PDEng position in Civil Engineering at University of Twente

The Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) programme Civil Engineering offers you a 2-year position combining post MSc education and a design project to be carried out at MapXact. The educational programme, carried out at the University of Twente, will have an in-depth and broadening character with ample attention for professional development and will be partly tailored to the design project. In collaboration with MapXact in Harfsen you will work on high level, creative new designs for complex issues.

The innovation of new technologies for the detection of underground infrastructure is driven by the need of reduction of excavation damage and the need/demand for mapping of the underground infrastructure. MapXact focuses on development and testing of technology that maps and detects underground infrastructure. One of its priorities is the development of a Ground Penetration Radar (GPR). MapXact has a R & D department that focuses both on improvement of data exploitation (hardware) data-interpretation (software). The goal of MapXact is to improve the GPR such that cables and pipes will be mapped in 3D on a more automated and accurate way.

The project - Detection technology validation and its application
For the acceptance of new technologies, it is important to have clarity and confidence in it. Uncertainties and unjustified expectations about the possibilities and limitations can lead to restraint and disappointments. Validation leads to more clarity of the market, increasing adoption of standards, and better indication/directions for further development of the technology.

The performance of ground radars are not only dependent of hardware and software, but are greatly influenced by the application context. For example, a GPR provides less usable radar grams in conditions that promote electrical resistance of the soil (e.g. moisture retaining ground, high air-humidity). In addition, aspects such as cloud cover and urban canyons affect the accuracy of the positioning -unit.

There is also a human factor that plays a role. So the user in the field needs to know:

what frequencies are needed to be able to scan at the desired depth and resolution;
which walking patterns yield the desired images;
how to act when radar measurements show unexpected anomalies.
One last variable is the image processing which often is carried out by means of post processing. Because often this processing is not performed by the one who did the field measurements, misinterpretation can appear. This reduces the quality of the final inspection report.

The unwanted variability in the measurement process frustrates providers and clients of GPR and other detection applications. In the current situation - in which implicit quality parameters are used for validation - lacks objectivity. It is not only difficult to substantiate performance of a technology, but it also has the disadvantage that promising innovations have a long lead time for approval and adoption. There is a need for detection technology validation and its application. At this moment, a systematic way in which detection and mapping technologies are tested and reviewed is missing. MapXact acknowledges the situation where is a lack of an analytical method and recognizes that customers and other providers have that difficulty. MapXact therefore sees the importance of a systematic reliable procedure that validates the ground penetrating radar performance. The development of this has an exploratory-designing character and therefore it fits in the scope of the PDEng ZoARG programme.

The intended design project will consist of the following steps:

Defining application scenarios for GPR;

Distract (performance)quality criteria for validation;

Operationalization of these criteria;

Explore international testing principles for human-operated technology (in areas such as systems engineering, manufacturing, human-system design);
Development of (physical) validation settings;
Development of a testing protocol and testing scenarios (process oriented);
Perform pilots of the designed protocol (with already accepted- and new technologies);
Formulate recommendations for integration/recognition of the validation method in practice.
The project is planned in such a way that practical and usable interim results will be provided. With an eye on wide acceptance and application, next to MapXact other independent parties will become part of the steering group of the project. The academic guidance will take place by the faculties of Engineering Technology (Prof.dr.ir. Dorée, Dr.ir. Olde Scholtenhuis) and ITC (Prof. dr. Van der Meijde).

Further details:
PDEng position in Civil Engineering at University of Twente