Position Issue - 66

August/September 2013 – No. 66

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

THE FUTURE IS

HERE Retailers cash in on real-time GIS

Official publication of

inside Filling the gap How Geoscience Australia overcame the loss of Landsat-5

Mine automation The CSIRO’s autonomous mining machinery

Positioning crabs GPS-tracking the largest land-living arthropod

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contents

August/September 2013 No.66

page

22

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32

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46

features 22 Cashing in on real-time GIS

40 Monitoring movement

Spanning a wide range of applications, real-time GIS is just the tip of the iceberg for the new generation of spatial technology.

24 Filling the Landsat-5 gap When Landsat-5 was suspended in 2011, Geoscience Australia called in DMCii to help.

28 Lost in space no more A new framework for using satellites will make a big difference to remote sensing and positioning.

A technical overview of the new Monitoring Station (MS) series by Topcon.

42 Geospatial for a nicer world A NZ start-up is helping reduce emissions and traffic congestion, using geospatial tech.

44 It’s all relative After replacing an inaccurate land base, you’ll need to re-align your asset layers, too.

46 Positioning crabs The first large-scale study of any arthropod using GPS technology to monitor behaviour is being conducted on Christmas Island by a German-based team of biologists.

32 The future of mine automation The CSIRO is driving the research aiming for an automated future.

34 Building a social licence Gaining the approval and support of the local community for a mining project is a key success criterion.

38 Surveying for safety Two surveyors from different mines in Australia give their opinion on mine surveying and safety.

regulars 4 7 8 16 49 50

Upfront, Calendar Editorial News Company News New Products SSSI www.spatialsource.com.au

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Upcoming Events 14-16 August 2013: Australian Institute of Mine Surveyors Conference; Adelaide, SA. http://bit.ly/19fYa2B. 28-31 August 2013: NZIS Conference; Dundedin, NZ. www.nzisconference.org.nz.

1-6 September 2013: IAG 150th anniversary scientific assembly; Potsdam, Germany. www.iag2013.org.

upfront

Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica 08 July 2013 TerraSAR-X (c) DLR 2013

A new iceberg the size of Tonga Above is an image captured by the earth observation satellite TerraSAR-X, which shows the breaking away of a 720 square kilometre area of ice shelf from the Pine Island glacier, the longest and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic. This ice shelf is now floating in the Amundsen Sea in the form of a very large iceberg, about the same size as Tonga.

Scientists from NASA discovered the first crack in the glacier tongue on 14 October 2011, when flying over the area. At that time it was some 24 kilometres long and 50 metres wide.

Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research have been following this natural spectacle via TerraSAR-X from the German Space Agency (DLR).

“As a result of these cracks, one giant iceberg broke away from the glacier tongue. It measures 720 square kilometres,” reports Prof Angelika Humbert, ice researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute.

The glaciologist and her team used the high-resolution radar images of the DLR earth observation satellite TerraSAR-X to observe the progress of the two cracks and to better understand the physical processes behind the glacier movements.

“Above the large crack, the glacier last flowed at a speed of twelve metres per day,” reports Humbert’s colleague Dr Dana Floricioiu from DLR. Nina Wilkens, PhD graduate in Prof.

Humbert’s team, added: “Using the images we have been able to follow how the larger crack on the Pine Island glacier extended initially to a length of 28 kilometres. Shortly before the ‘birth’ of the iceberg, the gap then widened bit by bit so that it measured around 540 metres at its widest point.”

The scientists incorporate these and other TerraSAR-X satellite data in com-

4 position August/September 2013

puter simulations, which allow them to model the break and flow mechanisms of the ice masses. “Glaciers are constantly in motion. They have their very own flow dynamics. Their ice is exposed to permanent tensions and the calving of icebergs is still largely unresearched,” explains ice modeller Angelika Humbert.

Are these ice breaks caused by climate change?

Angelika Humbert says that it’s notoriously hard to determine such a direct cause, as “the creation of cracks in the shelf ice and the development of new icebergs are natural processes.”

What they do know, however, is that the Pine Island glacier, which flows from the Hudson Mountains to the Amundsen Sea, was the fastest flowing glacier in the Western Antarctic, with a flow speed of around 4 kilometres per year. This speed isn’t so much caused by rising air temperatures, but is more attributable to the fact that the wind directions in the Amundsen Sea have altered, and “now bring warm sea water beneath the shelf ice. Over time, this process means that the shelf ice melts from below,” says the scientist.

For the Western Antarctic ice shelf, an even faster flow of the Pine Island glacier would presumably have serious consequences. “The Western Antarctic land ice is on land that is deeper than sea level. Its “bed” tends towards the land. The danger therefore exists that these large ice masses will become unstable and will start to slide,” says Angelika Humbert.

If the entire West Antarctic ice shield were to flow into the Ocean, this would lead to a global rise in sea level of around 3.3 metres, inundating many coastal towns and cities. n

2-5 September 2013: AFAC2013; Melbourne, Victoria. www.afac2013.org.

4-6 September 2013: Ozri 2013; Brisbane, Qld. http://esriaustralia.com.au/ event/ozri-2013-sed-261.

16 September: Saving lives with GIS - RedR information session; Melbourne, Vic. http://redr.org.au/news/ upcoming-events 17-21 September 2013: FOSS4G; Nottingham, UK. http://2013.foss4g.org.

18-20 September 2013: 2013 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Summit; Sydney, NSW. www.its-australia. com.au/events/its-summit-2013.

23 September 2013: Saving lives with GIS - RedR information session; Sydney, NSW. http://redr.org.au/news/ upcoming-events 24-25 September 2013: International FIG workshop on the LADM; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. www.isoladm.org.

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The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

Publisher Simon Cooper Editor Charles Pauka charles@intermedia.com.au Journalist Simon Chester Graphic Designer Alyssa Coundouris National Advertising Manager Troy Hale thale@intermedia.com.au Circulation/Subscriptions Chris Blacklock Production Jacqui Cooper www.spatialsource.com.au Position is published six times a year, in February, April, June, August, October and December by Interpoint Events Pty Ltd. ABN: 9810 451 2469 Address: 41 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: +61 2 9660 2113 Fax: +61 2 9660 4419 Editorial inquiries should be sent to: charles@intermedia.com.au

from the editor O

ne of the serious consequences of the excessive population growth I wrote about last issue is the overloading of Australia’s infrastructure – whether it be health, education, utilities or transport.

Unless you get sick, in which case you are guaranteed to spend hours in overcrowded hospital waiting rooms, the most obvious manifestation of infrastructure not coping for most people is the state of public and road transport in the country’s major cities. While Sydney and Melbourne both receive over 1,000 new residents every single week of the year, road and rail expansion is – if at all – an afterthought, beyond the asphalt and kerbing spreading out in the new cul-de-sacs.

The daily commute for most city dwellers these days is an exercise in aggravation, with an hour or more spent crawling along congested roads in the morning, only to be repeated in the evening. There are too many buses, too many cars for the amount of road space available, not to mention the frustration of professional drivers who get fewer and fewer deliveries done in a working day with each passing week.

It is therefore a relief to see a shining light on the horizon, a suite of solutions that promises to ease the congestion without asphalting over more of the cities’ shrinking lands. The development of intelligent transport systems (ITS) spans a broad set of technologies from telematics to geospatial, and promises to help alleviate at least some of our transport congestion problems.

You will find full details on the upcoming ITS Australia Summit on page 16, and make sure you attend and find out how your industry is contributing to the ITS solution.

Advertising inquiries should be sent to: thale@intermedia.com.au Ph: +61 2 8586 6103 Designed and produced by The Intermedia Group, 41 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037

Charles Pauka Editor charles@intermedia.com.au

Position is available via subscription only. To subscribe visit www.intermedia. com.au, phone 1 800 651 422 or email: subscriptions@intermedia.com.au.

Subscription rates and information can be found on page 48.

Reprints from Position are permitted only with the permission of the publisher. In all cases, reprints must be acknowledged as follows: ‘Reprinted with permission from Position Magazine’, and must include the author’s byline.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher.

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Coming soon October/November 2013 GIS in the mainstream – GIS and governments – Open data December/January 2013-14 Special Annual Directory Edition – GNSS – Precision agriculture – Indoor positioning

On the cover From ‘know-all shop assistants’ in the retail sector to live social media maps for emergency responders, real-time GIS is just the tip of the iceberg for the new generation of spatial technology.

www.spatialsource.com.au

7

news The benefits of precise positioning to the economy The Australian Government’s Space Coordination Office recently engaged ACIL Allen to prepare reports on the economic benefit of precise positioning to a number of different sectors across the Australian economy.

The reports have been made available by the IGNSS Society on its website at http://www.ignss.org/.

The reports cover the following topics: • Economic Benefit General Overview • Agriculture • Aviation • Construction • Maritime • Mining • Rail • Surveying • Transport • Utilities

Mind-controlled UAV RedR Australia deployee Leigh Burgess mapping water points and pumps in small villages in the Philippines post-Typhoon Bopha.

Information sessions: saving lives with GIS RedR Australia’s Leigh Burgess recently spent six months in the Philippines, working with UNICEF to support the postTyphoon Bopha relief effort.

The GIS specialist coordinated a major data collection project to record water and sanitation infrastructure, identifying damage and gaps in services.

Leigh also provided GPS training for local staff as part of the mapping exercise, boosting the in-country skills base.

RedR Australia is an international humanitarian organisation providing skilled people to United Nations agencies in times of crisis.

The only Standby Partner to the United Nations in the Southern Hemisphere, RedR Australia is also a leading provider of humanitarian preparedness training, working to build resilience in disaster-affected communities around the world.

RedR Australia recruits from a wide range of skillsets includ-

8 position August/September 2013

ing public health, information and communications technology, logistics, public information/ media liaison, engineering, and water and sanitation.

Current priority recruitment profiles include: • information management, ideally with GIS skills; • protection and child protection; • emergency response; • education in emergencies; • nutrition; RedR Australia is holding evening information sessions for anyone wanting to find out more about the organisation and how to join its Standby Register.

The details: • Melbourne - 16 September, 5.30pm onwards • Sydney - 23 September, 5.30pm onwards.

For more information and to register, please visit the RedR website at www.redr.org. au/news/upcoming-events.

Researchers in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering have developed a new non-invasive system that allows people to control an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using only their mind. The study goes far beyond fun and games and has the potential to help people who are paralysed or have neuro-degenerative diseases.

Five subjects (three female and two male) who took part in the study were each able to successfully control the quadcopter, quickly and accurately, for a sustained amount of time.

“Our study shows that for the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts sensed from a non-invasive skull cap,”

said Bin He, lead author of the study and biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering. “It works as good as invasive techniques used in the past.”

He said this research is intended to help people who are paralysed or have neurodegenerative diseases regain mobility and independence.

