Hovermap Offers Autonomy Plus Lidar Mapping

In a webinar recently presented by Emesent, the discussion was entitled “Smarter Lidar Technology for Infrastructure and AEC: better data, greater insights.”

Peter Dickinson, project manager for Emesent and Business Development manager for the Americas Dave Jaunay introduced customers who were using Emesent’s Hovermap sensor system for various challenging environments. It has been used extensively in mining and underground environments and land surveying.

The company Emesent is based in Brisbane, Australia with a staff of 38 but rapidly growing to meet global demands. The company aims to solve the problem of collection of data – in GPS-denied or challenging environments. The need to automate the collection of data,  gave birth to the Hovermap for mine and roads,  tunneling, indoor mapping and search and rescue, anywhere where maintaining a signal for GNSS solutions is problematic.

Hovermap provides lidar mapping plus autonomy. With a 1.8 kg payload, Wi-Fi connectivity a velodyne VLP-16 and powerful 17 CPU, the Hovermap provides SLAM Lidar mapping, in GPS-denied locations, as well as collision avoidance, and advanced autonomy. “We use a Velodyne VLP-16 to generate high quality point clouds,” said Dickinson. “That is how we provide collision avoidance, with SLAM Lidar mapping and can navigate through the environment it finds itself in.”

Compatible aircraft for autonomy include the

• DII M210Version 3
• DII M210 RTK Version 1
• DII M600
• DIi M300 RTK

Their Autonomy-2 sensor product was released last month. In late 2020 the Pixhawk + Arducopter will be available. The DI M300 is smaller and more mobile.

Speakers included Eric Bennett, Owner and COO of Erock Associates, LLC; Bill Gutelius, president ONTFI, Inc.; Scott Harrigan, president and founder of Harkin Aerial; and Michael Quan, president and founder of Interactive Tactical Group.

Erick Bennett of Erock Associates spoke about getting great data with Hovermap however they need to, and they use a cage to do vertical scans. It works well for autonomous driving applications as well.

“Much of our work is in major infrastructure, for example, a scan of a spillway,” said Bennett. “This doesn’t include colorization. It took 8 minutes to capture a scan that can be dropped into whatever software program you might be using. A lot of geotechnical information can be gained from a meshview. We have been working with geodetic companies to use Hovermap with land survey. Municipalities have asked for use in their land surveys. In doing a parking structure under the freeway, we carried Hovermap by hand and were able to process this for their planning and use.”

Bennett said they compared photogrammetry data with lidar and found a six inch difference between the capture when comparing the two systems, and were getting better penetration through compacted grasses with lidar.

In working with a quarry to plan their final wall for walls and benches, they can mine the material they can and put stable benches and walls in. This particular quarry has been there since 1925. They combine scans of rock structure with slope data to determine what their bench might be. They are collecting data of hardness and geotechnical data.

The process involves measuring blast hole distances, photogrammetry capture, technical data of distances to structures, blast hole diameters, spacing for control of blasting, etc. Photogrammetry does an ineffective job but it does provide some preliminary data. “It’s completely obscured with poison oak, but with Hovermap we could get the condition and blasting information and remove structure and vegetation,” said Bennett. “We could scan blast holes alignment and mesh with Hovermap. This is important for us in blasting. Explosive loading is critical to the control of the blasting, and we are getting better data, and our control is better. Mapping specs provide the range of the accuracy we’re living with – plus or minus 30 mm from distance, close to 5 mm if you’re doing a close range scan. Consequently our results are better than with photogrammetry. We use ground control almost all the time in these projects.”

Bill Gutelius, of QNTFI said their company is working with and distributing SLAM lidar systems since 2013. They became the first U.S. distributer of Emesent Hovermap product line in 2019. Their focus is on software and hardware solutions to speed workflow, and realization of better extraction of information from data.

Their customer Burns & McDonnell deploys Hovermap several different ways: ATV mounts, M210 drone flights, and hand-walking building developments.

Versatility is one of the hallmarks of the product. Hovermap has

• multi-look angles (360^o FOV)
• Lightweight many battery options
• Intensity
• Color- recent enhancement
• Advanced SLAM algorithm
• Versatile Deployment
• Hand-carry, drone, vehicle, tether with cage

Performance includes intensity, colorization and advanced, best-in-class SLAM algorithm.

