Project ThermalMapper

Summary

Heat and air conditioning losses in buildings and factories lead to a large amount of wasted energy. To prevent such losses, a precise digital model of heat distribution and heat flow is needed. Imagine a technology that enables one to gage the environmental structure in three dimensions and thermal information at the same time. Further imagine clever visualization software that presents the thermal 3D models to a computer screen, lets the user rotate the model for inspection and runs simulations of heat and air flow.

The project ThermalMapper aims at constructing precise thermal 3D models of indoor environments. Technology that has been developed in the last years by robotic researchers is now available to be adapted to solve these real world issues. "The Action Plan for Energy Efficiency estimates that the largest cost-effective energy savings potential lies in the residential (around 27%) and commercial buildings (around 30%)". The availability of precise thermal 3D models will enable architects and construction engineers to modify existing buildings to reach these savings.

The central point of the project ThermalMapper is to create 3D models that include thermal information as additional modality. In the course of the project ThermalMapper, 3D mapping methods will be enriched with thermal information, visualizations and simulations are developed to continuously gather and present data on what is taking place inside a building. Applications range from thermal 3D modelling of houses to factories. For example, service providers such as data processing centres are highly interested in constant and concurrent data acquisition techniques to optimize load control while providing high availability. Since thermal issues are very important for operators of data centres, we have chosen this scenario for additional demonstrations.

Result Videos

This video explains briefly our propsed approach.

More videos will be added shortly...

Initial Results

This video presents an animation of a 3D point cloud with thermal information.

More videos can be found at the youtube channel of the Automation Group at Jacobs University Bremen.

Funding

ThermalMapper is a SEE-ERA.NET project and has the project number ERA 14/01. SEE-ERA.NET PLUS has launched a joint call for European Research projects in September 2009 in order to enhance the integration of the Western Balkan Countries into the European Research Area.

Project period: 2010 - 2012

Partner

• Automation group at Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH (coordinator)

  

• Advanced Control Team at the Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Unska 3, HR-10000, Zagreb, Croatia

  

• LARAS - The Lab for Robotics and Autonomous Systems is a research laboratory within the Department of Automatic Control and Electronics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, The University of Sarajevo

  

Deliverables

• Project webpage (D5.1)

• A written document containing an updated state of the art (D1.1)

• Camera mount (D2.1)
  The following image shows the robot Irma3D equipped with a Reigl VZ-400 laser scanner and an Optris Imager PI thermal camera.

  

• More deliverables will be published soon ...

Publications

• Flavia Grosan, Alexandru Tandrau, and Andreas Nüchter Localizing Google SketchUp Models in Outdoor 3D Scans. In Proceedings of the XXIII International Symposium on Information, Communication and Automation Technologies (ICAT '11), IEEE Xplore, ISBN 978-1-4577-0746-9, Sarajevo, Bosnia, October 2011, [Get Paper (PDF)].

• Jan Elseberg, Dorit Borrmann, and Andreas Nüchter Full Wave Analysis in 3D Laser Scans for Vegetation Detection in Urban Environments. In Proceedings of the XXIII International Symposium on Information, Communication and Automation Technologies (ICAT '11), IEEE Xplore, ISBN 978-1-4577-0746-9, Sarajevo, Bosnia, October 2011, [Get Paper (PDF)].

• Jan Elseberg, Dorit Borrmann, and Andreas Nüchter Efficient Processing of Large 3D Point Clouds. In Proceedings of the XXIII International Symposium on Information, Communication and Automation Technologies (ICAT '11), IEEE Xplore, ISBN 978-1-4577-0746-9, Sarajevo, Bosnia, October 2011, [Get Paper (PDF)].

• Marija Dakulović, Śandor Ileś, Ivan Petrović Exploration and Mapping of Unknown Polygonal Environments Based on Uncertain Range Data, Automatika, 52(2), pp. 118-131, 2011. [Get Paper (PDF)].

Data Sets

Software