Smart Perception System for Subsurface Robot Mapping: From Simulation to Actual System Realization

Abstract

Contemporary and anticipated future construction services give rise to an ever-increasing need for new technological, smart sensing solutions, which can give thrust in the automation of cross cutting applications with high societal and economic impact, including trenchless constructions, cabling and pipe installations, geotechnical investigations etc. In this line, this book chapter discusses the development of a smart perception system, composed of a Ground Penetrating Radar and a surface rover-like mobile robot, which is able to autonomously perform subsurface mapping. Firstly, the chapter presents a simulation tool which conceptually realizes the perception system by unifying surface exploration sensors with sensors used for subsurface modelling. This offers to the scientific community a valuable perception tool to perform simulation experiments on subsurface space. Secondly, the chapter documents the development of the actual smart perception system providing details regarding the integrated hardware as well as the developed methods that endow the system with autonomy features, which allow the systematic subsurface data collection, the automatic interpretation of the data for buried utilities detection, as well as their structured representation in the form of a subsurface map. The conceptual system evaluated on simulated environments, while the actual perception system evaluated on real test fields and both exhibited remarkable performance, proving thus their usability in the construction domain.