6 ms·

Darpa Seeks Tools to Capture Underground Worlds in 3D

59 points by zeristor 8y ago

zeristor 8y ago
This is the more enticing website: https://www.subtchallenge.com/ https://www.subtchallenge.com/
zeristor 8y ago
How far are built in phone gyroscopes from providing inertial tracking for underground, it would be handy to walk around Tube stations and see how there're all connected, but the accuracy seems to be someway off. Although this looks to be a lead: https://aaltovision.github.io/handheld-INS/assets/presentation.pdf https://aaltovision.github.io/handheld-INS/assets/presentati...
- blh 8y ago
  For larger environments you tend to need a full-blown SLAM system that can close loops to avoid drift that accumulates inevitably.
  - zeristor 8y ago
    SLAM? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_an...
    - jefft255 8y ago
      Yes, this is what he means. It uses visual/laser information (sometimes combined with the IMU like the phones you talk about) to map and track movement.
  - Frost1x 8y ago
    They also want to create dynamic meshes on the fly for use in OTS game engines which is quite a challenge. I'm not sure why everyone in that domain is obsessed with meshes and won't work with a voxel rendering system which seems more flexible for most types of current geometry capture techniques. I get that they want to reuse existing simulators using existing gaming technologies but sometimes its fitting a square car through a round garden hose.
- dead_reckoning 8y ago
  Like, as in dead reckoning? It's always a sketchy approximation, without a good caliberation, to zero the frame of reference, dead reckoning is guess work, until you hit the next benchmark. By definition, it's like dunking underwater, and swimming in the dark with your eyes closed. You don't know how accurate your frame of reference is until you reach out to grab a landmark and open your eyes, to recaliberate.
- jeffchuber 8y ago
  too much drift, they are very noisy. double integration is hard.
  - krisoft 8y ago
    Just to expand on what my parent poster said: double integration is hard, not in the "hard to get the implementation right" sense, but in the "even with perfect implementation the small errors add up fast, and the uncertainty grows out of all practical bounds". I'm just saying this because even very smart people can fail into the trap of "we just need a better kalman filter".
- mparr4 8y ago
  Pure inertial navigation gets worse over time, even a $20,000 gyroscope wouldn't get the job done. This is because gyroscopes measure rotational velocity, velocity is the first derivative of position, so you need to integrate velocity in order to get rotational position. The integral of velocity is (velocity x time), so your error gets bigger over time. I'd imagine an inertial solution plus optical flow could result in some pretty good results.
  - salty_biscuits 8y ago
    You want even better than optical flow. You need a SLAM system that can do loop closures (i.e. remember stuff that it has seen before). The propagated error from accelerometers and gyroscopes (that are not controlled by arms treaties is huge) blow up really quickly. Fun fact, gyroscopes and accelerometers actually do measure a change in angle and a change in velocity over a time interval (as opposed to an instantaneous angular rate and acceleration). For high precision applications you even need to worry about if the delta is relative to the frame of the inertial navigation system at the beginning or end of the time interval (shuddering at the memories).
  - donquichotte 8y ago
