Tricks for robot finding prism in thick brush?

I have a Trimble S3 that I can control from the TSC3. The S3 has laser lights on the front to help guide you turning it towards you. I've learned about where it needs to find the prism. Does your robot offering anything like that?

The S6 I'm running does have Vision, a rather slow and pixilated video feed that gives me the gun's perspective. Problem for me is I'm too far from the gun to really see where it's pointing and trying to find myself through a pin hole in a sea of green is well ... frustrating.

I've noticed the same thing. Vision works great in the open. If you're in a cluttered area the auto-focus tends to get fixated on something closer to the gun and the feed becomes slow and pixelated. If they would add the ability to manually focus the camera it would be a huge help in cluttered environments.

The Trimble 5600 is very good about finding the prism as long as both the prism and diode is exposed. I just hit the search function and it usually locks on.

It might just depend on what brand you are using.

> Everything here is quickly turning brilliant green and I can't complain, in fact it's difficult not to be a bit giddy about it, but ... when I'm 500' from the robot in the thick of the willows and all I have is a tiny window through which I can see the gun and vica versa, getting that robot to find me is getting more challenging by the day. Anyone have any tips? I use to use a high intensity flash light to help the instrument man find me, but that isn't working out so well now that my gunner is a collection of servos and microprocessors.

When I was using my 5600 or the Sokkia robot, we would just clear ROW to ROW and that typically removed any foliage problems. Of course I was working for a construction company, YMMV. 😀

Use a Stihl....

> Use a Stihl....

Nope. Jonsereds work much better with the S6:-D

Or one of these in combination with it:

Thinking about mounting one of these LEDs to the top of the prism so hopefully I would stand out as bright spot on the video against the leafy back ground. I experimented with a flashing one, but that didn't work because it was nearly always out of sync with the slow frame rate of the video.

If it's just for topo, turn lock off. You only need a couple of cycles to acquire h & v angles and sd; not the additional time to acquire lock. Then joystick to the next hole in the trees and shoot. You do have to adjust the RH each time, but it beats clearing brush. Good Luck.

> Look into track-to-location type option options. If the DC has built in GPS and/or the rover is over the prism (though that can be cumbersome) the gun can follow the rod around (e.g like if you walk around a large object like a building) that rough GPS position gives it a place to start looking.

Aloha, Gschrock and Willi:

:good:

I have Ranger 3 (aka TSC3) with Survey Pro. There is an option for "Goelock" in tracking window. Once the TS (in this case S6) is setup and oriented, it is easy to get the S6 to find you and the DC anytime it stops tracking you. Push the Goelock button it will turn the S6 toward your direction, then it will begin to search within the narrowed down "preset search window."

This works like a charm as long as you are not under a tree canopy...so it may not work all the time:-( Also think you need to be working with true north...I could be wrong here...

Aloha

Search this site for "geolock" I had good luck using this feature and not to expensive if your total station is set up for it. My 2 cents, Jp

My technique using a S3 or S6 in thick bush is firstly to disable the GPS autolock, as the gps fix is so poor in thick bush, that often the robot turns 10-30 m away from your actual position, and the worst is the elevations are 3 times worse so it normally turns high or low in the sky... in other words no where near your true position.

So disable this feature, turn on the two guide lights that flash red and green, adjust the rod height to eye level and remote control the gun using joystick mode until a red or green flash hit you, turn the sensitivity of the joystick down and track that robot to the lights flash strong, then hit the search button...not the GPS search button... it should find you in a few seconds.

On tough sites, with long distances to the robot were it is hard to see the guide lights, I always make a mental note of were my last good topo shot was before entering the thick bush, I then retrace my steps back to it tell the robot to stake that shot out and turn to it, and it will find you, then carefully plan your route to the next point.

I think the trick is to keep the prism at eye level looking for the guide lights.

I am quite good at it now and no longer call our shared assistant to come over and run the robot manually to track me. My brother gets that perk.

However working in road traffic is another story, there I put the GNSS receiver on top of the prism, run an intergrated survey, and with the fixed GPS solution, the robot turns immediately to you first time, faster than someone at the gun can even. It is a heavy combination to lug around though, my arm and back is buggered after a few hundred shots.

Good luck.

If your looking to upgrade to a new robotic station, some of the higher end models have a camera that you can view with the data collector. you can control the total station to find the prism then lock on.

We have some Tocpon QS series they seem to find the prism well without having to use the find me button.

If I were to design a robot, I'd put 360 little lights on it that went out 360°, and had a numerical attachment to each little light, that sent a code as to where the rover was. And, it would have maybe 50 rows of those. Now, we never get lost.

It's stupid that nobody has done this yet.

N

The S6 we acquired last fall has the video component, though no tracking lights on the instrument that I'm aware of. The problem for me is 1)finding myself quickly when I'm in dense cover more than 300'+ away from the instrument and 2) finding a window through the thick brush to get a shot. I work for a utility and much of my work is along travel corridors and one of the problems I encounter is the vegetation has a tendency to grow very thick out towards the open light of the road way making it very dense. A lot of times that 'window' is not at eye level so I need to raise the rod and move it about so I can find that 'sweet' spot to get the shot. If only there was some way I could tell the gun where to look and then spot a bright light when the prism is in one of these 'windows'. Some times when wind is blowing the window opens and closes and it becomes a timing thing.

We can turn on and off the tracking lights I am sure there is a setting where you can as well

Sounds like a good excuse to bust out the manual. Thanks Scott

:good:

Autolock works like a charm, out in the open. Lose lock in the thick and hit search and might as well 'smoke'em if you got'em' because it's going to be a while.