SIMULATION OF TUNNEL INSPECTION SUPPORT SYSTEM USING IMAGE ANALYSIS

Abstract

 We developed a simulation method of tunnel inspection support system using image analysis called SimCITI: Sim-ulation of Crack in wall Images for Tunnel Inspection. It is being promoted to use the inspection support system in the field of the Infrastructure inspection for efficiency and labor saving. The tunnel inspection systems using image analysis need to handle quantitatively not only the optical properties of their systems but also the optical properties or the image statistics of the objects of the images, tunnel walls and the cracks on the wall in the images. However, the lack of quantitative handling method of optical properties of the walls and cracks has prevented us from developing the tunnel inspection support system using image analysis quantitatively and forces us to check and redesign the system over and over. To make matter worse, it is not certain that how many tunnels do we need to examine the system. In this study, we developed a novel method to handle quantitatively the optical properties of the tunnel walls and the cracks which include the universal properties of the natural images such as the amplitude spectrum of natural images falls inversely with spatial frequency. This leads to an innovative simulation method of tunnel inspection support system using image analysis. We also verify the usefulness of the simulation method by testing it in the simulation of crack detection system using convolutional neural network and the simulation of crack width measuring system using image analysis. The quantitative handling method of the tunnel walls and the cracks turned out to be very useful for both simulation systems. This method, SimCITI, will be highly useful in developing and benchmarking tunnel inspection support systems using image analysis because it makes us prevent from going out from the office to millions of tunnels in the world.