OUR SPONSOR
Our capstone project sponsor, Dr. Eck Doerry, is an accomplished researcher and professor at NAU. In addition to serving as the Department Chair of NAU’s Computer Science program for four years and teaching for several more, Dr. Doerry has spearheaded many innovative research initiatives at NAU, including co-founding the FloodAware initiative, which encompasses our HydroCams project. FloodAware aims to transform communities (starting with Flagstaff, Arizona) into ‘smart cities’, using cutting-edge technology to cut costs, prevent damage, and save lives.
In an interview with The NAU Review, Dr. Doerry stated:
“[We] realized that cutting-edge hydrological modeling, image processing and real-time sensing techniques could be brought together to help citizens, city administrators and first responders better react to flooding and, ideally, be warned of imminent flooding before the water arrives… The system will integrate numerous data streams to calculate real-time maps of current and upcoming flooding and can then send a notification to citizens in endangered areas. This is really what being a smart city means to us: the city keeps an eye on threats and warns citizens in appropriate ways.”.
Through our capstone project, Dr. Doerry aims to mitigate flooding using affordable, easy-to-install, solar-powered, cellular-connected smart cameras that will utilize our software. These cameras will automatically detect gauging (marker) points and calculate necessary measurements using computer vision (CV) and Structure from Motion (SfM). This system allows water levels to be measured automatically based on which gauge points are obscured, providing local entities with accurate, real-time information on water levels and flood risks.
