Inertial Surveying Equipment

Gyro compass is one application.

ZUPT is a French company that specializes in such equipment. It is good, reliable gear for "pretty-good" surveying under dense forest canopy. This is not unusual equipment for Doodlebuggers - seismic exploration. Applanix is a common component, I think. A backpack commonly costs well into six digits U.S. Dollars, so it's not practical for most Land Surveying applications, and not likely precise enough. Pretty good for looking for oil.

> ZUPT is a French company that specializes in such equipment. It is good, reliable gear for "pretty-good" surveying under dense forest canopy. This is not unusual equipment for Doodlebuggers - seismic exploration. Applanix is a common component, I think. A backpack commonly costs well into six digits U.S. Dollars, so it's not practical for most Land Surveying applications, and not likely precise enough. Pretty good for looking for oil.

Thanks.
That sounds like what was described to me. He said it was $250,000. He also mentioned the "surveyor" would have to stop walking every 60 seconds or so for the gyro to "catch up" (whatever that means).
Apparently, it will be a while before this is ready to be added to the toolbox.
BTW, the equipment was being used in the O&G industry.

We used the SIAGL occasionally when I was in the Army.

I was told by an oil and gas guy that they can get very accurate locations with their gyro drillguide steering tools. He said that to test it they drilled a horizontal well bore-figured out the drainhole end location 3/4 of a mile from the surface location and then drilled another hole towards the drainhole end and hit it!

Anyway, that's what he told me. It sounded like an urban legend type of story to me, but then I'm a skeptic.

Yes the Siagl is a gyro.

We had something called PADS, Position Azimuth Determining System. Which fits the category of the original post.

From FM 6-2

The PADS is a self-contained inertial surveying system. It can be used to rapidly and accurately determine position, azimuth, and elevation (PAE) in either ground or airborne survey operations. It is a precise and sensitive piece of equipment and should be handled with the same care as any other precise survey instrument.

Ralph

I suspect that they "perforated" that hole before they started drilling the second hole.

Perforating a bottom involves a very big "BOOM."

Here's a detailed link to it.

PADS

Ralph

When I mustered out of the Corps of Engineers in the early 1970's, if I went to work for the Engineer Topographic Laboratories, that was going to be my project. I decided instead to go to work for a commercial mapping company.

Hi Prof,
I guess you were developing it. It's a pretty cool unit. I'm not sure if it is commercially feasible. Although we use it in micro-tunneling and in some Tunnel Boring Machines.

Cheers,
Ralph

Yeah, we had PADS too. It weighed 330 lbs and cost the Army $330,000 per unit. Geez, I wonder how they came up with a price....:-X

With the tool kit that came with it was a $200 Special adjusting wrench, or more commonly known as a Crescent wrench.

Here's a picture of the SIAGL. It had short tripod legs.

That's it, Beer!

BTW, I think the adjusting tool was worth $330, just keeping things in multiples
😉

Cheers,
Ralph

We've used both the Applanix POS, and the Zupt systems for staking design alignments in extremely rugged terrain with serious southeast AK canopy. The applanix pack is about 70 lbs with batteries while the Zupt is about 40 lbs.

My crews were able to stake 1-2 miles daily in conditions that would have been about 1000' per day conventionally (think lots of 50-100' backsights). We started each day on a static monument either in muskeg or on the beach set by a third crew out front. Startup time at our latitude 58° took around an hour for the units to figure out where they are on the planet. We could then stake about a mile before closing into another static mon. Typically we'd drift about 12' per mile, but could post process back through the line to get about 4' of uncertainty (H&V) in the very middle with much tighter agreement at each end. Yes they had to stop about every 60-90 seconds for a "ZUPT"; (zero velocity update) typically by leaning against a tree or using a staff under the pack to hold steady for 5-10 seconds. This allowed for the unit to settle down and re-sync the laser gyro with the accelerometers.

We rented the packs and an operator for each from the O&G industry. Cost is about $250k, you need DOD clearance to even have cruise missle guts on your back, and accuracy is not good enough for general surveying tasks. For our use it was the absolute best thing out there. 4' accuracy at worst on a stake every 100' was more than adequate for other project teams (enviro, geo-tech, etc.) and the greenies didn't get all pissed off because we didn't have to cut line.