    I was always under the impression that integrating unknown biases in gyroscope and accelerometer measurments is the main issue with dead reckoning. Today I am convinced that attitude errors are the far bigger issue, since they will make you misinterpret gravity as genuine acceleration. Even with a 1° error in your pitch estimate, you will start integrating 9.81ms^-2*cos(1°) = 0.17ms^-2 as a forward acceleration. Within one minute, you are 308m off already. This is the real issue with dead reckoning IMO.
    - salty_biscuits 8y ago
      It's complicated. It depends on the sensor and the motion of the object. Because the gravity vector doesn't change spatially very quickly if you are doing loops you can use the accelerometers to calibrate the gyro biases in the sensor fusion loop (via the gravity vector). You can also use the magnitude of the vector to calibrate the accelerometers (roughly). Nothing helps pin all that stuff down like a global position measurement though. Some sensors are just less prone to bias drift as well.
- JabavuAdams 8y ago
  I've had this project in the back of my mind for a long time. Use some kind of discreet inertial navigation while riding subways, then render the paths over views looking down from above-ground. Kind of like an over (under) lay to see where the trains actually go. You can hear the subways rumble in many shops along the lines, but I'm always curious where exactly they are -- imagining the ground was transparent and I could just see those people sitting while zipping by underfoot.
inflatableDodo 8y ago
ADR scanning. - https://adrokgroup.com/ https://adrokgroup.com/ also available in small - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2008164/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2008164/
- contingencies 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borescope
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 8y ago
I wonder what the real mission here is? Unlike the entertaining but comical scene in Sicario, tunnels IRL are just very simple one way affairs. Here's an ISIS tunnel - https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/19/iraq-mosul-isis-tunnels-damon-lkl.cnn https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/19/iraq-mosul-i... Not really different than lets say fighters in a bunch or trees our buildings really? Concussion explosions are more dangerous, but you can't be flanked. It's a little different sure, but no more worthy of flying mapping drones. Maybe DARPA is just seeing what comes out of it as per their mission. A lot of respect for the way they work. But a little sus there's more to it. I always suspected their sewing robots project was less about cheap uniforms and more about destabilizing economies of other countries. But I'm a cynic.
dmix 8y ago
You can see some of the initial teams competing here: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-01-22 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-01-22
zeristor 8y ago
Wasn’t there talk of applying the new wave of quantum sensors for this? There’s gravimetric ones that can detect underground cavities
zeristor 8y ago
So is this comparable to DARPA’s driverless car challenge from several years ago?
pedalpete 8y ago
This is exactly what emesent do https://emesent.io/ https://emesent.io/
- salty_biscuits 8y ago
  Yeah, they are a spin off of a CSIRO project. Good to see that sort of thing coming out of Brisbane.
pontifier 8y ago
I thought this was the goal of project tango. I had one of the tablets, and even started to explore the idea of mapping caves with it for a while. The combination of an accurate IMU and the depth sensor made it perfect for mapping this type of environment.

