RICERCA ITALIANA     

Integrated Technologies of Robotics and Virtual Environments in Archaelogy

Università di Pisa

Abstract

The objective of the project, that is using the competences of five unities of complementary researches, in a synergy between archaeology and sciences, will be focused on three central moments of the global archaeological experience, the micro-relief and intra-stratigrafico, the extensive monumental relief plane-volumetrico and the virtual musealization, individualized through three cases of study: the tomb of Huy at Tebe Ovest ( Teban Tomb 14, Gurna - Luxor) and the monumental zone of the temple of Medinet Madi in the Fayum, both in Egypt, and the site of Khor Rori in Oman.
The activities for the relief according to the three cases of study pointed out, will use innovative robotic systems, on purpose studied for archaeological applications. Particularly, in the case of the temple of Medinet Madi the robotic system for the relief will be constituted by a robotic mobile and teleoperated base on which will be different sensorial and integrated systems. A second robotic system will be realized for assignments of exploration and automatic relief in the teban tomb. For the site in Oman will be anticipated operations of relief of archaeological finds for the creation of a collection to be visualized in the virtual museum of the Pisa University.
The results of the different operations of relief on sites and objects related to the different archaeological contexts, will be used on purpose for the fruition in a projected virtual environment according to paradigms and runs of acquisition of innovative knowledge.
The run so built can be interpreted moving from the final problem of the communication (virtual museum) and going down from here, in the concrete one of the interpretation and acquisition of the data in archaeology, through the reconstruction of the archaeological landscape, monument, single object, up to the problem list of the stratigraphic excavation or, viceversa, moving from the datum object (as find of excavation or as element of a virtual exposure) and of there proceeding in inverse sense.

The project of an interface software for the creation of a system of virtual reality applied to the aforementioned contexts will be realized integrally through metaphors of navigation and interaction three-dimensional that will allow of to talk spatially with the three macrocontestis and the related data. The application will be developed on more levels: therefore the territorial context, the monumental site, the geo-stratigraphic context. The relief's data, acquired on the field through the employment of the varied integrated technologies, will be post-tried in phases of elaboration progressive, whose partial results can be enjoyable as ulterior levels of thematic " reading ", to allow a process of critical interpretation from the consumer regarding the followed methodologies and a comprehension of their innovative value.
The runs of learning and interaction will also be diversified regarding the communicative impact to adapt to the diversified demands of a heterogeneous public.
This approach could give an important contribution to the evolution of the three-dimensional representation and the virtual musealization of archaeological contexts, through the multidisciplinary interpretation's criticism of the considered landscape as " ecosystem ". <<<

Principal Investigator

Edda BRESCIANI Universita' di PISA

Research Goal

The objective of the project concerns the integration of technologies if robotics and of virtual environments in archaeology with the purpose to agevolate operations of exploration in galleries of tombs and to effect operations of automatic relief of monumental sites in Egypt. The results of the operations of exploration and relief will come then visible to the public in an interactive virtual museum. Particularly the objectives of the project concern:
a) the planning and realization and validation on the field of a robotic mobile base robotica teleopered and gifted of different typologies of sensors for the relief of monuments in open field
b) the planning and realization and validation on the field of a robotic mobile system teleoperated with functionality of exploration in the underground environments of tombs.
c) the planning and realization of an interactive virtual museum for the fruition of archaeological finds previously digitalizated and the visualization in real time of the archaeological sites whose three-dimensional modeling had be performed on the base of the data drawn by the two robotic systems, described in a) and b).
The expected results of the project concern the use of the innovative robotic systems for operations of relief and exploration in archaeology and their fruition in virtual museum <<<

Timescale

36 months