Innovative sensor box advances 3D urban planning data in Wuppertal

As part of the DigiTal Zwilling (‘digital twin’) core project, the Mobile Urban Mapper mini (MUM-mini) sensor box was used to conduct the first in a series of surveys in the Germany city of Wuppertal earlier this month.

The MUM-mini sensor box can be mounted on road vehicles and provides 3D planning data for municipal infrastructure. This new development from the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM is currently being tested in Wuppertal as part of a research collaboration on the urban digital twin.

The DigiTal Zwilling’s reality view was previously created from aerial and satellite images. Thanks to the MUM-mini sensor box, this reality view can now be supplemented with new 3D planning data from a ground perspective, i.e. from the perspective of the streets and paths. Equipped with optical cameras and a Lidar sensor, the sensor box generates consistent, textured and georeferenced point clouds in which even objects such as fences, street signs, benches, rubbish bins and trees can be identified.

AI for object classification

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to detect and classify objects in the street environment in the camera images. By fusing them with the point clouds, it is possible to create a precise image of parks, streets or even entire cities. Two GNSS receivers and a timer ensure that the data is correctly located spatially and that the objects appear in the correct place in the digital twin.

A total of four measurement campaigns are planned in Wuppertal throughout the year. The first took place over two days in mid-March, during which a City of Wuppertal vehicle and an AWG garbage truck – both equipped with a MUM-mini sensor box – drove around several parts of the city. The aim was to reconstruct trees and paths, and to represent a park and its objects in digital space.

The benefits of flexible mobile mapping

The Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM will subsequently convert the raw data collected in Wuppertal into usable object data, which will then be entered into the DigiTal Zwilling project. Since the use of the MUM-mini sensor box in municipalities has so far been largely unexplored, the surveys in Wuppertal provide a valuable first contribution to researching the benefits of flexible mobile mapping data in urban digital twins.

For more information about the MUM-mini sensor box, visit the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM website.