UTC 2022 Funding - Cycle 2 Research Projects

Project Number: CY2-OU-15
Project Title: Surface Penetration and Imaging for Infrastructure Inspection Using Radar Sensors as UAS Payload – Year Two Effort
Performing Institution: University of Oklahoma
Principal Investigator: Yan (Rockee) Zhang and Hernan Suarez, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Advanced Radar Research Center, University of Oklahoma
Proposed Start and End Date: 10/01/2024 to 01/15/2026
Project Description:Even though radar technologies, such as Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), have been investigated in previous USDOT projects based on the advantages of all-weather and surface penetration sensing capabilities, a small, agile, and low-power version of such radar as a payload of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) have not yet been demonstrated before. Another trend in bridge/road/pavement inspection is robot-based, automatic, multi-sensor integration from a distributed network. Several manned ground-based platforms with cameras and other sensors (LIDAR, acoustic, piezoelectric, IR, RFID, etc.) have been reported to be used previously in DOT projects. This includes machine learning (ML) processing methods to identify structure and material health issues better. However, more in-depth investigation is still needed to mature these algorithms. Transferring these R&D efforts to operational capabilities still depends on real-world challenges, such as infrastructure accessibility, safety, environments, and maturity of the sensor systems.
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