“We envision that they’ll use this technology to control wheelchairs, artificial limbs or other devices,” he said.

The study has been published in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Neural Engineering.

A University of Minnesota video of the robot in action can be viewed at http://bit. ly/14wzX7X. Image courtesy of University of Minnesota.

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news German-Australian collaboration maps the Coral Sea A steep, 800-metre underwater cliff recently discovered in the Coral Sea, to the northeast of Cooktown, will help shed light on the ancient past, and could also prove to be a hotspot of marine life diversity.

It was found during a collaborative expedition by German marine scientists and Australian researchers from James Cook University and the University of Sydney.

During June and July, working on one of Germany’s largest research vessels, the RV Sonne,

scientists have been mapping the seafloor of the northern Coral Sea – from Papua New Guinea, south along the deep Great Barrier Reef to Townsville, and then east into New Caledonian waters.

“Using a deep-water, multibeam swath echosounder, we were able to detect a steep cliff in an area where we would usually expect to find a gradually sloping seafloor,” said Dr Robin Beaman, from JCU’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

“The top of the undersea cliff lies in about 1800 metres of water and drops nearly vertically into the Queensland Trough at 2600 metres.”

The cliff could record the layers of coral growth that formed on the Queensland Plateau before subsiding to its present depth over the past several million years.

“Elsewhere in the world, such steep cliffs are also the habitats

for prolific marine life, so this discovery will be used to plan a future expedition to sample the seafloor,” Dr Beaman said.

“The data from this collaborative expedition is timely, given the area’s recent inclusion in the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve,” Dr Beaman said. “It shows there is still much to discover about the deep environments of the Coral Sea.”

Landsat-8 now fully operational

WALIS Forum, WASIC, and WASEA 2013 scheduled for November The Western Australia Spatial Information Conference and the 2013 WA Spatial Excellence Awards (WASEA) will be held on November 7 and 8, 2013 at the Crown, Perth.

The WALIS Forum is one of the most popular and longest-running location information and technology conference events in Australia, consistently attracting over 700 delegates from across Australia and overseas. The WALIS Forum has become established as a key opportunity for all levels of government, the private and research sectors and industry to network, share and promote their ideas, new products and services to a wide and varied audience.

This year the conference

is bringing together three previously separate events – WALIS Forum 2013, Western Australian Spatial Information Conference and the 2013 WA Spatial Excellence Awards (WASEA). These events will be held together at the newly refurbished Crown Perth.

WALIS Forum 2013 Integrate, Transform and Grow - will focus on how companies around the world are using the power of location-based information and technology to integrate information across their operations to transform and grow their business.

For more information on WALIS Forum 2013 and to register, visit www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum .

10 position August/September 2013

On May 30, NASA transferred operational control of the Landsat-8 satellite to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in a ceremony in Sioux Falls, S.D. The event marks the beginning of the satellite's mission to extend a four-decade record of monitoring Earth's landscape from space.

Landsat-8 is the latest in the Landsat series of remotesensing satellites, which have been providing global coverage of landscape changes on Earth since 1972. The Landsat program is a joint effort between NASA and USGS. Geoscience Australia is an International Cooperator and member of the Landsat Science Team.

NASA launched the satellite on February 11, as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). Since then, NASA mission engineers and scientists, with USGS collaboration, have been putting the satellite

through its paces – steering it into its orbit, calibrating the detectors, and collecting test images. Now fully missioncertified, the satellite is under USGS operational control.

"Landsat is a centrepiece of NASA's Earth Science program," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in Washington. "Landsat-8 carries on a long tradition of Landsat satellites that, for more than 40 years, have helped us learn how Earth works, to understand how humans are affecting it, and to make wiser decisions as stewards of this planet."

The newest satellite joins Landsat-7, which launched in 1999 and continues to collect images. Since 2008, USGS has provided more than 11 million current and historical Landsat images free of charge to people and organisations across the world, including Geoscience Australia.

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news 2013 AIMS Conference

The 32nd Australian Institute of Mine Surveyors Annual Conference will be held from 14-16 August 2013 at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

This is the first time that the event is being held in the City of Churches, and the conference has attracted a wide variety of technical papers, covering surveying challenges from Mongolia to Olympic

Dam, that will both inform and challenge the delegates.

A great partners’ program has been developed to showcase some Adelaide’s finest sites and activities, and, for early arrivals, the conference committee has booked North Adelaide Golf Course, allowing delegates to enjoy a quick round before the conference commences.

The opening night will see

an informal street-style food fair theme that will cater to all tastes, while the formal dinner on Thursday 15 August will sit at the other end of the spectrum, combining dinner with a wine appreciation class.

Also, this year Gold sponsors will host a rotational workshop, where you can see practical demonstrations of the latest in surveying technology, as well as have any tricky questions answered by the experts.

The conference will feature a host of interesting speakers and presentations, including keynotes from the surveyor general of South Australia, Michael Burdett, and Olympic and World Champion cyclist, Anna Meares.

Other presentations include: • Christie Gerrard - South Australian Resources Information Geoserver.

• David Bruce - The purpose,

politics and positioning of Goyder’s line in 1865 and 150 years on.

• Brett Grocock - Don’t tell mum I’m a contractor, she thinks I’m a surveyor with BHP. • Rebecca Taylor - A mine of Olympic proportions.

• John Dawson - Geoscience Australia - Proposed datum changes.

• John Taylor - Subsurface imaging for void management - where to from here?

• James Moncrieff - Laser scanning mine incidents.

• Chris Hutchison - Effects of the Geiod on deep mine control surveys.

• Michael Nicholson - The changing face of mine subsidence measurement.

• Martin Brook - Subsurface geophysical surveys.

The full agenda is available at: http://bit.ly/1dP0u07.

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The countdown begins Last year’s event saw a hightech laser show, an ex-FBI agent reveal how GIS has solved some of the world’s most grisly crimes, and an army of 500 GIS professionals in the audience.

This year, Ozri 2013 – said to be the Asia Pacific’s largest GIS conference and networking event – is set to raise the bar once again, when it takes place at Brisbane’s newly refurbished Convention and Exhibition Centre from 4-6 September.

Hosted by Esri Australia, Ozri 2013 is a chance for GIS professionals to gather, collaborate and share their knowledge of intelligent mapping and technological advancements.

The theme of this year’s conference, A Spatial Odyssey,

will explore the role GIS technology holds in making business discoveries, breaking new ground in research, and solving community challenges.

The conference will take attendees on more than just a spatial journey. Rather, Ozri 2013 will be a highly interactive and hands-on experience that will ‘push the envelope’ when it comes to delegates’ expectations.

The event will see industry and technology experts showcase the latest developments in ArcGIS 10.2, ArcGIS Online, location analytics, real-time data updates and social media mapping.

There will also be a few other surprises, including 3D technology demonstrations that

create digital cities in seconds, a rare glimpse at one of the world’s most historic maps, and special guest presenters flying in from all over the globe.

Many of Australia’s most progressive geospatially enabled organisations have already signed up to deliver presentations, including the National Library of Australia, which will be taking delegates on a journey back through time, showcasing ancient treasure maps from some of the world’s earliest voyages.

From a blast to the past and back to the future, Townsville City Council will be unveiling a virtual 3D model of the city that will help shape its planning and development for decades to come. The cutting-edge devel-

opment tool enables residents to ‘fly through’ a 3D world of the city’s new planning scheme.

And in keeping with the 3D theme, ShipShapeSearchers – a team of shipwreck hunters – will be showing how they used LiDAR to explore Australia’s coastlines and digitally recreated the ocean’s floor.

Other organisations sharing their GIS stories include Landgate, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services, and Education Queensland.

With over 700 professionals expected to attend from around the world, Ozri 2013 is set to live up to its reputation as the leading geospatial event on the Asia Pacific calendar.

To register visit www. esriaustralia.com.au/ozri.

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news

Charting the future of transport networks The Australian ITS Summit, to be held on 18-20 September 2013 at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, will explore how the latest developments in transportation management technology can be combined with the explosion in the availability of location information to create congestion-proof transport networks.

Susan Harris.

Intelligent Transport Systems Australia chief executive officer Susan Harris spoke to Position magazine editor Charles Pauka about the summit and the current and future state of intelligent transport systems in Australia.

Charles Pauka: What is the aim of the Australian ITS Summit?

Susan Harris: The summit’s objective is a national vision, with a core set of transport priorities broadly acknowledged across all government jurisdictions, actively supported by both the research community and the private sector. The 2013 Summit will build on the previous summits and will focus on the National ITS Action Agenda, an update of the current status of ITS in Australia, and challenges facing the ITS Industry in the current climate.

Charles Pauka: Interest by prospective speakers has been extremely strong, both from overseas and locally. How many of the presentations at the summit will be from international speakers?

Susan Harris: We have had over 120 submissions and have developed a comprehensive program with 19 international speakers from a total of over 100 ITS executives speaking on a broad range of ITS topics.

Speakers will update delegates on the latest findings from cooperative ITS

field trials and their demonstrated benefits from the US, Europe and Japan. Speakers will highlight opportunities to improve transport mobility, safety and sustainability such as through tools to improve motorway management and opportunities for motorists to receive real time and predictive travel time information.

A comprehensive program is included on our website www. its-australia.com.au/australianits-summit-2013.

over 30 industry displays. The exhibition will feature exciting onsite ITS displays and several demonstration vehicles, each showcasing upcoming safety, technology and connectivity innovations.

Transport Certification Australia (TCA) will display its Audit and Test Vehicle (ATV) that conducts tests assessing location, time, speed and data integrity. Visitors to the summit will have the opportunity to view the hardware and learn more about TCA and its products and services.

Intelematics will be previewing mass-market passenger vehicle Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) services due for release later this year. In addition, a field demonstration of aftermarket connected services

Charles Pauka: How many delegates do you expect at the conference and what can they expect to see?

Susan Harris: Based on past attendance, we expect at least 300 delegates. There has been strong support for the speaker program and interest in the exhibition, which bodes well for a strong attendance.

The exhibition will be the main meeting place and focal point, comprising the Intelematics Internet Lounge and

soon to be offered by a number of Australian motoring clubs will be on display.

Charles Pauka: ITS have already made a large impact on easing congestion around cities and surrounding areas.

What example would you offer that highlights the benefits of ITS? Susan Harris: Managed motorways, for example, increase

16 position August/September 2013

traffic throughput by around 25% - a great demonstration of the use of technology to maximise the utilisation of physical infrastructure.

Charles Pauka: How would you describe the attitude of government bodies (at different levels) to the concept of ITS? Susan Harris: While government bodies are supportive of the benefits for ITS, there is an opportunity to accelerate the take up and increase mobility benefits through greater sharing of information and collaboration.

