GPS World, January 2017
WATCH MARKET MAPPING 2 Robotic Riverbed Survey Reveals Unseen Depths The Ribble River flowing through Preston in Lancashire United Kingdom has hidden depths The challenge with rivers is that much of the beauty and interest is hidden from view beneath the surface said Jack Spees CEO of the Ribble Rivers Trust To reveal this beauty we undertook a bathymetric survey of a section with particularly interesting features that is adjacent to a heavily used public footpath The trust is using survey results to reveal these hidden depths on interpretation boards including digitally augmented reality and video media enabling visitors to explore the underwater world For the survey a robotically controlled 12 meter twin hull shallow draft vessel powered by a twin jet system surveyed a hectare of the riverbed It carried depth recording sonar and a tracking prism that enabled a Spectra Precision Focus 35 total station to lock onto and robotically follow and record the vesssels location Echo soundings were transmitted to a tablet PC ashore via long range Bluetooth and time stamped while the boats position was continuously recorded by the total station and sent back to a tablet PC also using longrange Bluetooth and time stamped The tablet PC ran 4Site a program that formatted and processed the data from the sonar and the total station into a DWG drawing Each point was positioned in real time so the vessel operator could ensure complete coverage A mesh of a 200 meter section of the river with depths to 35 meters was combined with aerial lidar data to produce the survey See more mapping news on page 70 JANUARY 2017 WWW GPSWORLD COM GPS WORLD 51
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