Mobile App for Scanning and Measuring Location of Underground Cables

Customer

Advian is a Finnish provider of analytics solutions for the manufacturing, financial, processing, and energy industries. The company specializes in real-time analytics, location intelligence, external data, and edge computing. Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the client helps organizations leverage data-driven decision making and improve the quality of their overall working processes.

Need

When the customer turned to HQSoftware, the goal was to create a solution for measuring and documenting the location of underground cables for telecommunication and energy network companies and contractors. The customer already had the analytics system that processes data and creates specific documents.

HQSoftware’s task was to build a mobile application that scans the territory where cables were laid, gathers required data, and sends them to the analytics system. Other important features to develop were navigation and an ability to take high-quality photos and videos.

Challenges

In the course of the project, specialists from HQSoftware had to cope with the following challenges:

• Create a user-friendly mobile application that any user can comprehend;
• Integrate Augmented Reality and navigation systems into the mobile application;
• Set up data transfer to the customer’s analytics system;
• Establish efficient data exchange with the customer’s API.

Solution

To help the customer accomplish their objective, HQSoftware augmented their team with an Android developer and a project manager. The specialists cooperated with API developers and a product owner on the customer’s side.

Using Augmented Reality, the mobile application scans the cable trench and sends gathered data to a customer’s server for processing. Then, via the customer’s API, the mobile application gets processed data back to create a map, which shows scanned trenches, topography, depth of installed cables, and other required information.

For better ground positioning, the solution monitors users’ geolocation. The application can use built-in navigation or a GNSS receiver, connected to a mobile phone via USB, that defines the location of a mobile phone more accurately.

The application has two modes: trench mode and camera mode. Trench mode includes basic features, such as scanning, measuring, data sending, and so on. In addition, users can take photos and videos while they scan a path along the trench. The camera mode is used when high-quality photos or real-time videos are required. 

The customer takes the role of a Product Owner and is responsible for distributing and deploying the solution to the users’ devices via the local system.

Functionality

In addition to basic features, the application includes the following:

• Capturing of Features of Interest. This function allows for measuring the distance from a mobile phone to a selected point on the surface and setting up markers during trench scanning. In addition, users can take photos of markers and write notes, such as cable descriptions or other important information. So the feature improves the working process and simplifies the process of creating documentation.
• Cable indication. At the beginning of the scanning, the application asks the user to determine the type of laid cable and its description. 
• Control of contractors. After logging into the application, the user can choose and view the site where the work is taking place. If there is no site yet, the user can create a new one and indicate the underground contractors or construction specialists who work there. In this way, users structure and monitor contractors’ work.
• Site map. This is a map that shows all previously added trenches, features of interest, and cables for the selected site. The map also allows for viewing photos that were taken there previously.

Outcome

By partnering with HQSoftware, the customer company got a modern and user-friendly mobile application with trench scanning and accurate satellite navigation.

With the new application, the customer’s team provides users with a solution that greatly improves their working processes. End-users can scan the trenches, determine geolocation with high accuracy, take photos and videos, and use a map that shows the territory, topography, and other important data.

The Groundhawk solution offers the opportunity to monitor work in real-time and to simplify measurement processes and documents creation. All this results in increasing the work efficiency of contractors and faster project completion.

The Groundhawk project is already live, and the customer’s company is getting positive feedback from end-users. The solution is still improving, and HQSoftware specialists are making efforts to enhance the application’s usability and functionality.

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