Technology applications need to be considered at each point of transport infrastructure development and upgrade

to maximise the efficiency, safety and sustainability of our transport networks.

Given that technology elements are less visible parts of infrastructure projects, it can be easy for governments to cut spending in this area when budgets are tight, only to substantially reduce the effectiveness of physical infrastructure.

Continued on page 18.

news MapInfo Forum 2013 is coming!

There is good news for the Australian and New Zealand MapInfo community. Pitney Bowes will be holding a MapInfo Forum road show over the months of September and October 2013. Designed to bring MapInfo community members together, the road show will cover eleven cities across Australia and New Zealand.

This forum, unlike previous MapInfo user forums, is being structured around direct feedback from the MapInfo community. There are more cities being visited, a much greater emphasis being placed on user presentations, and an opportunity for everyone to network with peers. The forum is designed to bring together professionals from diverse realms that share something in common – MapInfo Location Intelligence.

Included in the forums will be presentations from Pitney Bowes on the vision and strategy of the Location Intelligence Portfolio, including products like MapInfo Professional and Spectrum Spatial. There will also be technical sessions to help guide the effective use of the technology and access to expert staff to discuss specific topics on the day.

“We want to do everything we can to support the vibrant MapInfo community in Australia and New Zealand,” says Simon Bird, general manager of Pitney Bowes Software AU/NZ. “I am looking forward to seeing more of our customers sharing their experiences and success stories directly with their peers.”

At a high level, MapInfo Forum will cover: • What’s new and coming in the MapInfo suite.

• Customer case study presentations.

• MapInfo suite kiosks demonstrating products.

• Tips and techniques to get more from the technology.

• Breakout focus group sessions. …and more.

The MapInfo Forum agenda is still being developed.

Updates will be provided regularly through customer emails and Spatial Source updates. The eleven locations being planned for the road shows are: • Hunter Region, 18th September 2013.

• Ballina/Lismore Region, 25th September 2013.

• Brisbane, 15th October 2013.

• Sydney, 16th October 2013.

• Melbourne, 17th October 2013.

• Canberra, 18th October 2013.

• Hobart, 12th November 2013.

• Adelaide, 13th November 2013.

• Darwin, 19th November 2013.

• NZ North Island, TBA. • NZ South Island, TBA. Register your interest to attend a MapInfo Forum now at www.pitneybowes.com.au/ MapInfo-Forum.

The organisers would like to hear from you. There are still speaking opportunities available for most of the cities.

If you have a great MapInfo success story that you would like to share with the MapInfo community, please register at pbsoftware.australia@pb.com to confirm your interest.

traffic and traveller information services in Australia.

Charles Pauka: What is Australia’s standing in the international arena with regards to ITS in terms of technical competence and in terms of implementation?

Susan Harris: Australia has a history of leading the world in some specific areas of ITS technology. Australia was one of the first countries to implement free-flow tolling, our managed motorway systems have been amongst the first in the world, and we have Australian-based companies that are leaders in

the development of connected vehicle technology.

For example, Cohda Wireless is an Adelaide-based equipment vendor in the C-ITS market with acknowledged best-in-world performance.

Cohda’s hardware and software products are being used in car-to-car field trials worldwide today. Their customers include a large number of car makers, tier one suppliers, automotive chip makers, road authorities, as well as new market entrants.

ITS Australia is currently working with industry participants to prepare a submission

for the establishment of a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) in ITS to ensure that Australian industry continues to be at the forefront of this rapidly evolving space. This CRC will invest inconnected vehicle applications, positioning Australian industry to play a leading role in this emerging field.

For more information and to register for the Australian ITS Summit, to be held on 18–20 September 2013 at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, visit www.itsaustralia.com.au/australianits-summit-2013.

Funding and valuing ITS

Integrated Transport Management

ITS enhancing Road Safety

Modelling to ensure successful ITS outcomes

ITS Data Collection and Analysis

ITS Enhancing the Transport Customer Experience

ITS to Enable Road User Charging

Managed Motorways – Case Studies

Establishment and adoption of ITS Standards

Innovative ITS

Managed Motorways Technologies

Public Transport and Multi-modal ITS

Cooperative ITS – Trials and Expectations

GIS and Positioning to support ITS

ITS for Environment and Sustainability

Successful delivery of ITS

Advances in Sensing and Detection technologies

ITS – Looking Ahead

ITS for Regulation and Enforcement

Transit Passenger Information

ITS Summit 2013 Continued from page 16.

Providing information on transport condition directly to travellers (motorists as well as public transport users) enables informed choices regarding route and time of travel, enabling traffic to be spread more efficiently across our transport network. To facilitate this, it is important that governmentheld information on transport conditions is made readily available to travellers.

ITS Australia has established the Australian Traffic and Traveller Information Forum (ATTIF) to encourage collaboration and development of advanced

Program Overview

18 position August/September 2013

company news

Esri Australia launches SaaS offering Esri Australia is now offering GIS capabilities on a month-bymonth basis, with the software running in Amazon’s Cloud.

Esri Australia’s executive manager professional services Jeff Robinson said that, apart

from enabling existing users to scale up their operations, the solution provides a viable entry point for other organisations.

“Now, organisations such as smaller local government

groups, engineering and construction consortia and geographically dispersed agricultural enterprises can all easily deploy GIS capabilities – minus the regular infrastructure costs.”

Mr Robinson said the applications of the solution are broad ranging – from a simple web map relating to a specific topic or initiative to an advanced enterprise-wide deployment.

“For a retailer, this could mean providing its analysts with a visualisation tool to monitor shoppers’ in-store behaviour; for an engineering firm it could serve as a core asset management system; or for a state government body, it could be a public information map for a major event,” said Mr Robinson.

“As the GIS solution is hosted on the Amazon Cloud, it can be scaled up and down instantly to meet demand – whether it’s one user or one million users accessing the system.”

For more information on Esri Australia’s hosted GIS solutions visit esriaustralia. com.au/hostedGIS.

New Australian geolocation start-up launches A new method of finding places and objects has been launched in Sydney with Geepers – an Australian-designed geolocation technology with global application and potential for business and individual users alike.

The brainchild of David Whitfield, with backing from Internode founder Simon Hackett and incubator firm Bluechilli, Geepers uses a unique system to label and locate people, places and things.

Attendees of the GeoNext conference, held in February this year, were given a sneak peek of the technology as part of the conference’s Startup Showcase.

As the world gets more populated, traditional forms of labelling such as street addresses are becoming increasingly confusing. Geepers aims to solve this by enabling users to create a unique user name and then adding multiple locations with latitude and longitude co-ordinates, such as home, work, or current ‘on the move’ locations tied to their smartphone.

Geepers addresses are prefixed by the ‘!’ symbol. A search of !David_White will show all of David White’s addresses while !David_White.home will show David’s home location and !David_White.now will show David’s precise mobile location – if he has selected you as a friend.

Clicking on a desired location will then accurately navigate the searcher to that location.

20 position August/September 2013

NewSat secures funding Australian satellite operator NewSat has secured financing of $611 million for its Jabiru-1 satellite project. The company worked with the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the French export credit agency Coface to secure the funding and selected Lockheed Martin to build the satellite.

The Jabiru-1 spacecraft is expected to launch in 2015.

Jabiru-1, Australia’s first commercial Ka-band satellite, will provide superior telecommunications coverage over South East Asia, the

Middle East and North Africa.

Jabiru-2, also scheduled, will deliver enhanced coverage in and around Australia. NewSat has rights to eight premium orbital slots and its fleet of next-generation geostationary satellites will lead Australia’s space quest.

“Executing the financing documents is a major achievement for NewSat, as the company expands from a reseller of satellite capacity to an owner of satellites,” NewSat founder and CEO Adrian Ballintine said in a written statement.

cover story

Cashing in on

real-time GIS From ‘know-all’ shop assistants in the retail sector to live social media maps for emergency responders, real-time GIS is just the tip of the iceberg for the new generation of spatial technology.

An example of Townsville’s 3D spatial strategy.

C

onsumers walking into their favourite clothing store may soon be greeted by staff who already have the perfect outfit ready for them, according to a leading mapping expert.

Thanks to the latest in GIS technology, a customer’s location can now be used to trigger ‘push notifications’ of consumer data into the hands of staff via mobile devices such as tablets and phones.

This means before you’ve even entered a shop, the assistant could already know your shirt size, favourite colour, style preferences, and even your budget.

Kellie Persson, technical director at Ozri 2013 – said to be Australia’s leading spatial technology event – said this futuristic shopping experience is closer than most people think.

“Apps on your favourite mobile device use the built-in GPS, and with your permission, allow businesses to detect when their customers are in the vicinity of their stores,” Ms Persson said.

“Most businesses already collect a wealth of information in their backend business systems about consumers

22 position August/September 2013

through loyalty programs, marketing surveys, apps, and the tracking of purchase histories.

“With the latest GIS technology, we can now combine these capabilities so that when a customer is entering a store, ‘push notifications’ of relevant data are instantly sent to shop staff.

“This will enable retailers to deliver a cleverly tailored and truly unique shopping experience to their customers.”

Ms Persson said several major businesses in the US were already using or trialling ‘know-all’ shop assistants.

“A major convenience store in the US has already seen a 10 per cent rise in sales nationwide by using this technology to create an app that customers can opt in to,” Ms Persson said.

“Similarly, a large fashion chain and a popular discount retailer are also currently running pilots there.

“In Australia, businesses are already approaching us about this technology, because they can see it will provide a clear edge over their competitors in what is an incredibly tough industry.”

Real-time GIS is one of the newest frontiers for spatial technology, with advancements to the ArcGIS system meaning the once futuristic capability is now in the hands of users.

“ArcGIS has evolved to a point where it’s now transforming everyday mapping applications into frontline decision apps,” said Ms Persson.

“The platform now features free apps where you can view and update data in real time using your iPhone or Android smartphone.

“You can also accurately monitor work orders, staff and data from anywhere in the world, to get a crystal-clear view of your daily operations.”

And the applications don’t just stop with the retail sector. Across Australia, a broad range of industries are looking to take advantage of real-time GIS – with some, such as emergency services, even starting to map crowd-sourced social media feeds.

During a crisis, emergency services are turning to GIS technology to map geolocated text, photos and videos that have been uploaded by disaster eyewitnesses to social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube.

Former director of rural volunteering and support with the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Kerrie Purcell – who will be discussing the role of GIS and crowdsourced data at Ozri 2013 – said GIS technology provides first responders with rapid access to eyewitness accounts.

“Members of the community already use social media to upload and exchange enormous amounts of information during disasters – such as a photo of a bridge that is damaged, or video footage of flood waters rising,” Ms Purcell said “This is vital, near real-time information that can be used to bolster in-house disaster intelligence such as rescue infrastructure maps, weather patterns or video feeds from traffic cameras.

