Hi
Guys,
Thanks for the feedback on the first post! Now that
you know a little bit about me and how I got here let's talk about the project! As
I mentioned before, the name of the project is Sustainable Road Management through Low Cost techniques but
to make it easier we just call it SuRoMa!
The first word in that sentence is Sustainable and
this really is key. It's a word that is used a lot in today's world
but what exactly is it? Simply put, it is about doing things that will not only
work now but that will continue to do so in the future without damaging our
resources for the future. However as with most things in life, we need money to
achieve goals and this is the same for road authorities worldwide. Road
agencies usually have limited budgets and are faced with difficult decisions on
how to manage the roads to produce efficient and useful networks.
It can be irritating being a driver or pedestrian using a
road full of cracks and potholes and we tend to blame only the guys in charge
but most times they want to help, it's just that they are pressured with
decisions on which roads to fix and what is the best way to help you. And even to make these
decisions, the answers are often difficult and expensive to deduce. They have
to figure out how to spend their limited budgets answering tough questions such
as:
Which roads do we fix? When do we fix them? How often
do we check them?
This is where SuRoMa comes in!
The project is aimed at helping those guys who are
burdened with those questions and giving them a tool to get those answers at a low cost. In
doing so they will be able to better help you. How are we planning on doing
this? - well, the project will use something that we already have at
our disposal and that we all use - maybe even now to read this blog - your cell
phone! Cell phones have become increasingly advanced and we are going to
tap into this to get our roads some help. Specifically, we will be utilizing
the cameras on our phones. Most of us use them to take selfies but we want to
give them another use!
We will take pictures of the distresses on our roads
and using some pretty cool and innovative techniques involving photogrammetry
and structure from motion (I will give more info on these techniques in a later
post 😎) we will turn those 2D images into 3D models of the
distresses. This will then allow us to create a 3D catalogue of the distresses
and using these models we will be able to deduce key information on what
exactly are the distresses and offer solutions on how to monitor and fix them.
The project will also use the information we collect
through this method and analysis and seek to create a new metric to measure the
overall condition of the roads. One that is easier to relate to urban roads and
as it is using low cost equipment this will be more sustainable moving forward.
Also, as our smartphones get smarter and our cameras get better the tool we
create will also only get better!
So there you have it! In a nutshell we will take your
phones and turn them into road distress detectors!
There's a lot more information on the project but
I'll leave you with that for now and as the last time I showed some pictures of
my homeland Guyana, I'll now give you a glimpse of my current home : the beautiful city
of Palermo, Italy.
Talk to you
soon.
RR12 |
| Sites around Palermo |
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