The Clever Way Augmented Reality May Help Rollout Full Fibre

The on-going rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks across the UK, as well as in other countries, may soon be starting to benefit from the use of Augmented Reality. This can help engineers to see – with more clarity than ever – exactly what sort of infrastructure already exists under the surface.

Not so many years ago if you wanted to dig new fibre optic cable into the ground then the tools at your disposal were much more limited and disruptive, but today a growing number of civil engineers are gaining access to modern technologies that can help to make the job easier, safer and faster. This in turn can also reduce the deployment cost, which makes it possible to reach more premises for the same money.

Some recent examples of such improvements can be seen in various areas, such as Openreach’s (BT) use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to help map existing infrastructure and design new cable routes (here), or the more general adoption of compact Remote Controlled Mole Ploughing machines.

One other area that is now starting to get quite a lot of attention is Mixed Reality (MR) and Augmented Reality (AR) systems, which can often be combined with other methods to help visualise exactly what already exists under the ground or plan for future work. Technologies like this, when correctly deployed and operating at a high-accuracy, can help to prevent incidents (i.e. damage to existing infrastructure) and thus delays.

Take the following “fully automated” (i.e. doesn’t require manual 3D model preparations) example from vGIS, where reality capture AR is draped over the physical world with sub-10cm accuracy and without external GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), using a patented GNSS-less calibration method.

Admittedly this only works, in the way depicted above, when you do a 3D scan of the works before covering them up (i.e. it’s only of benefit to future works), such as via proper georeferencing kit, although processing the data through photogrammetry like this to create 3D models can also be done with nothing more than a device capable of capturing high-resolution images or videos.

According to vGIS, the model above was created from the visuals captured with a regular Smartphone (Android or iOS), paired with high-accuracy GNSS (only used for the capture stage). We understand that this approach could potentially also be used alongside GPR (mentioned earlier) and Electromagnetic Detectors to visualise existing infrastructure, where no pre-scans exist, but it wouldn’t be as clear as what you see here.

“The reality mesh is combined with GIS [Geographic Information System] and BIM [Building Information Modelling] information in real-time by the vGIS engine, so in a single unified view, the User sees the reality mesh, GIS and BIM information all at once. The possibilities for damage prevention and productivity improvements are endless,” said vGIS.

Technologies like this, when correctly deployed and operating at a high-accuracy, can help to prevent incidents (i.e. damage to existing infrastructure), although the new AR solutions are no substitute for good old-fashioned common sense. One other danger is the assumption that what you see is all that exists, which may be incorrect if based on an out-of-date scan (this goes back again to that point about common sense).

Nevertheless, it’s now possible to imagine a future were an agreed standard and approach could help to facilitate everybody using and sharing such data, while keeping it current with new changes. A lot of mistakes could be solved by taking such an approach, but we’re still a long way from that becoming reality. Still, technologies like this give us a fun glimpse into the much more technologically driven future of street works.