“There is still a place for more traditional information gathering, but the fact is, for many people, the web is becoming the first port of call during a disaster.”

Interestingly, in the 2013 ‘GIS in Local Government Benchmark Study’, 83 per cent of councils surveyed indicated they believe crowd-sourced information is important to emergency response activities.

Ms Purcell said assessing the legitimacy of social media feeds has traditionally been a challenge, but the new generation of GIS technology could help verify the crowd-sourced data.

“If a large number of tweets are clustered within a narrow timeframe and in a certain area, we can be a lot more confident about their veracity,” Ms Purcell said.

“Once verified, information becomes official intelligence and emergency managers can use it to conduct rescue operations, assess damage to critical infrastructure, and prioritise medical assistance.”

The arrival of real-time GIS means that an increasing number of organisations – from all sectors – are now looking to GIS technology to bring a heightened level of intelligence and analysis to their standard business systems.

Ms Persson said the onset of cloudbased GIS services means that any organisation, regardless of whether they’re established GIS users or new to the technology, can take advantage of these new capabilities.

“We’re seeing a change in the way the world works with maps, with intelligent mapping and location analytics becoming key to all business operations,” said Ms Persson.

“As such, we are welcoming a new group of users to the spatial sector, who may not have any prior GIS infrastructure, knowledge or experience.

“Cloud-based solutions, such as ArcGIS Online and the new wave of GIS services hosted on the Amazon Cloud, provide users with the ability to draw on advanced spatial capabilities, without the need for any hardware or infrastructure.

“This means that literally any organisation can start taking advantage of intel-

ligent mapping and location analytics in an instant.”

3D capabilities and imagery are also igniting the interest of users, with 3D moving beyond just a visualisation tool.

Ms Persson said the new breed of smart 3D GIS solutions enable users to make decisions with certainty.

“Whether it’s a retailer wanting to visualise their customers’ shopping experience, a power utility looking to conduct vegetation checks, or an engineering company running a site inspection, 3D GIS gives users a highly detailed, real-world view of a situation,” said Ms Persson.

One of the most advanced users of this technology in Australia – Townsville City Council – uses 3D GIS technology to enable town planners to answer a range of critical questions and perform complex calculations at a speed unthinkable in the old world of paper-based maps.

Ken Melchert, Townsville City Council’s Geospatial Solutions Manager, will be taking to the stage at Ozri 2013, to provide attendees with a first-hand look at the city’s new 3D spatial strategy.

“A vast range and depth of data can now be entered into 3D GIS technology, making it possible to create highly realistic virtual worlds,” Mr Melchert said.

“The 3D models generated can display everything from a city’s geological terrain,

Kerrie Purcell.

to its road networks, to its underground infrastructure, to building heights and the flight paths above it.

“The 3D models are ‘living’ files, and as council gathers and adds more information about Townsville, the 3D model becomes more detailed and comprehensive.

“In this way, our approach will continually evolve to ensure GIS technology remains an integral part of our city for many years to come.”

For further information about the new generation of GIS technology, or Ozri 2013, visit esriaustralia.com.au. n

Emergency services are turning to GIS technology.

www.spatialsource.com.au 23

feature

Filling the Landsat-5 gap Simon CheSter

U

ntil recently, the United States’ Landsat-5 satellite was a key source of medium-resolution data for the Australian government, available through Geoscience Australia. That is, until imaging from the long depended upon satellite was suspended in 2011, and decommissioned in January 2013.

The Landsat-8 mission wasn’t launched until February 2013, and wasn’t fully operational until the end of May, leaving a period of two years where only Landsat-7 was able to collect imagery.

To address the shortfall in access to medium-resolution data between the loss of Landsat-5, and the launch of Landsat-8, Geoscience Australia has acquired large regional coverage of UK-DMC2 satellite imagery from DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii).

The data was acquired through the Optical Geospatial Radar and Elevation cooperative procurement panel (OGRE), which was established by Geoscience Australia in partnership with the Australian GeospatialIntelligence Organisation (AGO) in 2010 to allow more efficient procurement and use of commercial imagery, and to encourage greater coordination and cooperation within all levels of Australian Government.

Since October 2010, $12.8 million worth of executed contracts have gone through the OGRE panel. $5.7 million worth of commercial imagery has been shared across government and research institutions at no further cost to tax payers.

So the practice of ‘buying once and using many times’ is a credit to the procurement of commercial imagery under more accessible licensing arrangement, such as CC BY and whole-of-government licensing.

A strong focus of the OGRE is to procure data under more flexible and open licensing arrangements with a focus on the procurement of data under a Creative Commons BY Attribution Licence 3.0 (CC BY).

Acquiring the imagery from DMCii was a landmark achievement for Geoscience Australia, as it was the first time that a national or large-scale regional coverage from a commercial satellite provider was procured under a CC BY licence.

“DMCii is proud to have supported the Australian EO user community by supplying timely 22m resolution coverages from UK-DMC2 within the ideal time windows specified by Geoscience Australia for 2012, together with archive coverages for 2010-11,” said Gary Holmes,

24 position August/September 2013

Standard False Colour Image of Lake Alexandrina at the mouth of the Murray River, South Australia.

Pseudo Natural Colour Image of Broome, Western Australia.

The DMCii imagery will be provided to the Australian Government to assist in meeting Portfolio Budget Statements and Outcomes.

Applications such as time series analysis will allow the imagery to be applied to a variety of environmental monitoring activities, including changes in forest cover, crop monitoring, and other changes in vegetation.

Landsat-5, Landsat-7, and DMCii UK-DMC-2 are all sources Standard False Colour Image of Lake Macleod, of medium resolution multispectral Western Australia. data. However, the 22m resolution, 650km wide swath of the UKDMC-2 and available spectral bands business development manager at DMCii. make it very suitable for large-scale “We are fully supportive of the highly environmental assessment. Through efficient creative commons licensing this process, Geoscience Australia also promoted by Geoscience Australia – ‘buy reviewed how the data could be applied once and use many times.’” to emergency management; a benefit The openness of the licence makes previously realised with the Landsat series. it ideal where data sharing is central to “The DMC sensors are designed to uses, such as emergency management and be easily compatible with Landsat data, environmental monitoring. The licence with spectral bands directly equivalent enables data to be shared with any govto Landsat bands 2, 3 and 4,” said Gary. ernment department, university or member of the public – greatly improving value “With the 650km swath, multiple satellites and rapid revisit, the DMC constellation is for money, as well as available insight.

able to capture very large areas cloud-free within short time windows, and is therefore a powerful complement to the Landsat program, augmenting data availability where the applications demand more regular coverage or higher resolution.

“For example, Australia could be covered wall to wall by the DMC constellation every 2 weeks, if required. With new satellites in the pipeline DMC 22m data continuity is assured for the long term.”

DMCii have been among the suppliers of satellite imagery used for assessing emergencies in Australia on several occasions.

“A useful feature of the DMCii system is the availability of medium resolution imagery over very large areas (up to 600km across using both sensors on the satellite) with a short revisit time,” said Norman Mueller, remote sensing scientist at Geoscience Australia.

“During the 2012 flooding in NSW, Geoscience Australia was able to acquire near daily coverage from the Spanish Deimos-1 satellite (one of the Disaster Management Constellation satellites), and track the extent of flooding along the Darling, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers over a few weeks. While the spectral bands covered

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feature

Standard False Colour Image of the South-Western Region of Western Australia.

Standard False Colour Image of the Culgoa River in flood.

Standard False Colour Image of Shark Bay, Western Australia.

Standard False Colour Image of two mosaicked DMCii images of the Top End of the Northern Territory.

Standard False Colour Image showing the border of South Australia and Victoria.

Standard False Colour Image of Tasmania.

by the DMC satellites are different to that of the Landsat satellites, the wider swath and faster revisit made the DMC satellites ideal for emergency response acquisitions such as flood mapping.”

Emergency management isn’t the only application, however, adds Norman.

“Potential applications of the DMCii imagery include flood mapping, burn scar mapping, forest mapping and a baseline comparison with new acquisitions for change detection.”

The coverage acquired through this new procurement enables comparative analysis to be undertaken after an emergency event has occurred. The availability of material from the same sensor helps to improve the efficiency assessments. Furthermore, the CC BY licensing ensures that the data can be distributed widely without the need to track downstream users.

The DMCii data was able to ‘fill in the gap’ of coverage between the suspension of Landsat-5, and the availability of Landsat-8 in May 2013. Now that Landsat-8 is running, the satellite is providing imagery greatly improved over its older brother.

“Landsat-8 offers a number of improvements over the previous Landsat satellites,” said Norman. “The sensors on Landsat-8 have a better signal-to-noise ratio and are more sensitive, providing clearer images and the ability to detect smaller changes in observed targets. In addition Landsat-8 has new spectral bands that were not available on the previous Landsat satellites providing new applications in coastal

studies and automatic cloud detection.”

The anticipated improvements seen from the band changes in the Landsat-8 instruments include the following: • the additional ‘deep blue’ band (1) to Landsat-8 will enable optical water quality mapping, and improve the understanding of sediment and carbon dynamics within estuaries and nearshore environments; • the additional ‘cirrus’ band (9) will improve the capacity to remove cloud from imagery. This is especially important for mapping forest extent and forest cover change in tropical and subtropical environments; • the availability of two thermal infra-red bands (10 and 11) will enable better characterisation of evapotranspiration, plant water use and water stress. This will improve the capacity to map patterns of water use and will improve the accuracy of water balance models; and • the improved signal to noise characteristics of Landsat-8 data will improve the capacity to map and monitor rangeland, wetlands, shallow water bathymetry and benthic substrates such as sea grass meadows and coral reefs.

As an International Cooperator and member of the Landsat Science Team, Geoscience Australia maintains close technical and scientific links to assist with satellite operations, scientific developments, and planning for future missions.

Landsat-8 products will be available at no cost from Geoscience Australia. Geoscience

Note to images

26 position August/September 2013

The DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation) satellites provide imagery for a wide variety of applications, including agriculture, forestry, and environmental mapping. DMC satellites provide high revisit, wide area, 22m Ground Sample Distance (GSD) MS satellite imagery, which is cross calibrated to Landsat 7, providing an excellent resource for data continuity or where a higher temporal coverage is required.

The latest DMC satellites carry the upgraded 22m GSD SLIM-6 sensor, with a programmable image size of 160 km to 650 km swath and a 160km to 1000km track and sensors the Red, Green and Near Infrared bands.

Original images supplied by DMC International Imaging Ltd. (DMCii) 2012 – CreativeCommons Attribution 3.0 Australia (CC BY 3.0).

Australia is currently tailoring its algorithms and production system to produce normalised surface reflectance products from Landsat-8 data and plans to process all Landsat-8 data to this level. Geoscience Australia plans to make these products available as web services. In the interim Landsat-8 data products are now available on-line from the USGS website at landsatlook.usgs.gov.