"Inertial Surveying Equipment"

Isn't that where the UPS guy throws your Total Station, (Just back from Hayes, for adjustment) over the fence?

🙂

N

BLM used inertial equipment for many years in AK, retitle the auto-surveyor, it was usually deployed on a helicopter with a gadget called a hoversight. I would assume that modern technology would be vastly superior with now laser gyros and GPS integrated.

I was able to work with one once in a suburban to do road survey as-builts in Northern CA and I would say we validated it could be good to within a few cm with proper control and operational guidelines.

Cost of operation and maintenance on those was very high and I think BLM quit using them in the early '90's as GPS became available.

jlw

> When I mustered out of the Corps of Engineers in the early 1970's, if I went to work for the Engineer Topographic Laboratories, that was going to be my project. I decided instead to go to work for a commercial mapping company.

The development of PADS? Interesting. We used it for 4th order work. I think originally it was spec'd for 5th order, but they later said it was also good enough for 4th order. It sat in the back of a Jeep where the back seat was. If I remember right, it had two or three gyros. It had a small arm that popped out in back, hang a plumb bob and back up to a control point. Input the coordinates of the control point via the CDU, and then wait for about 20 minutes for it to "initialize".(wait for the gyros to come to full speed as it was explained to me)

We had to stop every so often to let it "find" or "update" itself. The more often, the better results. It was the cats meow back then. Set a control point, back up to it and it would spit out coordinates, go to the next control point and repeat.

Once we loaded it into a Chinook and went for a ride, but the results weren't very good because the pilots didn't want to land and unload the Jeep every 10 minutes or so for it to update... If I remember right, you could also take it out of the Jeep with it's back up batteries and load it into a Huey.

It must of been fairly new because they didn't teach us anything about it at I See O Hall at Ft. Sill. I was introduced to it first when I got to permanent party in Germany. (1983)

The SIAGL was a little more simpler. You scaled the coordinates for your control point, set it up, it would seek out true north, (20 mins. or so) and you went with it. It was good for hasty surveys when no available control was to be had.

The IMU (Figure 9-4) contains the gyroscopes, accelerometer sensors, and associated electronics needed to maintain the survey coordinate frame. It will measure distance traveled to each coordinate axis.

I believe it was the equivalent of a T-16 which was 5th order. I had it at I See O in 1983, never used it again after because I was in HHB Divarty, doing strictly controls, all we had was T-2s.
I will say however, that it was a lot better than what those guys were getting in Alaska, (+/-4', post below), I assume that with the right procedures and operators you could consistently get 1/1500.

There were still remnants of Vietnam era survey stuff when I has in Hawaii, including the earlier version of the Gyro which came in an Oil Drum. We didn't see Hummers till 1985 when I was on my way out. The Apache and The Hummvee were the big news makers in Army Times.

Ralph

Yes, I think it was originally spec'd for 5th order - T-16 work. They later said it was good enough for the 4th order survey work that was required when I was stationed at a Lance Missile Battalion in Germany. We also had T-2's and Cubic Tape edm's.

Ask Grizz Wickern about those old gyros that came in a oil drum. I am pretty sure he used them. He's and old fart and all...

Below is a quick survey of Inertial Surveying/ Positioning Systems used by the US Military; US DOD azimuth finding gyros and theodolites are a particular interest of mine (but not IMU's)

The North-Seeking Azimuth systems were used (primarily) by the Army Field Artillery /Missile units to properly orient and place the howitzers and guided missile systems. There were scaled-down civilian systems sold by Wild for use underground or in mining operations... these were the GAK-1 units. The gyroscope on these was made by FENNEL, licensed to Wild for their systems. Military version utilized the same but beefed up the housing for the gyro to make them more shock-proof and robust for military use.

