2023-09

4th International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering (ICRIE) 2023- University of Duhok, conference Hall

This research uses Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a platform to examine and monitor a building. It concentrates on inspecting building flaws, particularly cracks, using UAV photogrammetry, which is the focus of this study. The reason for using a building as an object in this work is that there are demands from the building maintenance team to evaluate cracks practically, which can help provide trustworthy crack information on buildings. The building chosen for this work contains a reasonable amount of cracks, making it suitable. The methodology and procedures are used to take images of cracks in the building. The software can determine the size of the cracks based on 518 photos taken with a UAV. The 3D model of the building is created by using Agisoft Photoscan software to receive an overview of the building dimensions. The measurement of cracks is also being processed using Photomodeler software. The results showed that the capability of the UAV imagery can aid present surveying operations, particularly on building maintenance. It also indicates that cracks appeared on buildings from 0.72cm to 3.24cm in a certain altitude. The Root Mean Square (RMS) error obtained from comparing the actual and measured value of cracks was ±0.70 cm with the help of 114 GCPs distributed all over the building.

2023-09

4th International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering (ICRIE) 2023- University of Duhok, conference Hall

The construction industry has predominantly relied on conventional building methods that prioritize elevated energy consumption over the entire life cycle of a structure. Environmental pollution that occurs as a magnitude of industrial development, growth of population, and urbanization is one of the most significant issues in the world. Most greenhouse gas emissions occur while operating the building, where building materials, heating, cooling, and lighting play a vital role in emitting such gas. In Iraq, the use of insulation materials is optional, and most buildings are built using traditional materials. Residential sectors consume around 50% of energy consumption in Iraq. Therefore, retrofitting existing buildings using renewable materials can reduce global energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. For that reason, the utilization of technology in the construction industry is imperative in order to attain enhanced productivity outcomes. Thus, one of the most valuable technologies is Building Information Modeling (BIM), where is an advanced data information that aids green building construction. This study aims to analyze and optimize the energy efficiency of a building through the utilization of Autodesk Revit and Insight 360°. The results indicated that the energy consumption in the building decreased from $6.28/m2/year to $3.56/m2/year. Applying parameters to energy analysis can lead to enhanced conceptual designs that are effective from an environmental standpoint.

2021-11

8TH ENGINEERING AND 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING – UNIVERSITY OF BAGHDAD: COEC8-2021 Proceedings 24–25 November 2021 Baghdad, Iraq

Providing housing units with livability and suitable facilities that can be an appropriate shelter for citizens is one of the main concerns of planners and officials. The problems of lack of access to standard and viable housing units in Iraq that faced major social and economic crises, war and terrorism, are more tangible. This paper tries to examine this problem by comparative, descriptive, field, questionnaire, and laboratory methods. For this purpose, 154 residential units, which are located in 17 residential sectors of south Malta neighborhood in Duhok city were evaluated, and some criteria considered in the present study includes 1-the quality of the buildings, 2-garbage and specks of dirt and stagnant waters, 3-lighting of the passages, 4-smoke and dust, 5-crowd and traffic and voice, 6-having yard or balcony or good landscape or green area, 7-animals and insects, bad odors, 8-access to transport networks. The main aim of this paper is to reveal the disproportion and uniformity of residential sectors and inappropriate residential sectors of Malta neighborhoods using TOPSIS. The Order Performance technique by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) model was ArcGIS were used for analysis and assessment. Shannon entropy was used for weighting criteria which showed that the Smoke and dust, animals and insects, and bad odors had the highest importance in analysis with a weight of 0.178, and 0.168 respectively. The residential unit with number 30 was the best and the most viable building with the highest Ci score (0.361). Residential unit 64 with a Ci of 0.150 was the least appropriate. In general, the west and northwest buildings of the Malta Neighborhood were more suitable for living in.

2020-09

3rd international conference on recent innovations in engineering (ICRIE) Duhok, September 9-10-2020

Elevation surface is a fundamental element of spatial data that can be employed to perform a variety of geostatistical and spatial analyses. On this basis, this paper presents the assessment of elevation surfaces interpolation methods such as Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Ordinary kriging, and Local Polynomial Interpolation (LPI). There are three scenarios for achieving this purpose by examining it in three different areas: mild slope area, steep slope area and combined case. The dimension of each tested area is decided to be 100*100 m with 121 survey points for each. The ellipsoidal height of survey points are measured by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver exploiting the real-time kinematic (RTK) technique. All survey points are transferred to Arc GIS environment for generating elevation surfaces and conducting interpolations. Interpolated pixels of surfaces are then compared with the trusted data collected with GNSS receiver in RTK mode. The result revealed that the total Root Mean Square (RMS) error for kriging interpolation in the steep area is around 26 cm, whereas RMS for LPI interpolation in the flat area found to be approximately 8.0 cm. The evaluation outcomes can be utilized to understand the influence of the slope on interpolation methods as well as to select the most appropriate method according to the ground relief.