The complete set of DMCii data can be purchased from Geoscience Australia on a one terabyte USB hard drive for $150, by emailing sales@ga.gov.au. n

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feature Left: Lost in Space?

Fedsat was Australia’s first indigenous satellite.

This image was taken from a camera on the main booster shortly after separation.

Main image: Australia’s very first satellite was Wresat. It was launched on a surplus American Redstone rocket from Woomera in 1967. Photo courtesy of WRESAT project manager Des Barnsley, scanned and enhanced by Colin Mackellar. Visit www. honeysucklecreek.net for more information.

Lost in space no more Jon FairaLL

A new framework for using satellites will make a big difference to remote sensing and positioning.

I

n July, the Federal government established the Space Co-ordination Office as part of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. The office had been foreshadowed in April, when Senator Kate Lundy, the Minister Assisting for Innovation and Industry, announced the Australian Satellite Utilisation Policy.

Jennifer Doyle will head the new office.

It will be part of the Manufacturing Innovation branch of the department, which is headed by Michael Green.

We have been here before. Since the British left Woomera in the 1960s, there have been several inquiries into the state of the space industry. We have tried a number of bureaucratic arrangements.

All have urged more investment. All have been quietly ignored. So why should we notice the current attempt – isn’t Lundy just another grandstanding politician?

28 position August/September 2013

There are several reasons to think that the Canberra establishment is getting serious about space. Perhaps the most obvious is that space matters in a way that politicians understand. It’s economically significant. Space communications is, of course, a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right. A 2011 report written by Alan Smart from Acil Tasman estimated that $50 million of Earth observation purchases in Australia underpins $1.3 billion worth of activity. Geoscience Australia says 1.2 Petabyte of data will be required from space, a 20-fold increase over today’s usage, to support operational government programs in 2015. A further 100 Terabytes are required to support current research programs, and that is set to increase as well. One can identify over 600 businesses in Australia, mostly small enterprises, with significant exposure to space technology.

The spatial information industry bears much of the responsibility for this state of affairs. During the 1990s, spatial technology matured. Most of the fundamental technical problems of GIS were solved. As a result, its use in government agencies and elsewhere to give spatial insights to data began to mature. Affordable personal computers that could manage massive datasets became commonplace. The acquisition of data became the central issue of the industry, and imagery became one of the most important sources of that data.

In parallel, navigation signals derived from space have become vital to all aspects of the economy. Navigation itself, of aircraft and ships, is vital. Its significance in improving the productivity of civil engineering is well known. Timing signals derived from GPS underpin mobile telecoms, automatic teller machines and much else besides.

Taking control So, space supports billions of dollars worth of activity in our economy. But we freeload. Australians, living in the 12 largest economy in the world, pay not one of the 1.5 Tera-dollars the economy generates every year for any of these services.

Instead, we rely on the citizens of other countries. That’s a very clever arrangement, of course, but with it comes a total lack of control. According to a report from Geoscience Australia, of the 22 spacebased sensors currently in use in Australia, 19 are expected to cease functioning by 2015. No agreements are in place for the continuity of data beyond that point, especially from radar and medium resolution sensors. Moreover, satellite systems are never optimised to solve Australian problems. They are built to solve the problems of the people who pay for them.

The argument that one way or another, Australia must buy influence in the design and operation of space systems, seems to be widely accepted in Canberra. But it is not accepted by Australian politicians. The problem is with the public, or at least, with what the politicians think about the public.

feature Senator Anette Hurley. Like many South Australian politicians, she was a strong supporter of the potential of science and engineering. Its a reflection of the post-war history of the state, which saw major investments in defence engineering, motor manufacturing and electronics. Bob Korbel Photo.

It’s a two-handed problem. On one hand, space means money. Lots of it.

Politicians of all stripes will go a long way to avoid being accused of being profligate with taxpayers dollars. As we see with the current debate over the National Broadband Network, or Very Fast Trains, proponents of such systems need to have a large amount of political credit in the electorate to survive the inevitable argument that the money would be better spent elsewhere.

The other problem, and its a very real one for politicians, is the giggle factor associated with space. Mention space and people start to think in terms of mad scientists and propeller hats. “When are we going to Mars?” In Australia, serious people do not advocate spending money on space.

Senator Kate Lundy has announced a new direction for Australian space policy.

Politicians have not helped themselves, because there is a considerable amount of truth in both these charges. Over the last 20 years millions of taxpayers dollars have been wasted on ill-conceived space projects that have done nothing to advance the nation. Millions were wasted on the Endeavour space telescope, which was launched with much hype on the Space Shuttle, but then abandoned when ill-trained astronauts could not turn it on.

Millions more were wasted on developing instruments for European radar satellites, which provided no information of any use to Australians. Even more was wasted on using the Cooperative Research Centre program to develop a small satellite, and then shutting it down.

In essence, the history of Australia’s involvement in space has been one of madcap professors whose passion for some project has overridden the sober judgement of the entire political establishment.

30 position August/September 2013

The circuit breaker seems to have been the enquiry, by the Senate Standing Committee on Economics, into ‘the current state of Australia’s space science and industry sector’. On 19 March 2008, Senators Grant Chapman, Annette Hurley and Natasha Stott Despoja introduced a motion in the Senate to hold an enquiry into space science and industry. It was the time when Australian politicians decided to take charge. The bottom line was, to quote the committee: “it is not good enough for Australia to be lost in space”.

“Money spent in space must improve productivity and communications, lead to better environmental management, and improve our security.”

The government’s response to the inquiry did not make exciting reading.

But what it did do was to set out a long program to systematically go about establishing why Australia should spend money on space, and even more importantly, establish guidelines that allowed one to judge proposals for projects in terms of their impact on the national good.

And possibly even more important still, it set out to explain to a sceptical public why the money should be spent. As well as announcing the creation of the Space Co-ordination Office, Senator Lundy used her Canberra address to announce the release of the Satellite Utilisation Policy. Its sets out clearly Australia’s requirements for space use. Money spent in space must improve productivity and communications, lead to better environmental management, and improve our security.

Concrete projects There are, predictably, dozens of projects waiting in the wings that could be funded over the next few years. It was ever thus. But for the first time, science and industry ministers will have a policy by which projects can be assessed. One of the first moves by the SCO has been to establish two working groups: one on Position, Navigation and Timing and the other on Earth Observation from Space.

Both groups are headed by officials from Geoscience Australia.

For instance, they will now be able to properly assess proposals on the need to increase the capacity to receive spacebased data and make it available in real or near-real time for the use of emergency services; the merits or otherwise of a University of New South Wales-led project to develop a soil moisture measuring system using synthetic aperture radar; the need for ground infrastructure to maximise the benefit of next-generation, multi- system navigation satellites.

It is unthinkable that Australia’s long association with overseas data sources will end at any time in the near future.

A Geoscience Australia report into space requirements to 2020 says Australia should concentrate its attention on membership of ESA’s Sentinel missions and the NASA Landsat Data Continuity Mission, which will derive imagery from Landsat 8. Landsat is especially important. Australia has a 30year investment in its data, and Geoscience Australia has recently completed a project to make the archive more accessible.

It would also pay Australia to build good relationships with Chinese, Japanese and Indian operators, who will fly entire constellations over Australia in the next decade or so. But it might be productive if, by 2020, we had a data source we could put on the table as well. However, for that to happen, we will probably need bipartisan support in parliament and political proponents with broad shoulders.

Jon Fairall is the founder of Position magazine. n

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feature

The future of mine automation Simon Chester

M

any of us have visions of a distant future where robots take care of our every whim, from making our beds and doing our washing to bringing us piña coladas on our floating hammocks overlooking the space ports. Of course, nearer to the present, robots will fulfil many industrial roles before they fill those of servitude – from exploring, to mining, to refining, to manufacturing, robots will first take care of some of the most dangerous tasks in society.

Before this vision can become a reality, however, we need much more research in some crucial areas. One organisation that has been undertaking this research for a number of decades is the CSIRO. One of the first autonomous mining products to come from the CSIRO’s Autonomous Systems Laboratory was a 3,500t automated dragline – the large machine in open pit mining that removes the overburden.

“The lab started back in 1994 with ‘proof of concept’ projects, automating a few draglines to see what was possible,” said Dr Jonathan Roberts, research director at the CSIRO’s Autonomous Systems Laboratory. “Draglines do very repetitive tasks, so they were a logical target for automation.”

“We were just showing what was possible, however – there was no real expectation that the industry would be ready for fully automated draglines back then. These proofs of concept, which were sponsored by the Australian Coal Industry’s Research Program (ACARP), showed that we could accurately and reliably control the dragline, but the critical problem was location – how does it know the

32 position August/September 2013

terrain around it? It must avoid hitting the store pile, and – of course – safety and reliability were paramount, too.”

With location playing such a crucial role in automation, research at the lab took a path focusing on mapping technology, and, over the years, the team has become a world leader in the field.

This research led to another ACARP system: Digital Terrain Mapping, which is now a commercial product available through Leslie Consulting.

“We put a LiDAR scanner on the automated dragline, so that it could build up an accurate map as it went about its business,” says Dr Roberts.

“People were also looking at radar at the time, and it turns out that they are quite complementary: LiDAR was good for highly accurate real-time mapping, and radar was good in difficult visual conditions, such as dust, rain, or fog.”

“The Digital Terrain Mapping product was a direct spin out of these projects.

It’s now being used on manually operated machines as an automation component that surveys the pit in real time – it automates the survey work, and does it at a much higher grain than a surveyor could; and as it’s on the top of the dragline, it gets a nice, unobstructed view.”

“After the success of placing these LiDAR scanners on draglines, we realised that we could place them on any machine, as we’d figured out ways to compensate for machine movement when surveying.

They were initially placed on bobcats, which have fairly random movements, and finally, into a hand-held scanner, known as Zebedee, which actually benefits from random movement, so is spring-mounted.”

Situational awareness Location was only one type of information required for mining robots to function properly – they also need to be aware of any other moving objects in their area, namely other vehicles or people.

“The ‘low hanging fruit’ in automation is in those areas where you can keep people away,” said Mr Roberts.

“For example, the Caterpillar underground loader – an automated front-end loader for which we developed the navigation system during the years 1999-2003 – works only in underground areas where you can guarantee there won’t be people getting in its way, by blocking off tunnels, etc. This is similar for an automated load truck on an open cut mine – you can simply keep the people away.”

Working alongside the CSIRO’s Autonomous Systems Laboratory is the CSIRO’s Mining Technology Research Group, led by Dr Jonathon Ralston, research group leader at CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering (CESRE). Their primary focus is R&D to deliver lasting impact into the mining industry in the areas of productivity, safety and sustainability.

