ISAAC

January 2002 - January 2003 Project ISAAC will raise the standards of sewer inspection, by integrating computer vision technology into the existing inspection equipment, the inspection survey community and the sewer operator's procedures. Current inspection procedures are based very much on operator judgement, and the project will introduce a more objective measurement frame to the process. This has considerable value in developing the process, but it is also of great help in assisting sewer operators in obtaining good value from inspection contractors. For example in some EU countries the surveys are performed without chrge, and the contractor id then able to charge for repairs carried out. The incentive is all for finding defects, even if they might be very stable and in no great need of repair. ISAAC will assist in discriminating between essential and non-essential repairs/renovation in this process.

IST - Information Society Technologies

www.cordis.lu/ist/ IST is a single, integrated research programme that builds on the convergence of information processing, communications and media technologies. IST has an indicative budget of 3.600 Million Euro, and is managed by the Information Society DG of the European Commission.

EUTIST-IMV - Integrated Machine Vision

www.spt.fi/eutist/ EUTIST-IMV cluster concentrates in innovation and creation of competitive advantage. Integrated Machine Vision enables enormous opportunities to companies in a variety of industries. Over 80 companies and universities are participating to the European Commission supported initiative EUTIST-IMV, which transforms these opportunities into reality.

Partners

CTU - Czech Technical University Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Center for Machine Perception

Karlovo namesti 13 121 35, Prague 2 Czech Republic cmp.felk.cvut.cz The Czech Technical University in Prague (founded in 1707) is the biggest technical university in the Czech Republic. CTU employs about 1800 people and undertakes both teaching and research. CTU teaches about 15 thousand students. The authorised person of the Czech Technical University in the project is the dean of the Faculty of Engineering Professor Vladimir Kucera. The partner in the ISAAC project is a research group called the Center for Machine Perception (CMP) headed by the Professor Vaclav Hlavac who is also the responsible person in the project. The CMP is part of the Dept. of Cybernetics at the Faculty of Electric Engineering. The CMP consists of 10 researchers and one Professor and three Assistant Professors. The second member of the academic staff that will participate in the project is Ing. Tomas Pajdla - an expert in 3-D reconstruction. The CMP has an experience with EU project. V. Hlavac lead the Copernicus project CP941068 and two Eureka projects were solved in the group.

PVK - The Prague Water Supply and Sewerage Company

Narodni 13 Prague 1 Czech Republic www.pvk.cz PVK was established on 1st April 1998 as a legal successor of the state companies Prague Waterworks and Prague Sewerage and Watercourses in the extent given by the privatisation project. The Prague Water Supply and Sewerage Company is the operator of the water management infrastructure of Prague. The administrator is the Prague Water Management Company, the founder and major owner of which is the City of Prague. 66% of the shares of PVK is owned by Vivendi Water, the remaining shares (34%) will be transferred to the City of Prague free of charge. The total equity of the Company amounts to 792 million Czech Crowns. The main activity of the PVK Company is production and drinking water supply, and operation of the sewerage system and wastewater treatment.

WRc plc - Water Research Center plc.

Frankland Road Blagrove, Swindon SN5 8YF, United Kingdom. www.wrcplc.co.uk Formerly known as the Water Research Center, WRc is independent research and consultancy company based in the UK. WRc specialises in water, pollution control and environmental management and has an annual turnover of around 22 million Euros. Of this 30% comes from international business. WRc has offices in Brussels and Hong Kong and jointly owned subsidiary companies in Rome and Hungary, as well as in the UK. WRc was responsible for undertaking a major industry research programme (10 million Euros), which led to publication of the Sewerage Rehabilitation Manual (SRM) in 1984. The procedures promulagated in the SRM from the basis of cost-effective Drainage Area planning activities widely practised by most water utilities since the late 1980s. The SRM has since been updated twice by WRc to reflect developments in knowledge and implementation tools. SRM3 now presents the best practical guidance on sewer condition assessment, standard rehabilitation and hydraulic analysis techniques.

Pearpoint Limited - opto-elctronic systems

Woolmer Way Bordon, Hampshire GU35 9QE, United Kingdom www.pearpoint.com Pearpoint Limited was formed in February 1983 by Alan Sefton to specialise in the design, manufacture, and world-wide distribution of pipeline inspection instruments using the latest solid image devices. In the period between 1983 and 1998, the company has grown to over 135 highly skilled people based in manufacturing plants both in the UK and the US. The group now exports a comprehensive and varied range of products to over 43 countries around the globe with major markets in Europe, North America, the Far East, Australia, and the Middle East. Perpoint has approximately 20% of the world market. Pearpoint is the only European supplier with a direct operation in the USA.

AWG - Anglian Water

www.awg.com AWG plc was created in 2000 from Anglian Water plc, the change in name was to reflect a major transition in company. The company employs over 13000 people world wide. AWG consists of a UK regulated water company Anglian Water services, an International Water business with both operational and process engineering capability. AWG also includes a major civil engineering contractor Morrison Construction and a facilities management operation which offers assets management and support services. AWG is responsible for the design, construction and operation of a sewerage network of many thousands of kilometres in length both within the UK and abroad. The proposed ISAAC project if successful will have a major impact in reducing the cost of ownership of that network. The ability to reduce the inconvenience to customers and generally increase the efficiency of sewerage rehabilitation will bring great benefits to the communities AWG serves.

FhG-IMK - Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication

Schloss Birlinghoven D-53754 Sankt Augustin Germany www.imk.fraunhofer.de FhG with about 1300 employees, among them 800 scientists, headquarters in Sankt Augustin near Bonn. The current turnover is about 88 millions ECU. FhG co-operates closely with industry and end-users, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the German and European economies. Its four main research areas are Comunication and Co-operation, Inteligent Multimedia Systems, System Design Technology and Parallel Computing. The Institute for Media Communication (IMK) is one of the eight institutes of GMD and has a staff of about 100 people. The FhG-IMK will be represented by Dr. (Ms) Marina Kolesnik in the project. She will be a consultant to the ISAAC project as she has several years of experience of applying computer vision to sewage inspection. She was involved in the Germany national project that developed an autonomous sewer inspection robot MAKRO. A dry sewer test-net constructed at the FhG Sankt Augustin site will be used for the first order check of image processing algorithms aimed at automatic detection and reconstruction of typical geometrical structures within the sewer.

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