This paper describes an autonomous navigation system for a large underground mining vehicle. The control architecture is based on a robust reactive wall-following behaviour. To make it purposeful we provide driving hints derived from an approximate nodal-map. For most of the time, the vehicle is driven with weak localization (odometry). This need only be improved at intersections where decision...

For several years, our research group has been developing methods for automated modeling of 3D environments. In September, 2002, we were given the opportunity to demonstrate our mapping capability in an underground coal mine. The opportunity arose as a result of the Quecreek mine accident, in which an inaccurate map caused miners to breach an abandoned, water-filled mine, trapping them for seve...

Differential interferogram images derived from repeat-pass spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems give the possibility to map surface deformations of small spatial extent and to monitor their spatiotemporal evolution. A slow and local phenomenon of subsidence caused by underground coal mining has been observed near Gardanne, France, from images acquired by both European ERS-1/2 satel...

The Representational Epistemic approach to the design of notations and visualizations is used to create a new design transit map that is a fundamental departure from the near universal format that has nodes for stations, lines for tracks and symbols for details. Instead the new design exploits a containernode-symbol-colour format for stations, tracks, details and identities. The London Undergro...

In recent work [1], we introduced a new, linear-programming based method, for detecting underground features based on gravity measurements. The current paper takes this method one important step further, in that it makes it work under realistic conditions, where most of the physical characteristics of the environment are not known. In particular, the ADCS algorithm we introduce works when the f...

Land surface deformation can be caused by underground mining activities. The maximum subsidence normally occurs directly above the location of the excavation of the coal seam. In the case where the longwall mining technique is applied, the magnitude and shape of the subsidence bowl are constrained by the longwall structure (pillar). This paper describes the use of satellite radar interferometry...

Keywords: Noise mapping Grid refinement Uncertainty Interpolation GIS Noise maps are usually represented as contour or isolines maps describing the sound levels in a region. Using this kind of representation the user can easily find the noise level assigned to every location in the map. But the acoustic calculations behind the map are not performed for every single location on it; they are only...

In situ measurements of ion densities and temperatures have been analyzed to produce profiles of these plasma parameters along the Voyager 1 inbound trajectory between 7 and 5 R j. The temperature profile shows a sharp decrease by a factor of •,,50 between 5.8 and 5.2Rj corresponding to a temperature gradient of •,7 x l0 s per R r The electron density profile, inferred from the ion density meas...

The use of visual information from lip movements can improve the accuracy and robustness of a speech recognition system. Accurate extraction of visual features associated with the lips is thus very important. In this paper, we present a deformable model-based technique for lip contour extraction from color lip images. The geometric lip model we proposed is able to fit different lip shapes. Our ...

We introduce a method that uses contour fragments to highlight regions of interest. Our method obtains as input either a binary image or the gradient map of a gray-level image. It produces a saliency map that re0ects for every point in the image our belief that it belongs to a salient region. Saliency is determined by criteria such as closure, convexity, and size. In addition, gaps in the bound...