Over the past 20 years, through its mission-directed mining agenda, the group has been responsible for a range of mining automation technology advances including teleoperated vehicles designed to support exploration and survey in underground coal mines following mining incidents; autonomous guidance of underground mining machinery; automated bolting and conveyor modules; automated resource profiling for effective ore transport; and teleoperation of large, complex machinery such as shiploaders. Key to

Far left: Draglines perform repetitive tasks, which are perfect for automation. CCBY 2.0 Flickr user roy.luck .

Centre: Leslie Consulting (LC) worked with an industry partner to commercialise the dragline DTM process developed by CSIRO. Top right: LASC longwall automation technology measures the real-time 3D path of a longwall shearer.

Bottom right: This bobcat has a LiDAR scanner on top, to scan the surrounds while it works.

providing these breakthrough technologies has been identification of the fundamental industry challenge in a given operational context and the development of the critical sensing technology required to address the need. In the process, the group has developed world-leading expertise in real-time position measurement using advanced inertial navigation platforms, subsurface detection and measuring using radar-based systems, and telesupervision through remote representation and augmented reality technologies.

One good example of the group’s industry impact is the LASC longwall automation technology, said to be a world first.

This project successfully introduced the use of inertial sensors and advanced navigation algorithms to measure the real-time 3D path of a longwall shearer. Longwall mining is the most productive underground coal mining method. The technology has dramatically improved longwall productivity and safety, and has provided a platform for further development. Marketed through global longwall OEM, the technology is now used in 50% of Australian longwalls and is expanding to international market.

Beyond isolated automation, there are also applications for machines to operate alongside personnel.

“The next challenge, is having people work around the automated equipment,” said Dr Roberts.

This will require what Dr Roberts termed ‘robot dependability’ rather than just ‘reliability.’

“Autonomous robots need to behave in a way that people can understand and anticipate. If you come across an autonomous vehicle on a mine site, you can’t just

catch the eye of the driver – you need to be able to know exactly what it will do next.”

Research, therefore, needs to find ways to make these automatons completely dependable.

“People are tackling how to do this.

It’s been done in a factory, where the vehicles are slow-moving, giving people enough time to move out of the way.

However, mining machines are bigger and faster, which makes the whole thing more difficult.”

To this end, the Mining Technology Research Group is currently leading the development of interoperability standards to achieve effective proximity detection and collision avoidance systems. This has been identified by the industry as a critical safety requirement and productivity bottleneck, and, therefore, a key towards effective future robotic mining initiatives.

Geometry plus geology There is still one further part of the environment that autonomous mining machines still need to know about: the precise location of the minerals they are trying to extract.

“Through our mining guidance technology, we have developed ways to accurately locate and steer mining equipment, but what is needed is new ways to accurately determine the nature of the geological resource,” says Dr Ralston said. “This can make a huge difference to mining productivity. If you can just extract the resource you want, and leave the waste product, then you can dramatically add value to the underlying product whilst also reducing processing costs and minimising environmental impact.”

“We need to develop sensors to help with ‘geo-steering’: geology-based movement decisions, rather than just geometrybased. Researchers at CESRE are currently looking at using radar-based tech for sub-surface detection of the geology.”

Sensors needn’t be located on the machines, however.

“CESRE is also actively developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to provide a rapid assessment of an area’s resources and geology, through using a combination of radar, vision and thermal infrared sensors. By fusing the information, they are able to provide a single, blended, georeferenced geological profile.

“The UAV can also provide real-time panoramic displays of a mine site, which is helpful for assessing complex issues such as spontaneous combustion of underground coal.”

Intelligent processing With so many sensors attached to many different machines, research is also needed into intelligent processing methods that can draw all this information together and, either display it in an efficient and meaningful way for an operator to analyse, or be able to analyse it itself and make decisions based on it.

“Often, the output of these sensors isn’t useful for machine control. We need to find ways to get the many sensor types to provide reliable information that can be synthesised and intelligently processed, in real time, for use in machine control and monitoring.”

As it stands today, however, the human brain is still significantly better at synthesising this information and making decisions based on it. But remote mining operations will greatly benefit from research into intelligent processing, as multi-sensor systems are the only way to provide thorough situational awareness to the remotely located machine operators.

It’s clear that we still have a long way to go before we reach that distant robopowered utopia we’ve been dreaming of since The Jetsons. However, researchers at organisations like the CSIRO are doing their best to bring that future closer. n www.spatialsource.com.au 33

feature

Building a social licence to operate in the natural resources sector

(c) iStockphoto.com/maryannski.

Dan Haigh

T

he need to effectively engage with the local community is not a new concept for mining and energy (M&E) companies, regardless of size or location. Most M&E companies, especially those operating in first- and secondworld countries, dedicate significant resources to measuring, analysing and mitigating the social and socio-economic impacts of their projects. These impacts are assessed carefully by the numerous government agencies and authorities charged with approving exploration and mining licences.

Gaining the approval of a governmentappointed body is a relatively straightforward process. That’s not to say it’s simple: dealing with twenty or more pieces of state and federal legislation and perhaps twice as many government departments, authorities, councils, and boards of control will test any organisation. But there is usually a clearly defined process, and the path from proposal to permit is well formulated. The same cannot be said for gaining the approval of the community in which the project will operate. Communities are diverse and consensus is rare.

Unlike government authorities, communities are not bound by any identifiable set of rules for what is considered to be an acceptable impact.

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What is a ‘social licence to operate’?

Gaining the approval and support of the local community is widely accepted by the M&E industry as a key success criterion during every stage of the life of a project: from approval to construction, operation and closure. The term ‘social licence to operate’ (SLTO) is a fairly recent invention, but it is already an accepted part of the language of minerals and energy producers and explorers. Indeed, Ernst & Young rates SLTO fourth in its top-ten list of business risks that pose the greatest challenges to the mining and metals sector in 2013–14. And that’s ahead of issues like skills shortages and price volatility.

According to Ernst & Young, one of the reasons why SLTO is considered such a hot issue is that seemingly minor impacts on small segments of the community can quickly escalate and metamorphose into big issues. This is, in part to do with the human condition of empathising with the downtrodden, especially if it’s big business who’s doing the treading. This is not necessarily a new challenge. But what is different today, compared with five years ago, is the influence of social media.

Digitally savvy activists can quickly stir up anti-mining sentiment under the guise of climate change, social or environmental

concerns. This can force consensus-driven politicians to reconsider, re-regulate or even revoke approvals. At best, it causes delay; at worst, it can kill the project. It’s a big issue, measured in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

Whole-of-community engagement is key The M&E industry is well aware of the magnitude of the risk and is responding. Central to the response is the need for open and early engagement with the entire community. In the past, an endorsement from the local member of parliament, the mayor or the president of the chamber of commerce might have been sufficient to sway local opinion. But today, a whole-of-community approach is required. Instead of relying on their community leaders, individuals are increasingly turning to social media and the internet for information and to engage with common-interest groups. Whether they are better informed is entirely another question. Thanks to social media, SLTO issues now go viral.

Residents, farmers, special interest groups, sports clubs, schools, health service providers, local businesses, government authorities, non-government organisations (NGO), and local, state and federal

governments each perceive the impacts of M&E projects in myriad overlapping, opposing, and independent ways. Identifying and understanding the diverse interests of broader stakeholders and the complex relationships that exist between them is a challenge for any company.

There is also the risk that concerns over air quality, water rights, noise levels, heavy vehicle traffic, house prices, use of public land, preservation of historical sites, access to recreational areas and other legitimate environmental, cultural and societal issues can be hijacked by groups with broader anti-mining or antidevelopment agendas. Social media in particular, provides activists with greater access to communities. If companies do not respond quickly and meaningfully to these concerns, they can quickly escalate, fuelled by slick disruptive campaigns.

Companies need to engage early and openly with local communities to identify and respond to community concerns and complaints before they develop into conflicts. A company’s SLTO is impermanent and threatened at every turn. Once earned, the SLTO needs to be actively

maintained and strengthened throughout the life of the project. SLTO risks change in nature as the project moves from exploration to approval to construction to operation, but they do not diminish. The potential impacts of losing an SLTO get, if anything, larger as the project develops. Risks such as reputational damage, premature closure, production interruptions, industrial disputes, and regulatory interference build as the project develops.

The value is shared As part of an overall corporate and social responsibility (CSR) policy, progressive M&E companies are developing new strategies to mitigate SLTO risks. Central to these strategies is the concept of shared value, which focuses attention on mutually supportive social and economic benefits. Whilst economic benefit is an obvious driver, only a small proportion of the community typically benefits directly from a mining or energy operation — local employees, local businesses and landowners, for example. However, there is a multitude of indirect social and economic benefits that are spread across

“The need is clear, as are the benefits. And the technology is there — all the industry needs to do is tap into it.” the community. For example, providing employment for local residents not only directly boosts the local economy, but can indirectly create new business and job opportunities, reduce crime rates, attract a wider range of health professionals, prevent school closures, and generally contribute to a more sustainable, attractive and rewarding lifestyle.

The value is shared.

“Every organisation should look at decisions through the lens of shared value.

This will lead to new approaches that generate greater innovation and growth for companies, as well as greater benefits for society.” says Meg Fricke, senior manager of climate change and sustainability services at Ernst & Young Australia.

www.spatialsource.com.au 35

feature The role of GIS: empowering and informing communities To effectively influence community attitudes, companies need to develop new skills and new tools to communicate how this value is being shared across the community. Community engagement mechanisms, such as media releases, town hall meetings, information sessions and newsletters will continue to play an important role in SLTO strategies. But these traditional channels need to be augmented and supported by the systematic acquisition, integration, analysis and sharing of geographical and demographical data. As such, GIS now plays an important role in measuring, reporting, analysing and delivering SLTO outcomes. GIS can enable and facilitate more effective community engagement, using spatial intelligence to effectively inform the community with accurate and accessible information.

The complexity of SLTO drivers means that M&E companies need to access a much broader range of both spatial and non-spatial data — both on and off the lease area. In addition to the data usually collected by M&E companies to monitor and manage the on-lease impacts of their operations — noise and dust monitoring, topographical surveys, groundwater bore levels, water quality, tenement status, vegetation surveys, aerial photographs, and such, companies also need to access key demographical and geographical data to monitor off-lease impacts — such as census data, meteorological data, land titles, land use classifications, business types and locations, road maps and traffic data, air quality, and more. GIS provides the ideal framework for acquiring, managing and integrating these diverse data sets.

GIS is routinely used by the M&E industry to understand, delineate and map the physical project area. GIS for geoscience products like MapInfo Discover are the everyday tool of geologists and environmental engineers, whereas using GIS for socio-economic applications is still uncommon in the M&E industry, despite the methods and tools for acquiring this location intelligence being well established in other industries. The commercial and retail business sectors routinely use demographics, census data and traffic density to support strategic investment decisions; these GIS-based methods and tools can be readily adapted to an SLTO analysis.

