Surface/subsurface mapping with an integrated rover-GPR system: A simulation approach

Autonomous subsurface mapping is a key characteristic of future robots to be realized in the construction domain, since it can be utilized in diverse applications of strategic importance. During the last years, the interest has been steered mainly towards the development of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) devices, rather than on the establishment of holistic subsurface reconstruction methods. To this end, the paper at hand introduces a simulation tool that comprises a) a surface operating rover and b) a sonar-based simulated GPR array capable, seamlessly integrated to build adjunct surface and subsurface maps. Specifically, by exploiting the onboard stereo camera of the robot and the GPR, mounted on a robotic-trailer topology, joint surface and subsurface mapping is performed. Further processing of the simulated GPR data is applied to detect and semantically annotate georeferenced buried utilities, while the localization of surface rover is also employed for the topographic correction of the accumulated B-scans during the robot's exploration. The proposed framework has been developed in the ROS framework and has been evaluated on the realistic simulation environment of Gazebo.