Automatic Image Acquisition of Underground Contaminant Transport Presenter: Matilda Urie Northeastern University, Boston MA University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Project Advisor: Dr. Ingrid Padilla, Dept. Civil Engineering, UPRM Graduate Mentor: Maria Fernanda Serrano Collaboration with Dr. Shawn Hunt and Dr. Raul Torres, Dept. Electrical Engineering, UPRM Muchas Gracias por venir. My undergraduate experience was spectacular, as it was located in Bella Mayaguez Puerto Rico. The task I was assigned was to investigate white sand beaches and improve my tan. No…I kid. My obligation was to produce a system capable of automatic image acquisition of underground contaminant transport. The idea was to track the movements of contaminants in a tank of sand using two methods; cross well radar antennas and my system. The image acquisition system would produce a series of photos in form time lapse photography to verify the data garnered from the antenna.

Abstract The impetus of this project was to develop a system capable of automatically capturing a series of images of a soil test bed. The use of non-interfering image tracking of the transport of underground contaminants has the advantage of producing valuable visualization without altering the flow. The main components included High resolution camera Program to control camera

Some of the Components of the Imaging System The Hitachi KP M2A Monochrome camera The subject: TCE tinted with Sudan IV Image Capture board – interfaces camera with computer Soil Test Bed (small model displayed right)

The program to regulate the camera was designed using the MatLab. Allows the user freedom to define two separate rates of image acquisition. -The reason being; a predicted flow deceleration of contaminants after initial introduction to soil test bed.

Acquiring The Images Controlled by the program, the camera captures images at the specified rates. The program is also responsible for saving each individual image in user- desired format with a unique name so that each photograph can be accessible for future processing. The images below have already been processed to highlight the region of contaminated soil depicted here in blue. The time line of these images shows the transport of the contaminant temporally.

Processing Image Data Goals Produce vivid visualization. Calibrate contaminant concentrations for reference. Small elected area pixel data based on grey scale between 0 = black and 256 = white. Observe that the uncontaminated sand region has grey scale values in the 110-200 range, while the dye falls in the darker, 30-99 range.

Processing Image Data To concentrate on the region of contaminated dye, a uniform background was established in this image. By using a threshold to set all the pixel values in the “uncontaminated sand” range to a solitary color, the variability of the background was eliminated. The color map can be used to calibrate the stain concentrations.

Overview of the Strategic Research Plan Bio-Med Enviro-Civil L3 S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 Validating TestBEDs L2 R2 L1 Fundamental Science R1 R3