Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies

1. Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies A Stewart Fotheringham National Centre for Geocomputation National University of Ireland, Maynooth

2. THE FACTS 7m euros (plus 2m in overheads) over 5 years to fund Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies Led by the National Centre for Geocomputation, NUIM Starting date: May 01, 2008 Lots of potential links with CASA

3. BUDGET

4. OUTLINE What? Why? How? Who? When?

5. WHAT? Next generation technologies for improved spatial decision-making What are Advanced Geotechnologies? RECORDING Advanced Geotechnologies SRC PROCESSING VIEWING DISSEMINATING GEOCODED ATTRIBUTES OF OUR ENVIRONMENT Knowing where things are Knowing where things are in relation to other things Making more informed decisions

6. WHY? Why are they important? Mapping data to monitor the environment Understanding how and why attributes vary spatially Identifying where changes take place Identifying spatial clusters Linking data from different sources Estimating missing values (spatial interpolation) Making more informed decisions Because it is increasingly recognised that most data are spatial and we are able to capture increasingly large volumes of spatial data that need to be processed in order to make informed decisions…

7. WHY? For instance… Technology to capture spatial data is evolving rapidly… Massive European investment in spatial data … GPS; RFID; LiDAR; all-weather satellite imagery; microlites; pseudolites; geocoded HDTV and video Tremendous growth in this sector. For instance… Galileo €3.2 billion satellite system for improved recording of location – EC estimates 3 billion GPS receivers by 2010 and a market worth €250 billion; GMES (€2.4 billion satellite system for monitoring land use, natural disasters, marine and climate); Envisat satellite extended to 2012 (greenhouse gas monitoring, melting ice caps, rising sea levels); The GIS industry is growing rapidly. Total annual expenditure on GIS Software, hardware, employees and services is now estimated to be of the order of $15 to 20 billion (Source: gisdevelopment.net) Application areas very broad Nokia acquiring Navteq navigation software company for$8.1 billion US (Source: CBC News, October, 2007)

8. WHY? Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Use by sector

9. WHY? Global GPS Sales Growth 1997-2006 (2007-2008 projected) Projections: Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) Taiwan

10. WHY?

11. WHY? Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Global RFID Production and prices projections to 2016 Statistics and projections complied from various sources

12. WHY? Journal references to RFID 1996-2006 IEEE SCOPUS IEEE searches the world's highest quality technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics SCOPUS searches 11700 published titles

13. WHY? Journal references to LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) SCOPUS GEOBASE SCOPUS searches 11700 published titles Geobase searches over 2,000 international journals

14. WHY? Why this growth … Determine which parts of a coastline will be flooded if sea levels rise by 40 cm Monitor air or water quality levels and alert mobile devices where there might be a problem Track extreme weather or traffic conditions and relay this information to devices in cars and offer alternative routes Monitor people’s movements (hospitals; schools; airports) Investigate the spread of a disease in people or animals Monitor wild fires and disseminate information in real time to mobile devices to assist firefighters and home owners Undertake airborne surveillance of crowds and relay to ground-based devices Monitor heat loss from houses – energy consumption / drug growing Inventory the location of objects

15. HOW? ENVIRONMENT SENSORS ALGORITHMS LBS VISUALISATION How is this to be done? INTERVENTIONS INTERVENTIONS INTERVENTIONS Geospatial Monitoringand Early Warning Systems

16. HOW? Geospatial Monitoring and Early Warning System A set of geo-sensors deployed over broad area collecting and integrating data in real time, determining what constitutes ‘good’ data and sending these either for further processing at a central site or directly to remote devices. The remote devices can then be used to make decisions based on real-time scenarios and to access other data bases to aid such decisions Generic set of : Protocols Algorithms Technological developments To monitor a variety of environmental attributes

17. HOW? Example 1: A Campus Information System DATA COLLECTION OSi map data 1:5000 OSi orthophotos 1;40,000 Ground-based LiDAR Geocoded digital photographs Airborne LiDAR Campus databases (building attributes; depts; services; events etc.) RFID tags (security and other personnel) Building interiors Thermal imagery (energy conservation) CCTV cameras

18. HOW? Example 1: A Campus Information System DATA PROCESSING • Matching diverse databases based on common geocoded points • adding photos to ground-based LiDAR • matching ground and airborne LiDAR • linking campus databases to scanned images • linking scans to mapped database • linking RFID sensor info to 3D images • Processing LiDAR data • Calculating shortest paths between places – taking into account 3D and potential obstacles such as steps. • Feature extraction from live video streams • Movement tracking / behaviour identification /crowd monitoring

19. HOW? Example 1: A Campus Information System DATA VISUALISATION Creating 3D map of the campus Creating AR map of the campus with point and click interface for querying Querying and displaying of shortest routes (inc. steps etc) Live tracking of individuals CCTV monitoring linked to 3D map Heat loss maps of campus Interiors of buildings displayed in 3D Locations of alarms Simulations of crowd scenes / events on campus / evacuation

20. HOW? Example 1: A Campus Information System DATA DISSEMINATION Sending information to locationally aware devices (LADs) around campus via WiMAX Feedback from LADs on location of individuals and signal strength Allow devices to point at buildings and retrieve data relating to those buildings (e.g seminars, depts.) Allow map interface to change automatically as user moves location and direction Continuous monitoring of wayfinding Displaying location of alarms Monitoring location of others (e.g. security personnel)

