GEOMATICS
Geomatics deals with the study, acquisition, restitution, analysis and management of metric or thematic data relating to the Earth's surface, or portions of it, including the urban environment, infrastructures and cultural heritage, identified by their spatial position and qualified by the accuracy of the detection.
The main applications fields concern the study of global and local reference systems, the instruments and methods of detection, control, monitoring of the territory, structures and cultural heritage, the measurement data processing, the production and updating of cartography, topographical DBs, tracking of goods and infrastructures monitoring, mobile mapping systems, digital terrain and surface models, multidimensional and multi-temporal analyses of geographic information.
The members of the DIATI Geomatics group participate in numerous national and European research projects, financed by both public and private institutions, and regularly publish scientific articles in prestigious international journals. The members of the research group actively participate in both national and international conferences, being part of the scientific committees, holding the role of chairman, submitting scientific contributions as well as presenting the works. They also actively participate in the activities of scientific societies of the sector both at Italian and international level, in some cases also holding institutional positions.
Some of them are involved as inventors in many patents.
link: http://areeweb.polito.it/geomatics_lab/
Some members actively collaborate with the laboratories of the Department of excellence cc@polito (http://www.diati.polito.it/focus/cambiamenti_climatici), within the Interdepartmental Center for Service Robotics (PIC4SeR) and in the laboratory of virtual reality VR@POLITO of the Politecnico di Torino.
Currently, the members of the Geomatics group are involved in many courses (Enviromental Eng., Civil Eng., Construction Eng., ICT) and in two doctoral courses (Civil and Environmental Engineering and Urban and Regional Development). Furthermore, they are involved in various university Masters as well as didactic and third mission initiatives.
Our research covers the following key themes:
(in brackets you find the names of academics working on each theme)
Indoor positioning (Lingua, Piras, Dabove): positioning in indoor or confined environments through the use of low-cost IMU (inertial measurement units), ultra-wide band (UWB), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), image navigation, LiDAR, the use of images for positioning and positioning obtained considering smartphones and tablets;
Visual odometry (Lingua, Piras, Dabove): Use of the image for positioning in outdoor and indoor, as alternative of GNSS system; Integration of image and inertial data for the positioning estimation; solutions for autonomous vehicle or unmanned system;
Artificial intelligence (Lingua, Piras): semantic interpretation of the collected data in the form of images (RGB, multi- and hyper-spectral and thermal cameras) and point clouds using artificial intelligence techniques (Machine Learning and Deep Learning); the use of artificial intelligence for aided navigation both in terrestrial and underwater environments;
GIS and WEBGIS (Lingua, Piras, Aicardi): development of 3D GIS and WEBGIS even based on open source platforms, ontologies, GIS for environmental analyses (e.g. smart grid, smart mobility);
Aerial, terrestrial and underwater photogrammetry using unconventional technologies (Lingua, Piras, Cina, Aicardi, Dabove): use of unconventional terrestrial and underwater drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Unmanned Groud Vehicle, Underwater Remoted Piloted Vehicle) for data acquisition, using different types of imaging sensors (RGB, NIR and multispectral cameras, thermal cameras) and integration with LiDAR, GNSS receivers, IMU platforms in order to obtain high density three-dimensional models of the territory, cities, the environment and cultural heritage. These tools and methods are also used in other innovative applications such as radio astronomy, monitoring of rockfalls and infrastructures, estimation of environmental parameters, inspections, measurement and monitoring of infrastructures for the production of energy and other industrial applications, such as ice detection and emergency applications;
Precision Farming (Piras, Dabove, Lingua): Positioning with low cost GNSS receivers and antennas and Network of GNSS permanent stations for agriculture applications; UAV for crop mapping, land cover and classification.
Cultural heritage (Lingua): 3D modeling using terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry, especially using UAV, LIDAR instruments and mass market camera for 3D reconstructions;
Mobile mapping technology (Piras, Manzino, Cina, Dabove, Lingua): the use of highly productive mobile geospatial data acquisition systems, both with high precision systems and with low-cost prototype solutions (digital cameras, GNSS receivers, IMUs), for different applications like cadastre and 3D model reconstruction. In addition, special mobile mapping systems have been developed by the research team that also allow the acquisition of environmental parameters (e.g. air quality, images) through the use of bicycles or unconventional systems such as small land-based rovers;
Low cost GNSS receiver (Manzino, Cina, Piras, Dabove): study of the performances of low-cost GNSS receivers and antennas for precise positioning purposes, considering different positioning techniques like the use of Network of GNSS permanent stations. In addition, development of GNSS positioning techniques using smartphones and tablets as well as navigation solutions for unmanned vehicles;
Statistical data processing (Bellone, Manzino, Dabove, Lingua): analysis of different statistical techniques for environmental data processing collected with Geomatics techniques.