“The role of GIS in social impact assessment and stakeholder engagement has significant potential, but has been generally underutilised,” says Chris Sunderland, associate consultant at Environmental Resources Management Australia.

Before investing in community development projects, M&E companies need to

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Santos GLNG water monitoring web mapping portal.

gain an in-depth understanding of the demographics, community lifestyles, and existing businesses in the area. This ‘location intelligence’ will help validate investment decisions and deliver better outcomes for both the community and the company.

The outdated open-cheque-book mentality is replaced with more considered, meaningful and sustainable engagement.

Visual communication The greatest challenge in developing an SLTO strategy is in effectively communicating shared values with the broader community. M&E companies are using a range of electronic (website, web portal, social media, email) and traditional (town hall meetings, information sessions, fact sheets, newsletters) communication channels to deliver their messages. A web mapping portal is a particularly powerful medium for engaging with stakeholders and the general public.

“In a world where most people learn and understand visually, the use of GIS in assessment and engagement just makes sense,” says Chris Sunderland.

Companies can demonstrate their CSR credentials with intuitive self-service portals, giving the local community and key stakeholders access to comprehensive information about the company’s exploration and mine-site activities. This can include permits and licences, dust, noise, light and vibration levels, community sponsorship and development projects, environmental stewardship and performance, and health and safety performance.

For example, Santos is responding to negative community sentiment on coal seam gas projects by giving the public access to groundwater quality and bore level data at its operations in the Surat

and Bowen Basins through an interactive web portal . By openly sharing it with the broader community, Santos is countering anti-CSG sentiment by fostering trust and strengthening its SLTO. Of course, there are privacy and commercial considerations to the types of data made available to the public. A balance needs to be struck between the benefits of transparency and risks of unnecessary disclosure. In particular, careful consideration needs to be given to consequential impacts on third parties.

The need is clear, as are the benefits.

And the technology is there - all the industry needs to do is tap into it.

The M&E industry has underpinned Australia’s growth and prosperity for decades, providing economic growth and social opportunity across the entire community. The industry takes its environmental, health and safety, and social responsibilities seriously, probably more so than most industries. It has also embraced sustainability in all its forms. However, these values are often overshadowed by misperception, prejudice and disinformation.

If M&E companies want to communicate shared values more effectively with their communities, they need to stay abreast of and exploit new technologies that facilitate clear, transparent communication of the whole story. The public’s expectations and habits are ever-changing.

Five years ago, social media was barely on the horizon and mobile phones were just that, phones. During that time, location intelligence technology has become commonplace and an integral part of consumer life. These technologies are not only familiar, but also expected.

Dan Haigh is the natural resources industry manager at Pitney Bowes Software. n

e e v At sA d e

th

Images: Stephen Lead

26 FebRUARY 2014 AUstRAliAn technologY PARk, sYdneY

cAll FoR PAPeRs now oPen Visit www.geonext.com.au or phone 1300 789 845 Media Partners

feature

Surveying for safety gina VeLDe

U

nlike cadastral and civil surveying, being a mine surveyor is less about millimetre accuracy and more about keeping your co-workers safe. In this article, two surveyors from different mines in Australia give their opinion on mine surveying today.

Keeping surveyors safe Technological advancements in recent years have had a significant impact on employee safety across a mine site, and notably for survey field staff who are often on foot and without the protection of a heavy machine to sit in.

First there was the introduction of GPS technology, followed later by terrestrial and LiDAR scanning systems, and most recently mobile vehicle scanning and aerial mapping using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

A key task for most survey teams in an open mine environment is to closely monitor the walls of the pit for any movement, thereby ensuring the stability of the site and the safety of all personnel working within it.

Terrestrial scanners can provide a safety advantage over a total station and prism setup for wall monitoring, as they remove the need for a surveyor to do berm walks with a prism. Alternatively, robotic total stations that are specifically designed for monitoring applications can be set up with fixed prisms to reduce manpower and improve safety.

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Driving technology innovation Mine surveying poses a unique set of challenges, especially when it comes to the use of GPS technology. The sheer size of a mine pit, along with its steep walls and depth make black spots and dropouts an all-too-frequent occurrence.

Chris Nixon, a registered mine surveyor based in the Hunter Valley NSW, experienced the frustrations of this problem first hand.

“We had problems with our old UHF radio network as we were experiencing radio black spots around the pit,” he said.

“We also had an issue with the UHF signals from the repeaters being scrambled at various times of the day which led to the rovers not working.”

The solution involved changing the radio protocol to the universally recognised RTCM3 format, along with limiting the number of satellites the base station transmitted. This allowed the repeaters to receive the base station corrections, and then transmit the data within the one second of time required.

A continuation of the solution led to new digital UHF radios, a base station upgrade and the purchase of a solar-powered repeater trailer.

“The custom-built repeater trailer has been very reliable for us – not only has it eliminated black spots, it has never run out of power,” he added.

Left: Chris Nixon.

“We now have full site coverage from this one repeater trailer, so we no longer have to spend time planning and moving repeaters to start a job.”

Another key requirement for Nixon was the ability for the refined RTK network and base to work with multiple brands and models of equipment.

“We have a lot of different systems on site that require GNSS positioning information, from different manufacturers and suppliers,” he explained. “This setup is based on open system architecture, so it can talk to any make of equipment in many different formats.”

As an extra fail-safe measure, Position Partners installed back-up battery power to the base station. Mr Nixon said this saved the day on one occasion in particular, when power was cut off across the site.

“Power to site was down for around 16 hours, but because we had the battery back-up, our survey team could carry on supporting the pit as per normal,” he said.

“All in all, I was impressed with the solution, as it not only solved the problems we were having but they were also very open with me and trained me up in the systems on which they were working, so that I now have the skills to troubleshoot myself without bringing them in.”

“With a solid and reliable UHF network covering site, this has led to less time in the field for our survey team. This then leads to less risk of interaction with heavy machinery, which makes our job safer.”

The future for mining At the Collinsville coal mine, 80 kilometres south-west of Bowen in Queensland, surveyor Brian Anderson and his team encounter an extraordinary mix of old technology and new on a daily basis.

The site, which now spans approximately 2750 hectares and has been successfully run by Thiess since 1996, was first opened in 1917.

“The survey team is continuously monitoring any movement and subsidence to ensure everyone’s safety, as we are working through old underground mines,” Anderson said.

“We are also constantly referring to old plans, so we work with old and new surveying methods almost daily.”

The team uses both GPS and total stations to monitor movement on site. They currently use two robotic total stations (a one-second Topcon IS and a 9000-3), three GPS receivers (Topcon GR-3s), and a GRS-1 handheld GIS controller.

Thiess has a very strict safety policy, which Mr Anderson feels is essential for a modern site. “I am grateful for the extensive training and safety measures that Thiess have made available to me,” he said.

As technology evolves and new solutions such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS) become more commonplace in mining, Anderson believes that productivity will increase and safety will improve.

“I think UAS are the future for mine surveying,” he said. “Within the next two to five years I think they will take over from laser scanning.”

“There is still a way to go with the technology – at the moment we’re saving a lot of time with the survey itself as the UAV only takes two days to record the active work areas. However, checking existing ground control and establishing new targets continues to utilise considerable man hours.

“Once the technology has been fine-tuned, it has the potential for enormous time and manpower savings as well as the huge safety benefits,” he concluded.

Gina Velde is the marketing communications manager at Position Partners. n

Are you ready for the digital location revolution?

To exploit these technologies and your data resources: Please contact Graeme Martin on 1300 36 67 96 www.spatialvision.com.au/strategy

OPE COM N SOU R ME RCI CE & AL GIS

CROWD SOURCED

MOBI PLATF LE ORMS & CLOU D SERVIC ES MENT GOVERN TA OPEN DA

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39

product review

Monitoring movement A technical overview of the new Monitoring Station (MS) series

by Topcon.

T

opcon’s MS series optical instruments are designed for a wide range of monitoring functions for bridges, buildings, dams, mine sites, tunnels, rail tracks, pipelines and other large structures.

Examples include landslide and explosion displacement monitoring in mining, deformation and progress monitoring in civil construction projects as well as disaster investigation and recovery work.

Built for all weather conditions with IP65 rating, and available in 0.5” and 1” angle accuracy models, these instruments make use of a unique auto-pointing algorithm designed specifically for monitoring applications. By automatically sighting the prism closest to the telescope centre, regardless of the distance from the instrument, the MS targets the desired prism and disregards other prisms and reflective objects that may be within range and field of view, thereby increasing reliability.

Topcon Monitoring Station.

Software capabilities When used in conjunction with MSP (Monitoring Solution Providers) RAPID software, the package includes office, field and onboard systems as well as the option of web-based access. MSP’s office-based software enables full remote control of the MS, allowing the user to control settings and schedule monitoring tasks without visiting the instrument.

The RAPID software features smart, multiple target recognition and the ability to run singular, interval or continuous monitoring modes. Resection and reorientation functions help ensure station position for accuracy and reliability.

Angle measurement Each MS instrument has a twin absolute rotary encoder capable of high-accuracy angle measurements. The original angle measurement system automatically generates an internal reference angle value to produce high-precision angular measurements.

Precision in low light conditions When measuring a poorly reflective surface with reflectorless mode, the internal noise (electrical and optical noise generated within the electric distance meter or EDM) becomes relatively greater. The MS series includes a compensation feature that reduces the amount of error introduced by electrical and optical noise.

Auto-pointing enhancements The MS series reduces the coherence and speckle pattern typically seen with laser light sources that often lead to reduced auto-pointing accuracy. By employing a wider laser bandwidth, the MS delivers more uniform auto-pointing and reduces error, without sacrificing S/N ratio. An enhanced photo-diode design also reduces distortion of the reflective-prism image and improves auto-pointing accuracy.

Working with multiple prisms If two or more prisms exist within the telescope viewing range, the image processing facility recognises and calculates the central position of each one, selects the prism closest to the centre of the cross-hairs and then runs auto-pointing for that prism. This ability to select the prism closest to the cross-hairs, as opposed to the prism nearest to the instrument, is essential when monitoring multiple prisms set up in an array.

Reflector pre-scan This feature detects the approximate angle of targets whose setting positions are unknown. It can be useful, for example, when making initial monitoring measurements for multiple targets (‘teaching’) or when working in dark environments – such as tunnels – where visual collimation is impossible.

When initiated, the instrument scans the specified angular range and outputs the horizontal and vertical angles of each target it detects. These are only approximate values: to get the distance and precise angular values, the user must proceed to auto-pointing.

Rapid 2D monitoring This function was specifically developed to reduce measurement time for real-time two-dimensional monitoring applications. The MS can be operated by the external control system to quickly obtain vertical and horizontal angles, enabling faster recognition of 2D (vertical and horizontal) movements.

