When Drs. John Kostelnick and Jonathan Thayn, both professors of geography at Illinois State University, found themselves working on a detailed broadband-related mapping project that required assistance, they reached out to their students. They got a double dose of help when identical twin brothers, Luke and Jake Brasen, answered the call.
The Brasens are both geography majors and environmental studies minors. They have most of the same classes together. They live together, as they have all their lives. Since November, they’ve worked together as part-time research assistants in the GEOMAP Lab in Felmley Hall of Science. Both seniors, on May 12, they will graduate together.
The Brasens use LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data from the state’s GIS clearinghouse website at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to find the tallest structures in a given rural area. If you’re trying to improve the internet signal in a small town that’s situated out on the prairie, knowing where the tallest structures are is crucial. It can save a community serious money and plenty of time to make use of something’s that’s already there rather than building a new tower.
“Water towers and grain silos are prime real estate,” Kostelnick said. “Our task is to help rural communities know where to locate their internet connection, which needs to be line of sight. It’s an expensive proposition, and making use of existing infrastructure is one way to save money.”
Tracking these options is where the Brasens come in.
“We continuously run processes to find vertical assets, tall points, in certain counties,” Luke said. “Right now, I’m running processes for McLean County, which typically means grain silos.”
About two years ago, as part of Project Broadband Breakthrough, Kostelnick and Thayn were asked if they could come up with geographic information systems (GIS) maps to help rural communities improve the internet connectivity challenges they face.
“Jake and Luke’s help has been so beneficial that we are proposing that students at ISU continue to work on the project until the whole state is finished.”
Dr. Jonathan Thayn
“The Illinois Soybean Association asked us to do some mapping related to rural broadband expansion,” Kostelnick said. “Since that time, we’ve been working closely with five counties in the state—McLean, Ogle, Edgar, Skyler and Hancock counties—to test out and implement the mapping methods we have developed.”
Kostelnick said it’s easy to overlook the need for increased broadband width in rural areas because of the shrinking population there. But this isn’t just about Netflix and streaming services, there are benefits for agriculture that equates to millions of dollars, he said.
“We think about broadband in terms of economics and from the big picture of return on investment,” he said. “The rationale for rural expansion of broadband also involves farmers having the ability to do precision farming, using drones to map out how much fertilizer to use, and using smart tractors. Technology-based farming requires high-speed internet.
“This type of farming increases yields. In McLean County, we estimated in one growing season that the gain would be $12 million—that’s in one year.”
Kostelnick and Thayn aren’t broadband experts, but they are map experts. For this project they are using existing LiDAR data to create new, customized maps for each of the counties involved.
LiDAR technology was first developed for the military. For this application, it gathers data that identifies several land characteristics, including the elevations of objects on the ground in small towns. Rather than using radio waves, like radar detection does, LiDAR uses a laser to measure the shape of the Earth and characteristics on its surface.
“It’s (LiDAR) mounted on an airplane,” Thayn said. “And, as it passes over, it’s shooting a laser every few inches—or whatever it’s set for. It counts how long it takes for the laser to bounce back up to the plane to give you height. The faster it comes back, then the taller the structure.”
Which explains why the Brasens occasionally call out the heights of different structures they see on maps on their screens. LiDAR gives them the ability to determine if an object is a vertical asset or undesirable like trees or school buses.
“The 3D surface of the maps is very accurate,” Kostelnick said. “It picks up houses, trees, and light poles. We don’t want those, so we extract them and set it for everything that’s above a certain height. We create a map that has points indicating where these vertical assets are. We give the counties the maps, and they can use them in their planning.”
As their undergraduate years come to a close, the Brasen brothers are already moving toward their next steps. Luke is applying for environmental GIS jobs with an eye toward working for the National Park Service as his dream job someday. Jake has accepted a summer GIS internship with the City of Geneva. Both said this research experience has taught them something beyond the value of a college degree.
“The information we provide can help these communities, which is important,” Jake said. “And it shows that ISU is a college that helps out the surrounding areas.”
The efforts of both brothers in processing massive amounts of data are appreciated by their professors.
“The methodology we’ve devised for identifying tall structures is really pretty straightforward, but the huge amount of data involved and the geospatial nature of the data means that implementing the process would likely be difficult for someone without a geospatial background and a really good computer,” Thayn said. “In fact, Jake and Luke’s help has been so beneficial that we are proposing that students at ISU continue to work on the project until the whole state is finished.”
