Piero Lovisolo

Real-Time Urban Monitoring Using Cell Phones: A Case Study in Rome

This paper describes a new real-time urban monitoring system. The system uses the Localizing and Handling Network Event Systems (LocHNESs) platform developed by Telecom Italia for the real-time evaluation of urban dynamics based on the anonymous monitoring of mobile cellular networks. In addition, data are supplemented based on the instantaneous positioning of buses and taxis to provide information about urban mobility in real time, ranging from traffic conditions to the movements of pedestrians throughout the city. This system was exhibited at the Tenth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. It marks the unprecedented monitoring of a large urban area, which covered most of the city of Rome, in real time using a variety of sensing systems and will hopefully open the way to a new paradigm of understanding and optimizing urban dynamics.

Accurate Positioning and Orientation Estimation in Urban Environment Based on 3D Models

This paper describes a positioning algorithm for mobile phones based on image recognition. The use of image recognition based (IRB) positioning in mobile applications is characterized by the availability of a single camera for estimate the camera position and orientation. A prior knowledge of 3D environment is needed in the form of a database of images with associated spatial information that can be built projecting the 3D model on a set of synthetic solid images (range + RGB images). The IRB procedure proposed by the authors can be divided in two steps: the selection from the database of the most similar image to the query image used to locate the camera and the estimation of the position and orientation of the camera based on available 3D data on the reference image. The MPEG standard Compact Descriptors for Visual Search (CDVS) has been used to reduce hugely the processing time. Some practical results of the location methodology in outdoor environment have been described in terms of processing time and accuracy of position and attitude.

Hybrid fault detection technique in assisted GNSS

High sensitivity GNSS receivers tracking weak signals have been developed for indoor applications and to operate in urban canyons. They allow tracking GNSS satellites when the signal is strongly attenuated by structures, walls and buildings. The signal at receiver level is distorted by many reflected components. A coherent error model depending on receiver C/N0 measurement for indoor and deep urban scenarios may take into account errors components due to thermal noise, short and medium multipath and it may be exploited in the navigation algorithms (i.e. WLS, kalman filter).