2020-09

3rd international conference on recent innovations in engineering (ICRIE) Duhok, September 9-10-2020

The Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become convenient for many applications such as the production of 3D ground models, orthophotos, road maintenance and dam monitoring, etc. The aim of this paper is to investigate the accuracy of the orthophoto obtained from UAV images compared to the existing orthophoto generated from aerial survey conducted by Vossing German Company in Duhok city, 2011 using GPS ground control point as a reference base. A digital elevation model (DEM) of the university campus was created with the UAV vertical images. Low flight height of 80m was used with the rate of 70% forward overlap and 40% side lap. An orthophoto is produced based on this DEM. To assess the accuracy of UAV orthophotos and the existing orthophotos produced from aerial survey, 7 ground control points (GCPs) were distributed and used for processing the orthophoto mosaic and DEM, 12 GCPs were used as check points. The 19 GCPs were accurately measured using GPS-RTK. Discrepancy in horizontal position of the GCPs measured on both orthophotos was obtained relative to the reference GPS base control points. The UAV data were processed and analyzed using two softwares pix4D and Agisoft Photoscan. The RMS errors obtained from both orthophotos is presented relative to the GPS base. Sub-centimetre accuracy for horizontal position was achieved from the UAV orthophoto at low flight altitude.

2020-02

Sixth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Engineering Applications (IEC2020) in the city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region-Iraq on February 26-27, 2020

The Online Positioning User Service (OPUS) is a suite of Web-based tools used to process GPS data. It is a popular tool for surveyors, engineers, and the academic communities that offer precise positions from global positioning system (GPS) observations. OPUS offers point position processing via online services worldwide. For many developed countries, the extensive numbers of available Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) is facilitated in obtaining accurate results. However, the accuracy of this tool has to be checked in remote areas or in areas where there are limited base stations available. This research focuses on checking the accuracy of the observation session from 2 to 15 hours in the area in which CORS is insufficient and comparing them with OPUS published accuracies and precision. 16-h-duration GPS data files collected on 13 passive stations in Duhok area using Leica viva GNSSN, GS10 in static mode. Then, these data files were windowed into sessions ranging from 2 to 14 hours in duration. The windowed files were processed in OPUS static, and the resulting coordinates at each station were compared with the coordinates averaged and achieved 1 to 8 mm in precision which has been considered as a true value. The results showed that the obtained accuracies were not complied with OPUS published results. While for the windowed sessions, the achieved precision was in the range of 1mm to 30 mm.

2019-06

Fifth International Engineering Conference on Developments in Engineering Applications (IEC2019) in the city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region-Iraq on June 23-25, 2019

In this study the geometric accuracy of four different maps for three sectors of Duhok city were assessed. The maps were produced in different periods and different techniques. One set of maps were paper plotted maps which had to be geo-referenced. The other three maps were digitally plotted with reference to the global coordinate system UTM/WGS-84/Zone 38 N projection. A total of 51 points were identified on one reference map which is the master plan of Duhok city prepared by the general directorate of urban planning/Kurdistan region/Iraq with the collaboration of the German company IngenieurburoVossing Company.The reference map, which is the master plan of Duhok governorate, is an official map that is certified and checked by the ministry of planning of the Kurdistan region to havea positional accuracy of 1.5 cm.These points were searched for and identified on the other three maps. Discrepancies in Easting and Northings of these points were calculated which resulted in the mean discrepancyof 2.29m with a maximum value of 8.5m in one event. The maximum standard deviation in dE and dN was 3.8m. These values are reasonably accepted considering that the maps were prepared using different techniques and a variable accuracy standard.

2018-10

1st International conference on advance science and Engineering Challenges in Kurdistan Region (ICOASE2018) / Zakho University in (Duhok, KR, Iraq). Date of conference 9-11th October 2018

The accumulation of sediment in the bottom of the dam is one of the major causes contributed to dam failure. This in turn creates risks of flooding for villages and cities below it. The aim of this research is to investigate the output of the bathymetric contour map of the bed of small Earth dams in Duhok at three different locations (Kashkan, Zawita and Skreen) as well as to determine the volume of accumulated sediment for each one at different periods of establishment. In addition, a comparison between the current statuses and the design life of each one was achieved. Both vertical depth and horizontal position measurements are implemented using two methods. The first one is the manual and direct method using lead line rope, weight, total station and DGPS for data collection in Zawita and Kashkan reservoir. While, the second method used the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) integrated with the Global Positioning System (GPS) to record both vertical depth and horizontal position measurements automatically in Skreen dam. The ADCP was calibrated for adjusting the axes (heading, roll and pitch) before collecting data. The data of ADCP were processed and analyzed using River Surveyor Line software and the bathymetric contour map of the selected reservoir's bed was created using AutoCAD civil 3D software. Also, the volume of sedimentations of each selected Earth dam was calculated from the difference between the created topographic surface of the reservoir bed and its original one. The results show that the volume of the sedimentation in kashkan reservoir is about 13810 m3 for the period of 2009 to 2018, Zawita reservoir is about 4449 m 3 for the period 2010 to 2018, Skreen reservoir is about 4608 m 3 for the period 2009 to 2018, and the design life of each one estimated by state was approximately similar to the finding of this research.

