(Heerbrugg, Switzerland/Anaheim, California, USA, 15 June 2016) – Leica Geosystems, global leader of measurement and reality capture technologies, today announced the establishment of a georadar portfolio with three releases to provide applications in utility mapping, asset detection and mapping, and monitoring.
From Hexagon’s recently announced acquisition of the GeoRadar Division of Ingegneria dei Sistemi S.p.A (IDS), a private firm with core expertise in radar-based systems, Leica Geosystems has been able to create the radar portfolio to increase safety, accurately locate and map underground assets on various work sites, and monitor risk-prone environments .
“Our reality capture solutions have been strengthened and extended with IDS’ georadar expertise, enabling us to bring even more value to a variety of segments, including construction, surveying and mining,” said Juergen Dold, Hexagon Geosystems president. “With this new GPR portfolio, we’re enabling professionals to work safer and more efficiently while extending their own businesses into new service areas.”
Uncovering threats for increased safety
For any construction or excavation site, understanding the risks that lie beneath the surface is key to the success of the project. The Leica DS2000 utility detection radar identifies all potential threats, including plastic and all nonconductive pipes and fibre optics, increasing safety by lowering the risk of accidently hitting underground assets. Collecting twice the information in half the passes, data is collected with dual-frequency antennae that locate deep and shallow targets at the same time. With or without GPS, utility location can be accomplished onsite with no post processing needed.
“With the DS2000, users can increase safety, speed up work and lower costs with the ability to prevent hazardous outages and collecting more information faster,” said Tughan Telatar, product manager. ”With the understanding of knowing exactly where assets are, recovery from outages happens quicker and safer.”
Removing the gaps to monitor the whole picture
Leica Geosystems added the new radar technology to its Leica GeoMoS monitoring software for an even clearer indication of project stability. By combining GeoMoS with IDS Guardian software, the gaps between prisms on monitoring projects of landslides, mines or infrastructure are now also detected for fast movements. Risk managers can carry out their tasks with complete confidence, knowing all movement of surfaces is monitored by the two technologies.
“Hexagon Geosystems offers a winning solution by fusing two industry-leading companies, Leica Geosystems and IDS. By adding the radar technology to monitoring solutions, 1D line-of-sight surface data between project prisms is detected and combined with the highly precise 3D data from GeoMoS,” explains Michael Rutschmann, senior product manager at Leica Geosystems, “This results in fast, complete deformation coverage of structures and slopes.”
What happens below, affects above
For asset data collection, documentation and management, the activities below ground have a significant impact on what is possible above ground. Understanding both is critical to safe and efficient construction planning and is a requirement for any SmartCity initiative. The Leica Pegasus:Stream combines laser scanning and images above with ground penetrating radar below to accurately capture the complete view of a targeted area. This mass digitisation of infrastructure assets, such as telephone cabinets above and cable conduits below, are collected in less time without needing to stop traffic, increasing the safety of the road work crew. The Pegasus:Stream has the potential to collect up to 100 km per day at 15 km/hr, providing digital documentation for GIS and CAD modelling.
“We see Pegasus:Stream as part of the digital workflow, where volume and cost of data capture are not proportionally linked,” said Rollo Rigby, associate director of Severn Partnership, an UK firm specialising in ground penetrating radar surveying. “As a positioning platform, Pegasus:Stream can bring together numerous sensors so that our end data is highly correlated and our products more comprehensive.”
For more information about the Leica Pegasus: Stream, visit http://leica-geosystems.com/products/mobile-sensor-platforms/capture-platforms/leica-pegasus-stream.