21. HOW? Example 2: Video-based SatNav System (Maynooth) DATA COLLECTION 1:5000 road data; Geocoded video of all roads; 1:40000 orthos DATA PROCESSING Algorithm for processing large amounts of geocoded video and delivering to LADs; Algorithm for route selection and joining relevant video streams; Algorithm for measurement of objects on video (such as distance to next junction and updated in real time) DATA VISUALISATION Linked map/ortho/video displays and location of car – updated in real time; Optimal route; LBS DATA DISSEMINATION Streaming geocoded video to LADs in cars via WiMAX; Link to other databases for LBS displays

22. HOW? Other application areas include… Flood control Pollution monitoring (airborne, fluvial, oceanographic) Intelligent transportation systems (congestion charging; network management) Disease infection Disaster management (both in Ireland and abroad) Seabed and oceanographic monitoring Climate monitoring Land use monitoring (urban; rural; forestry) Security (airport pedestrian monitoring; vehicle tagging etc)

23. WHO? Who are we? NCG-NUIM International Collaboration CS - NUIM Gov. Agency Partners EE - NUIM Advanced Geotechnologies SRC Future Ind. Partners CS -TCD CS-UCD Industrial Partners DMC-DIT

24. WHO? Dept. of Computer Science, NUIM Dept. of Electronic Engineering, NUIM National Centre for Geocomputation, NUIM Advanced Geotechnologies SRC School of Comp. Science and Statistics, TCD Digital Media Centre, Dublin Institute of Technology School of Comp. Science and Informatics, UCD The SRC is a cluster of PIs and labs Where will this take place? JOHN MCDONALD RONAN FARRELL INSTITUTE OF MICROELECTRONICS AND WIRELESS SYSTEMS COMPUTER VISION AND IMAGING LABORATORY ADAM WINSTANLEY SEÁN MCLOONE INTELLIGENT & GRAPH-BASED SYSTEMS RESEARCH GROUP DYNAMICS AND CONTROL RESEARCH GROUP STEWART FOTHERINGHAM JOHN RINGWOOD GRAPHICS VISION AND VISUALISATION GROUP MARTIN CHARLTON CAROL O’SULLIVAN TIM MCCARTHY MICHELA BERTOLOTTO SPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS GROUP JAMES CARSWELL

25. WHO? PARTNERS INDUSTRY GOV AGENCIES ESRI Michael Byrne Ordnance Survey Ireland Stephen Curran Hugh Mangan eSpatial Solutions Eamon Walsh Geological Survey of Ireland Koen Verbruggen FUTURE EPA Shane Colgan BKS Chris Boreland NRA PMS Keiren Feighan Marine Institute IBI Group

26. WHO? INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATORS Mike Goodchild UCSB, USA Nick Chrisman Scientific Director, GEOIDE, Canada Jonathan Raper City University, UK Xiaoling Chen Jianya Gong Lab in Information Engineering, Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, People’s Republic of China Mike Batty UCL, UK Kirsi Virrantaus HUT, Finland John Leonard Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, USA Lei Yan Beijing University, People’s Republic of China Chris Brunsdon Leicester University, UK

27. PDRA and PHD Allocation to Strands WHO? NCG EE (2) EE (2) EE/CS NCG EE (0.5) 3 PDs 4.5 PhDs Sensors EE DIT NCG (0.5) CS NCG 2 PDs 2.5 PhDs Algorithms Cluster 2 PhDs (funded by collaborators) TCD (0.5) CS NCG NCG CS TCD UCD 2.5 PDs 4 PhDs Visualisation CS UCD CS UCD DIT 2 PDs 3 PhDs LBS

28. MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE Oversight Board ScientificBoard IP Committee Director Prof A Stewart Fotheringham Cluster Support Team Principal Investigators Charlton McCarthy Ringwood Farrell McLoone McDonald O’Sullivan Bertolotto Carswell Winstanley Spatial Visualisation Leaders Carol O’Sullivan John McDonald Sensors Leaders Tim McCarthy Ronan Farrell Spatial Algorithms Leaders Martin Charlton James Carswell Location-Based Services Leaders Adam Winstanley Michela Bertolotto

29. WHEN? Timetable Official Start Date: May 01, 2008 Will have an official launch event “The Future for Advanced Geotechnologies” in September 2008. Each of the four Research Strands will have an Expert Meeting between Oct 08 and May 09 Majority of Postdocs appointed in Year 1 with funding up to 5 years Majority of PhD Fellows appointed in Year 2 with funding for 3 years Can host visitors, seminar speakers, occasional collaborators etc Major review before end of Year 3

30. WHEN? GOALS for the SRC Become an internationally recognised centre for research in Advanced Geotechnologies Work as a cluster to act as a flagship for A GeoT in Ireland Provide Ireland with HQP in this rapidly growing area Work with our industry partners to commercially exploit output Develop working applications of GMEWS Actively engage international collaborators on research projects

31. SUMMARY A strong mix of personnel from different departments and different universities across 4 research strands involving the capture, processing, visualisation and dissemination of spatial data Strong industry and gov. agency support In a rapidly growing and exciting field of technology Will generate substantial benefits to Ireland’s geotechnology sector Has many important application areas Plenty of opportunity to interact with similar groups in other countries e.g. CASA