MPC
May Webinars Featuring MPC Research
Posted: Apr 25, 2022
Automated Image-Based Aircraft Tracking
Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Time: 1:30-2:30 p.m. Central Time
Automated Image-Based Aircraft Tracking and Record-Keeping for Utah Airports considers that over 97% of U.S. airports are not equipped with control towers. As a result, these airports need an alternative solution to monitor their airport-level aircraft operations, including departures, arrivals, and touch-and-goes. The current research project uses computer vision techniques to develop a machine vision system capable of detecting, counting, and identifying aircraft operations at general aviation non-towered airports.
Presenters:
- Mohammad Farhadmanesh, Ph.D. student, University of Utah Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
- Abbas Rashidi, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, University of Utah.
- Nikola Markovic, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, University of Utah.
Where the Sidewalk Ends / A LiDAR-Based Approach to Quantitatively Assessing Streetscapes
Date: Thursday, May 19, 2022
Time: Noon-1 p.m. Central Time
This webinar will provide highlights from two recent MPC projects:
MPC-579 – Where the Sidewalk Ends leverages advances in remote sensing to bridge the data and research gap on pedestrian infrastructure in cities.
MPC-615 – A LiDAR-Based Approach to Quantitatively Assessing Streetscapes investigates objective methods to extract streetscape features with three different classes of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) processed with 3D volumetric pixels (voxels).
This presentation is for personnel who are responsible for managing sidewalks and streets for their organizations.
Presenters:
- Wes Marshall, professor of civil engineering and affiliate faculty in Urban and Regional Planning, University of Colorado Denver.
- Nick Coppola, civil engineering lecturer, University of Colorado Denver, and fiber optic GIS administrator at the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Design of Mechanically Spliced Precast Bridge Columns
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Time: 1:30-2:30 p.m. Central Time
Mechanically Spliced Precast Bridge Columns is focused on research on the mechanical bar splice, also known as bar coupler, is an alternative to the traditional lap splicing to connect bars in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Even though mechanical bar splices can be used as new precast column connections to accelerate bridge construction (ABC), the use of bar couplers in the plastic hinge region of bridge columns is prohibited in current U.S. codes. Recent studies at South Dakota State University (SDSU) attacked both problems by testing more than 160 bar couplers and eight half-scale bridge columns.
Presenter:
- Dr. Mostafa Tazarv, associate professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, South Dakota State University. His research interests include the resiliency of civil infrastructure, advanced and sustainable materials, accelerated construction, large-scale testing, and computer vision in structural applications.
Optimizing Snowplowing Operations
Date: Thursday, May 26, 2022
Time: 9:30-10:30 a.m. Central Time
Optimizing Snowplowing Operations in Utah via Routing and Truck Allocation considers a two-stage planning problem where a fleet of snowplow trucks is first divided among a set of independent regions and then each region designs routes for efficient snow removal. In the first stage, we run routing heuristics to optimize the plowing routes with the goal of minimizing total travel time. Compared with the original routes operated by UDOT, the proposed routes reduce total travel time by 5.04% on average across all regions. In the second stage, we design a custom branch-and-bound algorithm to allocate trucks such that the maximum turnaround time across all regions is minimized. The resulting allocation reduces the turnaround time by more than 20% compared with the original allocation.
Presenter:
- Yinhu Wang, Ph.D. student, University of Utah Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
These webinars are offered by the Transportation Learning Network, a partnership with MDT, NDDOT, SDDOT, WYDOT, and the Mountain-Plains Consortium universities.
View previous webinars based on MPC research
Mountain-Plains Consortium is a University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation serving the Mountain-Plains Region. Members: Colorado State University, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, University of Colorado Denver, University of Denver, University of Utah, University of Wyoming and Utah State University. The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University leads the MPC.
