Know-How
The scientific and technical background, along with decades of industry know-how and proprietary technology, form the foundation upon which LISALAB has built its market leadership.
To provide the best products and services, LISALAB has its own internal structure and a laboratory for the design, production, and assembly of GBInSAR systems and the development of related software. This enables a high level of operational flexibility and the ability to respond immediately and efficiently to customer requests, including specific solutions tailored to each customer’s needs.
LISALAB employs a team of specialized technicians for monitoring services, utilizing company-owned vans and 4×4 off-road vehicles, as well as a well-stocked inventory of equipment and spare parts for installations and maintenance of GBInSAR systems.
Technology
Since 2003, LISALAB has focused in Ground Based Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry, also known as GBInSAR or TInSAR. This remote sensing technique, using a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, allows for the generation of displacement maps of observed scenarios. It is particularly well-suited for monitoring movements in slopes, rock walls, volcanic structures, landslides, dams, bridges, and other structures.
The initial GBInSAR radars for natural hazard observation were developed and tested in the 1990s by the Citizen Protection and Security Unit of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, which developed the LiSA technology. This technology was licensed to LISALAB, which in turn has continuously developed and improved proprietary advancements known as LISALAB technology.
The LISALAB technology implemented in the terrestrial synthetic aperture radar platform, called LiSAmobile, is the natural evolution of LiSA technology. It is a system capable of measuring and monitoring the behavior and deformations of structures and terrain over time. This is complemented and integrated with specific in-house developed software packages for data acquisition, processing, and analysis.
The LiSAmobile GBInSAR system features a high degree of operational flexibility in terms of observation frequencies and geometry, acquisition frequency, and ease of deployment, ensuring maximum adaptability in any situation. Over the years, it has undergone complex experimentation and validation activities for both applications and performance, with hundreds of measurement campaigns. The continuous development of the system also makes new and interesting additional applications available on a daily basis.
The advantages of the system are the following:
– it doesn’t require sensors to be installed on the object under examination, eliminating the need to access the area in case of natural hazards or touch the structure with invasive or aesthetically detrimental interventions in the case of artistic assets;
– it can provide extensive displacement maps of the analyzed object from kilometers away, under various lighting and atmospheric conditions;
– it offers extremely precise measurements in near-real-time;
– it provides an immediate understanding of the state and distribution of terrain movements or structural deformations under examination, with excellent correlation between the results and data obtained from traditional sensors;
– it offers fast installation, operational flexibility, and a high level of availability, making it suitable for emergencies and long-term permanent monitoring. However, it can also be used for periodic or standalone campaigns.
Applications
The ability of the LiSAmobile GBInSAR system to provide distributed information over extended areas in 2/3 dimensions and across multiple time periods is a valuable complement to, and sometimes replacement for, traditional displacement detection and natural hazard and structural monitoring techniques, which are usually based on point measurements.
This characteristic is essential in the field of identifying and zoning activity areas, offering a powerful tool for defining critical areas and planning and designing appropriate mitigation/safeguard interventions.
In this sense, the effectiveness of the LiSAmobile GBInSAR system has proven particularly crucial in emergency situations, especially when elements of particular significance, such as populated areas, communication routes, cultural assets, or even emergency responders, are at risk.
Particularly interesting is the possibility demonstrated over the years by the LiSAmobile system to support monitoring networks based on both installed and operational traditional technologies, as well as those in the installation phase. In this regard, the results obtained demonstrate how the GBInSAR technique can provide complementary assessments to optimize the distribution of point sensors.
Since 2003, the LiSAmobile GBInSAR system has been successfully employed in:
– Detecting and monitoring slope processes, ground, volcanoes and glaciers movements;
– Monitoring structural displacements and deformations;
– Creating detailed digital elevation maps of terrain;
– Zoning hazardous areas;
– Monitoring the effects of excavation operations on slope stability and structures;
– Monitoring areas prone to movement or subsidence due to underground excavations or sinkholes;
– Validating or calibrating theoretical models of terrain and structural behavior;
– Emergency monitoring even under adverse logistical conditions;
– Periodic monitoring of slow-moving phenomena.