For QNTFI, Hovermap has improved workflows for certain non-mining applications. “We have heard a tremendous amount over the last few months about all the advancements Emesent have been making on improving the underground performance of Hovermap,” said Gutelius. “That performance can be leveraged across different sets of verticals namely the AEC sector and building measurements.”

The takeaway for non-mining is the development of technology. SLAM based technology provides no post regulation of scans as they are all done on the fly with SLAM.

“Hovermap is transformative,” said Gutelius. “The speed of data is amazing – amazing how much data you can collect in short period of time.”

Hovermap is very versatile, and many end users have opted to use Hovermap as it allows workflows to run smoother and quicker with a lot less freework.

They used PointFuse software to get a tight view of a perimeter scan 3,000 square foot defunct factory. This involved walking around the building and taking about 15 minutes for the interiors. Hovermap gave a tight view and created segment mesh with tighter cleaner point clouds with color mapping. This can be rendered out to a parametric BIM model.

From there users can generate a space utilization report very quickly using an industry standard BOM output product for space measurement and classification of different floor space. “We are getting better deliverables in the BIM sector and can export to Revit more quickly, using the Revit existing rooms tool to add room information,” said Gutelius. “The higher accuracy and clean data allow better results.”

Scott Harrigan spoke of “Hovermap in the Drone AEC workflow – Harkin Aerial.”

“We’ve been a client of Hovermap and very pleased with performance,” said Harrigan. “What we get into in vertical facades building is where traditional photogrammetry can break down for a number of reasons.”

Everything is great in 3D, but when an engineer gets liability or gets sued, it’s the 2D CAD plans that are important. So it’s important to trace data back to the 2D CAD world.

Harrigan wants to make the drone part of the collection. The client gets fantastic linework or elevation, and will need volume reports, GIS maps and the point cloud is just a tool to get there.

“most of our clients don’t want point clouds. They want CAD-ready data, – the plans,” said Harrigan. “Accuracy matters but accuracy is very relative to each project.”

Hovermap helps by allowing providing reliability, efficiency, working in difficult to fly environments such as urban areas, at any time of day. “We want to acquire point clouds quickly without time of day, vegetation and logistical restrictions,” said Harrigan.

Harrigan showed the example of a Brooklyn waterfront commercial property that is undergoing rapid development. Architects required proposed elevations along with inspection. There are no good elevations as builts. These are old brick structures without good data on heights and undocumented HVAC equipment.

Challenges included

• difficult to terrestrial scan due to height
• Very poor lighting in the courtyard for photogrammetry
• GPS limitations inside the alcove, and tough place to operate UAS

“GPS loss is an issue with drone flying and also an issue in collecting data,” said Harrigan. “One of the biggest issues with architects and facades is there is no ground control with buildings. There can be poor existing elevation data for a façade. We get asked for total height of a building to half a foot. We don’t have to rely on good ground control or GPS to get the height of the façade. Because GPS is so poor, we will have poor geolocation in our photos combined with poor ground control points. Hovermap always knows the right way up when doing scan, so we don’t have to oriented scan data. Night waiver with Hovermap can be used in urban environments and helps with autonomy because we lose our ability to acquire good GPS.”

COVID-19 has pushed Harrigan’s logistical limits, creating an even greater need from flexibility in payloads.

Michael Quan of Interactive Tactical Group said they have been using Hovermap for over a year now and  recently acquired the DI300 system. They recently acquired the camera which is basically a GoPro. “The software from Emesent allows us to use with GoPro, to create an aerial view of a substation which helps with zoning.  Stakeholders want to see flythroughs and understand the environment. They don’t want to see point clouds to understand issues of community.”

The big payoff is basically autonomy, said Quan and they are excited to move forward with Emesent on that journey.

Tags: 3D Laser Mapping, autonomous vehicles, data, forestry, geospatial, GIS, GNSS, health, imagery, indoor mapping, Infrastructure, intelligence, laser scanner, LiDAR, location, mapping, maps, mobile, mobile mapping, navigation, reality modeling, remote sensing, situational intelligence, underground mapping

Categories: autonomous driving, Big Data, cloud, Covid-19, data, developers, drones, emergency response, field GIS, geospatial, geotechnical, GIS, handhelds, image-delivery software, in car navigation, indoor location technology, laser radar, lidar, location based sensor fusion, location based services, location intelligence, mapping, mobile, photogrammetry, public safety, remote sensing, resilient cities, satellite based tracking, satellite imagery, spatial data, subsurface utilities, survey, transportation, UAS, UAV, UAVs, urban information models

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