside access. It will also facilitate more efficient maintenance, allowing crews to identify and access assets more safely and efficiently than in the past, via apps on a range of mobile devices, NM Group said.
NM Group is a specialist service provider of asset management, surveying and mapping solutions to sectors including energy transmission and distribution and road and rail transport. Applying a range of remote sensing and geospatial technologies, the company offers a full range of services from data acquisition through to analytics and web applications for wider access to information.
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Routescene maiden flight pushes boundaries
Routescene has jointly developed with Hanseatic Aviation Solutions an integrated fixed-wing UAV and LidarPod solution for surveying.
Following in-depth customer research, Routescene identified a gap in the market for an unmanned aerial 3D mapping solution capable of flying long distances, particularly for use in large countries with great expanses of remote land such as Australia, the United States, Canada and Eastern Europe. The integrated solution would be used for long-distance surveys, such as powerline inspections in the utilities sector, biomass mapping of forests and geophysical surveys.
The successful maiden flight of the integrated Hanseatic S360 and Routescene LidarPod took place in July in Bremen, Germany, and demonstrated its capability by collecting sample data. German aviation authorities were so confident in the product, they gave Routescene permission to fly in the same circuit as manned aircraft.
A 3D point cloud of
the runway at Bremerhaven Airport.Benefits
The LidarPod is integrated internally within the S360 itself, rather than being wing-mounted, reducing drag and enabling longer flight and survey times. Integration of the LidarPod into the nose cone minimizes noise and vibration traveling from the rear-mounted engine, ensuring the GNSS/INS is not adversely affected. It also enables more accurate positioning.
The S360 is fixed-wing and built for long-distance flights, with four-hour endurance in the standard configuration, along with long-range telemetry, an autopilot system and a mission planning tool. It works in up to Force 7 winds, extending the operational window in which surveys can be performed. Its significant payload capacity enables the integration of additional survey and geophysical sensors as well as the LidarPod. Because this is an internally integrated solution, it can be set up rapidly and is easy to deploy in the field, Routescene said.
Michael Schmidt, managing director of Hanseatic Aviation Solutions, and Gert Riemersma, CEO of Routescene, met for the first time at INTERGEO 2014. They immediately understood the potential power of a collaboration.
Routescene launched the LidarPod at that trade show. It quickly attracted wide interest and is now generating business across four continents, Routescene said.
After exploratory discussions with clients, the companies started development of the system in earnest at the start of 2015. “We have already seen significant interest from the forestry and geophysical exploration community,” Riemersma said.