59 points by zeristor 8y ago

This is the more enticing website: https://www.subtchallenge.com/ https://www.subtchallenge.com/

How far are built in phone gyroscopes from providing inertial tracking for underground, it would be handy to walk around Tube stations and see how there're all connected, but the accuracy seems to be someway off. Although this looks to be a lead: https://aaltovision.github.io/handheld-INS/assets/presentation.pdf https://aaltovision.github.io/handheld-INS/assets/presentati...

blh 8y ago
For larger environments you tend to need a full-blown SLAM system that can close loops to avoid drift that accumulates inevitably.
- zeristor 8y ago
  SLAM? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_an...
  - jefft255 8y ago
    Yes, this is what he means. It uses visual/laser information (sometimes combined with the IMU like the phones you talk about) to map and track movement.
- Frost1x 8y ago
  They also want to create dynamic meshes on the fly for use in OTS game engines which is quite a challenge. I'm not sure why everyone in that domain is obsessed with meshes and won't work with a voxel rendering system which seems more flexible for most types of current geometry capture techniques. I get that they want to reuse existing simulators using existing gaming technologies but sometimes its fitting a square car through a round garden hose.
dead_reckoning 8y ago
Like, as in dead reckoning? It's always a sketchy approximation, without a good caliberation, to zero the frame of reference, dead reckoning is guess work, until you hit the next benchmark. By definition, it's like dunking underwater, and swimming in the dark with your eyes closed. You don't know how accurate your frame of reference is until you reach out to grab a landmark and open your eyes, to recaliberate.
jeffchuber 8y ago
too much drift, they are very noisy. double integration is hard.
- krisoft 8y ago
  Just to expand on what my parent poster said: double integration is hard, not in the "hard to get the implementation right" sense, but in the "even with perfect implementation the small errors add up fast, and the uncertainty grows out of all practical bounds". I'm just saying this because even very smart people can fail into the trap of "we just need a better kalman filter".
mparr4 8y ago
Pure inertial navigation gets worse over time, even a $20,000 gyroscope wouldn't get the job done. This is because gyroscopes measure rotational velocity, velocity is the first derivative of position, so you need to integrate velocity in order to get rotational position. The integral of velocity is (velocity x time), so your error gets bigger over time. I'd imagine an inertial solution plus optical flow could result in some pretty good results.
- salty_biscuits 8y ago
  You want even better than optical flow. You need a SLAM system that can do loop closures (i.e. remember stuff that it has seen before). The propagated error from accelerometers and gyroscopes (that are not controlled by arms treaties is huge) blow up really quickly. Fun fact, gyroscopes and accelerometers actually do measure a change in angle and a change in velocity over a time interval (as opposed to an instantaneous angular rate and acceleration). For high precision applications you even need to worry about if the delta is relative to the frame of the inertial navigation system at the beginning or end of the time interval (shuddering at the memories).
- donquichotte 8y ago
  I was always under the impression that integrating unknown biases in gyroscope and accelerometer measurments is the main issue with dead reckoning. Today I am convinced that attitude errors are the far bigger issue, since they will make you misinterpret gravity as genuine acceleration. Even with a 1° error in your pitch estimate, you will start integrating 9.81ms^-2*cos(1°) = 0.17ms^-2 as a forward acceleration. Within one minute, you are 308m off already. This is the real issue with dead reckoning IMO.
  - salty_biscuits 8y ago
    It's complicated. It depends on the sensor and the motion of the object. Because the gravity vector doesn't change spatially very quickly if you are doing loops you can use the accelerometers to calibrate the gyro biases in the sensor fusion loop (via the gravity vector). You can also use the magnitude of the vector to calibrate the accelerometers (roughly). Nothing helps pin all that stuff down like a global position measurement though. Some sensors are just less prone to bias drift as well.
JabavuAdams 8y ago
I've had this project in the back of my mind for a long time. Use some kind of discreet inertial navigation while riding subways, then render the paths over views looking down from above-ground. Kind of like an over (under) lay to see where the trains actually go. You can hear the subways rumble in many shops along the lines, but I'm always curious where exactly they are -- imagining the ground was transparent and I could just see those people sitting while zipping by underfoot.

inflatableDodo 8y ago

ADR scanning. - https://adrokgroup.com/ https://adrokgroup.com/ also available in small - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2008164/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2008164/

contingencies 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borescope

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

aaron695 8y ago

I wonder what the real mission here is? Unlike the entertaining but comical scene in Sicario, tunnels IRL are just very simple one way affairs. Here's an ISIS tunnel - https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/19/iraq-mosul-isis-tunnels-damon-lkl.cnn https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/10/19/iraq-mosul-i... Not really different than lets say fighters in a bunch or trees our buildings really? Concussion explosions are more dangerous, but you can't be flanked. It's a little different sure, but no more worthy of flying mapping drones. Maybe DARPA is just seeing what comes out of it as per their mission. A lot of respect for the way they work. But a little sus there's more to it. I always suspected their sewing robots project was less about cheap uniforms and more about destabilizing economies of other countries. But I'm a cynic.

dmix 8y ago

You can see some of the initial teams competing here: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-01-22 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-01-22

zeristor 8y ago

Wasn’t there talk of applying the new wave of quantum sensors for this? There’s gravimetric ones that can detect underground cavities

zeristor 8y ago

So is this comparable to DARPA’s driverless car challenge from several years ago?

pedalpete 8y ago

This is exactly what emesent do https://emesent.io/ https://emesent.io/

salty_biscuits 8y ago
Yeah, they are a spin off of a CSIRO project. Good to see that sort of thing coming out of Brisbane.

pontifier 8y ago

I thought this was the goal of project tango. I had one of the tablets, and even started to explore the idea of mapping caves with it for a while. The combination of an accurate IMU and the depth sensor made it perfect for mapping this type of environment.