2018-05

1st International conference on Engineering Challenges in Kurdistan Region (ICECKR) 2018 /Nawroz University in (Duhok, KR, Iraq).

Google Earth imagery is frequently used in science, engineering, and other mapping applications. However, the company owning the tool announced that the data available in its geographical products is only approximate, so its accuracy is not officially documented. The Google Earth imagery in many areas around the world has been independently checked by scholars and third body parties. The estimated accuracies are found to largely vary depending on various factors but mainly due to, the imagery source or the image resolution. Positional accuracy testing methodology may also affect the assessment results. In processing, there should be many points around the tested area in order for the comparison to be more reliable. In this paper, the horizontal accuracy assessment was carried on the Google Earth imagery in Duhok city using the traces collected via GPS in Real Time Kinematic (RTK) technique. About 38 km of trajectory was collected for the two main roads in the selected area. Via semi-automated method, the points from RTK trajectory were compared to the corresponding extracted points from the centerline of the road network of Google Earth imagery. The nearest neighboring method through buildup algorithm was considered for comparison between both sets of data. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and maximum error were computed for horizontal positional coordinates and found to be 1.53m and 7.76m, respectively.

2018-05

1st International conference on Engineering Challenges in Kurdistan Region (ICECKR) 2018 /Nawroz University in (Duhok, KR, Iraq)

In this research, Digital level (DL), Total station (TS) and GPS were used to assess accuracy and precision of the height component. Field observations were implemented in two tested areas. A reference network which consisted of 34 points on area1 and 10 control points on area2 which had been observed five times using Digital level, RTK-GPS and Total station (TS) where Digital level was considered as a base for comparison. Several known control points were used as check points to evaluate the accuracy of measurements. According to the obtained results, TS and GPS-RTK measurements were compared with the adjusted reference points measured by precise Digital level (DNA 03). Around ±15 mm standard deviation for TS and ±13.5 mm for GPS were achieved. Linear accuracy of TS, GPS, and orthophotos measurements from Vossing German Company were also investigated in regular features within the same tested areas. The actual lengths were measured with steel tape up to a millimeter accuracy and were considered as being a base for comparing. The maximum deviation 22mm accuracy has been obtained in area2 and 12 mm in area1. The study shows that the extracted features from orthophotos had less accuracy in hilly regions due to relief displacement whereas they were more accurate in gentle slopes.

2015-09

Earth Observation in the Sentinel Era RSPSoc, NCEO and CEOI-ST Joint Annual Conference 8-11 September 2015. Hosted by Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, UK

Digital terrain models and topographic maps can be generated using pairs of satellite images. For this purpose images should be acquired to the same spot from two satellite positions. Intersecting rays provide the solution. Spot satellite can provide such oblique pairs of images. However these images are not readily available and if so they are rather expensive. The acquisition of different images taken by different satellites or using aerial platform to the same ground spot is not so difficult. On examining such images it is obvious that the relief displacement and direction is not identical as images are taken from different satellite at different view angles. This means that intersecting rays can be created and bundle solution can be achieved. The objective of this work is to generate a digital terrain model using pairs of aerial and satellite images to the same ground spot and creating a 3-D visual model that show the ground topography. Automatic matching technique between pixels on different images is the first step in this solution. Ground control points on the area of study are collected using the Leica Viva DGPS system.

2014-09

Conference proceeding RSPSoc 2014.2014 Conference 2nd -5th September at Aberstwyth University. Available at conference booklet, technical section Lidar. P.P 86-92

Matching natural detail points from different point clouds manually or automatically is not always possible. This is because it is hard to measure exactly the same point in two scans or multi-scanning. Also, the dependency on the intensity value to match these points may not give good results. Therefore, using 3D targets has a great potential for performing the matching between any point clouds. This is because, when using targets, there is no need to measure exactly the same points where the centre of the targets can be determined from some surrounding points automatically. Moreover, as clearly stated from the previous works, there is a significant issue with point identification, and there is a need, therefore, to design new 3D targets to overcome the difficulties encountered when using natural detail points on objects. The frequently adopted nearest point method and the idea of fitting a plane on the building facade and road surfaces still do not fit exactly the same definable point or feature. Targets will overcome many problems, namely: misidentification of corresponding points in two or more scans, checking the quality assessment of the data, geo-referencing and solving the problems of navigation errors when GPS is unavailable in urban areas and providing a clearly, definable, unique point. Issues related to designing targets will also be discussed at different ranges, angles of incidence and resolution in order to evaluate the performance in each case. This paper focusing on the design of specific 3D targets for use with MLS which it has a great potential for improving the data quality. For example, matching multiple scans in poor GPS areas, fitting scans to traditional ground survey, integrated sensor calibration of MLS.