ABLE: Automated Base-Line Equipment,
ABLE: The 55-gallon drum system (ref: Beer Legs/ Ralph at 23:14).
made by the Autonetics Division of North American Aviation (later became Rockwell). The system dated to early 1960's, used into at least the early 1980s; fielded with the Pershing Missile System in Europe. System was transported in 2 parts- the sensitive gyro and theodolite were contained in a metal drum with shock absorbers that looked like a 55-gal drum (although it was only about 2/3 the size). The remaining tripod, cables, battery and control unit shipped in a separate wooden trunk-sized crate. System was composed of a Sperry Gyroscope (the heavy part) and a Wild Heerbrugg T-16 (old style) in mils with a special mounting plate to force it to fit onto the Gyroscope in one orientation only. Total system probably weighed over 250lbs.

As of 24 Dec 2012 there is an Ebay Auction with pictures of most of the ABLE system (missing the Wild T-16 theodolite) at http://www.ebay.com/itm//310344742313
The 55 gallon drum portion:

And the gyroscope (the Wild T-16 mounted on top of this aligned to a registration slot)

(for readers of this after the auction has expired, I have an archived copy of it)

Some other follow-on systems, previously mentioned. These generally were categorized as North Seeking Postioning / Gyroscope systems.

SIAGL: Survey Instrument Azimuth Gyroscope Lightweight
(that's lightweight compared to the ABLE)... still weighed 100+lbs. (late 1970's, 1980's) This came in 2 different versions, the pictures in the previous posts are of the 1st version-

First version- Lear-Siegler AG-8 using a Kern DKM-1 theodolite and Lear-Siegler gyro; very, very small and compact- but probably not rugged enough as it appeared to be replaced by the 2nd version for US Army field units.

This is the SIAGL drawing previously posted above, followed by an actual picture

North Seeking Gyroscope (also called SIAGL, but version # 2)

2nd Version: Leica-Wild version using the SKK-3 Gyro and a T-16 -84(new style). The SKK-3 gyro was the successor to the commercial GAK-1 Gyro. Accuracy for this version was ±0.150 mil divided by the cosine of the latitude; the usable coverage was worldwide from 0 to 75 degrees latitude.
This is a picture of this version:

(PADS) Precision Azimuth Determination System
-PADS was a self-contained INS used to provide field artillery survey data (universal transverse mercator) coordinates, heights, and direction) critical to weapon systems and target acquisition platforms. Accuracy was 4 m (CEP) horizontal, 2 m (probable error (PE)) vertical, and 0.4 mil (PE) directional using 5 minute zero velocity updates; or 7 m (CEP) horizontal, 3 m (PE) vertical, and 0.4 mil (PE) directional using 10 minute zero velocity updates.
The coverage (before the drift error became too large to be reliable) was 7 hours or 55 km mission duration.

GLPS: Gun Laying Positioning System,
GLPS is a tripod-mounted system composed of three fully integrated components: a north-finding gyroscope, an eyesafe laser rangefinder (LRF) and a digital electronic theodolite. It provides conventional field artillery units with highly accurate orientation.
GLPS uses a customized Leica T-500 theodolite with integrated laser rangefinder, mounted to the SKK-15 gyro (successor to the SKK-3 Gyro) Had the ability to interface with the military grade encrypted P(Y) AN/PSN-11(V) GPS unit (the PLGR, or Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver) system for determining UTC coordinates of objects.

Reflectorless distance measurement up to 2500m with 2m PE
Horizontal and vertical angle measurement to 0.1mil resolution
Azimuth accuracy between 0.2 and 0.3mil
Survey routines with automated computations mfr'd by Leica, (now Vectronix)- currently fielded (began in mid 1990's)

Picture of a GLPS with a PLGR attached for GPS location.

MASS: Military Autonomous Surveying System: mid 2000's to current- the newest version from LEICA- MASS is the military equivalent to the “total stations” used by civil engineers and surveyors. Without depending on GPS, MASS can provide survey control (common grid) to all battlefield assets. It is composed of a tripod, an electronic theodolite, an eyeafe laser rangefinder (LRF) and an optional northfinding gyroscope.

Reflectorless distance measurement up to 2.500 meters with 2m PE
Horizontal and vertical angle measurement to 0.1 mil resolution
Cableless data and power interface between gyro and theodolite
Azimuth accuracy 0.2 to 0.3mil
Survey routines with automated computations