The Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences (GSES) program had its first Ph.D. candidate successfully defend his dissertation. Arpan Kusari defended on, “Precise Registration of Laser Mapping Data by Planar Feature Extraction for Deformation Mapping.” Determination of near-field displacements for earthquakes has not been possible, until now, using existing remote sensing techniques and methods. In this thesis, the determination of realistic near-field displacement estimates was investigated using Airborne Laser Scanning and terrestrial-based Mobile Laser Scanning point clouds gathered in a repeated manner. The extraction of sub-centimeter complex estimates in an automated fashion showed that this could provide a reliable and robust technique for determining earthquake displacements for use in fault mechanics, therefore enhancing the general understanding of earthquakes.
Arpan has accepted a position in the Product Development department at the Ford Motor Company. He will be working on automated driving technologies. Arpan’s advisor was Dr. Craig Glennie.
Congratulations, Arpan!