How do you undertake topographic surveying deep in the forest wherein massive leaves/plants are blocking line of sight? Any suggested best practices that can help the robotics total station find the reflector faster and with consistency? Thank you.
The robotic features on a total station are nearly useless in thick brush. Get a human to aim the scope at your prism. The robotics can fine-tune the aim, if you wish. Other than that, you will probably have to set a very dense control network, and limit your topo measurement distances.
Good luck. I barely have the patience for a robot even in wide open job site conditions.
?ÿ
What's the purpose for the survey? Usually you spend half your time chopping with the machete for line of site. Depending on the required accuracy, I would utilize your distance/offset function for a good portion of your shots. And if at all possible, use the direct reflux capabilities if ground is visible. Otherwise, if it's extremely dense brush, it would be wise to have a two man crew.?ÿ
The best way to topo dense forest is to run controlled baselines and get local relief with a hand level.
By the time the land is cleared, the ground will have moved anyway.
Would it be much faster for the total station to find the reflector when in auto-aiming mode than when doing it totally in manual mode? My experience is only with manual total station when deep in the forest. I'm not sure though how robotics system behave when millions of leaves are blocking line of sight leaving very tight window for the edm to get through.
Is Lidar an option? I find using a saw-saw instead of a machete helps when having to clear line all day or for a few days. Our Robotic stations have a button on the RC unit which you press to help the instrument find you.?ÿ
You'll waste a lot of time trying to find windows through dense brush with the robot searching a grid pattern and you hoping there's an opening when it stumbles on you. Was me I'd mount a bright LED light to the prism and have someone at the instrument manually look through the gun for the flashes of light when the prism passes an opening, communicate by radio and manually put the gun on target when a window is located by the flash of light.?ÿ
I don't know if scanning would work. I find the post processing tedious and difficult.
Are saw-saw and reciprocating saw same?
Would it be more time consuming for the robot to find its target than a two men team with a manual total station?
Yes a saw-saw and reciprocating saw is the same in my tool box. I was think Lidar with a drone. Depends on your robot, the ones we use have a button to help find the prism, you can always use a robotic in manual mode, they just weight more to trek in and out with.
I would do a minimal of 2 men, probably 3 to keep the line chopping going.
Before the advent of bright LED lights, my crew would use a red and white 25' fiberglass rod with prism on top. Wave the rod until the instrument operator spotted an opening in the leaves, then lower the prism to the opening. Read back the rod height when the measurement was taken. A robot just can't do this. A LED light would have sped up this process.
Trimble Vision?
It would let you see on your controller if the rts was "seeing" you.
But I would also recommend a 2man crew.
First you must fight the brush for days trying to get the topo AND THEN AND ONLY THEN can they bring the D9s in and clear it in a morning.
One time when I worked for a private firm my boss had me out there for days flagging rough C/L of possible proposed streets so they could clear the proposed possible R/W then the next damned day the dozer went out there and cleared acres of manzanita everywhere, like wide open (or WFO is the jargon in the industry, you can guess what the F stands for).
See if there is a company in your area with skid loader and ground shark brush cutter and work that price into budget.
I had one where I needed a line cleared to mark new division line.?ÿ It was small trees jammed about 6 inches apart and the vines were tying them all together.?ÿ I spent an hour chopping line with a chain saw attachment on a weed eater making almost no progress compared with the total length.?ÿ Called in the cavalry.?ÿ Spoke with the owner and got okay to clear as much as needed and got a friend to bring in the ground shark.?ÿ Took him half an hour to clear out the entire line much wider than I even needed.?ÿ Made my work much easier!
If its very thick, much better to have folks with the right equipment take care of the clearing in order to be able to see.
