SURVEYING FOR AEC BY Gavin The GNSS + Scanning Total Station Advantage Schrock, Contributing Editor S The addition of scanning capabilities to robotic total stations enables sur-veyors to operate two instruments simultaneously, with the same field data collector and software. canning capabilities, in one form or another, have been added to models of robotic total station (RTS) since 2007 — for instance, on the Trimble VX. Such capabilities were limited to a pattern of individual shots, as the RTS would “nod.” While not designed to compete with traditional scanners, even such painfully slow “pseudo-scanning” capabilities demonstrate the value of new options for capturing detailed features. It was not long before nearly all RTS offered limited (nodding scanning) capabilities, though at rates as slow as 15 shots per second. By 2013, the release of the Leica MS50 took the nodding scan to the next level, with a rate of up to 1,000 points per second, and then up to 30,000 in the subsequent MS60 model (which now also supports a tilting prism pole). The end of 2016 saw the release of Trimble’s SX10 (and SX12 more recently). This routed the laser through a pair of rotating prisms to capture a swath of points as it nodded. In 2019, Topcon took the approach of adding a piggy-backed compact conventional scanner to the top of an RTS: the GTL-1000 and GTL-1200 models. All these implementations were built upon high-quality RTS. Foremost, they can be operated as an RTS, with all the same integrated surveying capabilities as instruments with which surveyors were familiar, and in the same field software. At last... precision for everyone. Corrected GNSS Antenna Receiver ✓ < 6-cm accuracy ✓ 60-day PointPerfect corrections ✓ Supporting SDK software ✓ Out-of-the-box operation ✓ OEM and Housed versions DESIGN PARTNER tallysman.com/gnss FEBRUARY 2023 | WWW.GPSWORLD.COM GPS WORLD 25
GPS World February 2023: Page 25
