14 DAY TRIAL // Officials that the University of Houston announce that a new deal has been sealed between the institution and the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The document sets the foundation for the construction of a new national center in Houston. The NSF National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), together with its leading researchers, is about to be moved at the university, and everyone there is understandably very excited.
Lasers are fitted for a wide variety of applications, ranging from nuclear fusion research, homeland security and disaster recovery to oil and gas exploration, wind farm site planning and environmental studies. UH is already conducting pioneering work in these fields, and so the addition of the NCALM will only serve to focus even more brainpower and scientific equipment in the same place. The Center is the first and only NSF-backed endeavor at UH, and it is expected to produce about $1 million per year. The money will be reinvested into the program, representatives of the two sides say.
“With the center, we have brought laser mapping’s uses to the forefront and expect to continue to have this impact in our new Houston home. We plan to establish curriculum catered to this specialty and eventually add a graduate degree in geosensing systems engineering. This is in addition to carrying out research far surpassing what is capable in laser mapping to date,” says the UH Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of civil and environmental engineering, Ramesh Shrestha. The expert was in charge of the efforts that saw that NCALM moved in Houston from Florida.
“Together, we saw its potential to far exceed what was possible with many traditional methods, such as airborne photogrammetric mapping that uses cameras to detail terrain. Laser mapping has the ability to work day or night, as well as generally map areas even though they were covered by forests and other vegetation where photogrammetric methods couldn’t,” says UH research professor Bill Carter. He has been working with Shrestha since the early 1990s. When the team leader came to UH from the University of Florida, he brought most of his team along. Now, the NCALM is operated by a collaboration between UH and the University of California in Berkeley (UCB).
“In coming years, our group plans to develop a next-generation LiDAR system. The unit would be less expensive than commercially available systems and allow for some of the most accurate, highest-resolution observations possible in laser mapping. We want to develop a system like no one else has developed. It would really change what could be done with this technology. It would have new features, be faster, smaller and capture more during each flight than we can today,” Shrestha explains.