Employing advanced image processing technology, the MS measures the vertical and horizontal angles to the reflectors located within the telescope’s field of view. This function requires neither precise collimation to the reflector nor distance measurement, significantly increasing measurement speed. It is suitable for subsidence, displacement or deformation monitoring where vertical or horizontal movements are critical. n

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There is a better way to find a ride.

Sharing transport with others reduces traffic congestion and pollution.

Geospatial for a nicer world Simon Chester

T

he notion of every person owning their own vehicle is inherently flawed. Precious – and finite – resources are being exhausted (almost literally) moving people individually to popular destinations. In terms of emissions alone, this is supremely inefficient.

If you then factor in traffic, you can start to appreciate the problems that could be mitigated if we only learnt to share.

The reason that the idea of car ownership persists – aside from the engrained, capitalistic feeling of entitlement – is that there isn’t yet a painless method of arranging ride shares. There are a few companies out there now trying to solve these problems, however.

One such company, Jayride, has created a method to find ride sharing, car-pooling, and other shared transport options across Australia and New Zealand, using geospatial technologies powering a simple web interface.

“I’m a bit of a transport geek,” said Rod Bishop, co-founder and CEO of Jayride. “I

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love travel, sustainability, and empowering people to find and make sustainable and independent travel choices online. I want to help people live without a car.

“At Jayride, we’re insanely focussed on how better transport information for alternative transport can help improve the world we live in. You see, we think better information is all we need in order to leave our cars at home. Fewer cars means a better lifestyle and nicer cities, and it all starts with geospatial information.”

Rod has a natural entrepreneurial streak and has owned, managed, and been in senior positions in several small businesses, including starting a transport NGO in New Zealand.

The basic idea behind the service is that users put in a starting suburb and destination, and the site displays all available transport options to them – including rideshares, airport shuttles, buses and coaches, relocation cars and more.

“Jayride’s mission is to provide a better way to find and book transport so that you

can beat the car,” said Rod. “You can search over 100 transport companies – everyone from Greyhound Coachlines to ‘mum-andpop’s airport shuttles’, or man-with-van companies that can take you from A to B. “We reach out and talk to every one of these companies individually, so we can work out what they do, and give our customers the very best transport at the very best prices.”

Similarly, if someone is taking a long journey, or a regular commute, and wants to share some of the transport costs, they can post their travel details, times of travel, and how much they want to charge, and they’ll be listed in the results.

“It’s free to use. If you’d like to book a ride through us then on some rides we take a commission, but we make sure that we sell at the same price that you can buy elsewhere. Passengers don’t pay extra to book through us. We make it easy,” said Rod. The idea behind Jayride started back in 2007 when Rod Bishop met Jayride’s now CTO and co-founder, Ross Lin.

feature

Below: An example trip from Sydney to the airport, showing a private operator.

At the time, Rod was running a small ride-share website, Hitch, which made its matches through text-based queries, rather than geospatially.

“As a younger man I loved hitch-hiking – in New Zealand, where I’m from, there’s no stigma attached to it, it’s relatively safe and good fun – but it’s not accessible for everyone,” said Rod. “I loved hitch-hiking because the alternative, to drive myself, left behind pollution and congestion where I wanted to only leave footprints. And so I was playing around with presenting hitch-hiking information online when I met Ross, and together we conceived the idea for an online repository for all bookable transport.”

“I purposed the introduction of geospatial concept to carpooling,” said Ross, “which turned Rod’s carpooling website into an actual business that can cover any land-based passenger transportation.”

Previous to meeting Rod, Ross had worked on another geospatial startup, known as Zoomin.

“Zoomin was built in 20052006, during the first wave of global web 2.0 geospatial start-ups.

We were based in Wellington, with a team of five young men,” said Ross. “Zoomin was the biggest New Zealand online mapping and places website. We rendered our own street map tiles, did our own geocoding, and had a good community to post reviews on places.”

Unfortunately, it couldn’t compete with the Google behemoth, and was left unmaintainable in late 2006.

Ross’s previous experience, and similar entrepreneurial mindset, made the two a great match, so they registered a new business and started work creating Jayride.

“Technically speaking, everything you need to start a company based around serving information is cheap, ready, and easily accessible – it’s a golden time for tech statups,” said Ross.

There were, however, some small hurdles to jump before Jayride could launch, largely concerning getting the data together from the various government bodies, and then creating consistency between place names.

“There is a great deal of ambiguity in geographical names, which causes a lot of confusion around the names that people use, and the data represented in our system,” said Ross.

“Additionally, people don’t really think of suburbs as polygons – their borders are often pretty vague – so this has posed challenges, too.”

Jayride initially started in late 2008 in NZ, using data from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). The data from LINZ, however, is based around voting districts, which isn’t how people understand places.

“We couldn’t know what naming convention the locals follow, so, in cleaning up data, we could only hope to get data to ‘good enough’ stage, not 100% correct,” said Ross.

After successfully setting the service up in New Zealand, Jayride turned to Australia, using GNAF data for place names, launching here in early 2011. It was shortly after this that Jayride became a full-time endeavour for both Rod and Ross.

Another problem that had to be tackled before the launch was keeping schedule data consistent across time zones.

“Jayride serves 4 time zones across New Zealand and Australia, and there’s the additional consideration of daylight saving time as well. A flight may cross time zones

a dozen times a day, but land transportation does that many more times, and with a greater number of stops,” said Ross.

Another non-trivial challenge was getting the scheduling, route and pricing data from private operators.

For this to work, Ross created custom tools that translate the data from the format used by the transport operator and bring it in-line with Jayride’s custom schema, known as the Jayride Transportation Format Schema (JTFS).

“We based the JTFS on Google’s General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), but designed JTFS to be more generic, in order to better suit the transportation information.

“The biggest ongoing challenge is keeping the schema flexible, able to evolve fast to suit new transport operators, but also normalised in a consistent manner.”

Ross realised that, in order to get the data they needed from operators, the import process had to be as painless as possible.

“We put ourselves in the operators’ shoes and designed individual tools for each of the different datasets,” said Ross.

“The operators are in charge of inputting all their own data. They’re usually pretty happy to do so, as bringing their pricing data onto the system allows them to more easily compare it against their competitors, and adjust it as necessary.”

All this work has now paid off, as the service has built up a sizeable user base.

“Jayride has almost 30,000 rideshare members and many tens of thousands of visitors every month,” said Rod. “We also work with well over 100 professional transport companies, and Jayride is the only place where you can search and book with all of these companies in a single place.

“Everyone needs transport, so everyone can use Jayride. People booking rides vary from students and backpackers, to rural and regional folks from transport-disadvantaged areas, to grandmas who want help to get around.

“Jayride’s biggest hits come from travel to great destinations, like the Splendour in the Grass festival, where every year thousands of people get together and rideshare to have a great time on their way to Byron Bay. “We want to make sure that we have every ride in Australia and New Zealand so that if it exists you can find and book it on Jayride – then we want to do this for the whole world.

“If we can make transport easily findable, bookable, and available, then we think we’re on the way to making a world where you can live without a car.

“Good geospatial information is the key to building this one-of-a-kind transport repository that makes it possible. So, geospatial information really is the key for us to help make it a nicer world.” n www.spatialsource.com.au 43

feature

It’s all relative Andrew Lund

A

ny process that relies on GIS accuracy is only as good as the geographic information ‘under the hood.’ Whether it’s outage management, routing or damage prevention, if the map is bad, the business process suffers. The consequences can be quite unpleasant, ranging from lost productivity to poor customer service to, well, … let’s just say very bad things. To make matters worse, in the utility business, there are actually two maps to worry about.

When you’re looking at a GIS utility map, you’re actually looking at two (or more) maps. The first is the base-map, or ‘landbase’. To the best of its ability, landbase is a rendering of reality: streets, roads, highways, points of interest, and other geographic features. It’s like the folding paper maps that some of us had crammed in the glove box before the days of in-car GPS like Garmin, Google, Bing, OSM, NAVTEQ, TomTom, Mapquest … did I get them all?

As its name implies, landbase is the foundation (basis) for everything else. Infrastructure is drawn onto it or laid over it. In most cases, utilities have two choices: build it or buy it. If you buy it, you’re at the mercy of the vendor with little control over accuracy. If you build it, it’s a chore and an ongoing drain on resources.

In some rare cases, it may be available for little or no cost. No matter how you get your landbase, it better be accurate, as the rest of your mapping business practices depend on it. Landbase accuracy can vary widely, based on age and source.

The second component of the utility map is the utility itself, including all of the lines, pipes, cables, valves, manholes, hydrants, transformers, junction boxes, switches, and other assorted infrastructure. In most cases, each type of infrastructure for a given utility is represented on a different layer in the GIS. A good example is a water utility, where potable water, sewer, reclaim and storm would all be represented by different layers in the GIS. Each layer is essentially a map of the infrastructure on that layer, but, taken separately, they don’t make much sense.

44 position August/September 2013

Only when they are referenced to reality (aka the base map) do they show ‘actual’ location(s). This brings back the concept of landbase = reality. The closer the landbase is to reality, the closer to ‘actual’ you get. Conversely, if the landbase doesn’t depict reality, location accuracy goes out the window.

How can you tell if your landbase is ‘reality-deficient?’ A simple comparison of what’s shown in the GIS vs. actual conditions in the field is quite revealing. We have found many places where facilities are shown in the GIS literally hundreds of feet off. This also happens in the office, at the GIS-Admin level. A new subdivision is added, and it doesn’t fit. You have to force it. This doesn’t help with the accuracy issue.

The solution for a reality-deficient landbase is replacement. While this is no small feat, it can be done, and the benefits far outweigh the cost (or why bother). Beyond finding a better landbase, the challenge is alignment. Because they were drawn onto it originally, some facilities lined up with the old landbase, but they won’t line up with the new one. The answer to this chal-

lenge is conflation, the process of aligning the facility map(s) with the new landbase.

Conflation is a process that’s part automation and part hands-on, part software and part highly specialised methodologies. The remainder of this article will focus on the conflation process.

The first step is planning. For a large utility, conflation can be a very big job, in terms of both geography and effort. Many large utilities have facilities in multiple states. How do you eat an elephant? Small bites. The same holds true for conflation.

Projects are divided into smaller units, based on ‘equivalent effort’. Two city blocks may require the same amount of effort as two rural square kilometres. This strategy creates a consistent work and delivery schedule, a predictable project completion timeframe, and (most importantly) prevents the need to ever freeze the entire GIS. While small areas must be frozen for the process, it’s for a short time.

A key concept for conflation planning is expectation management. Everyone needs to know what’s expected of them and what to expect from everyone else.

This ensures a smooth process flow and minimises the chance of unpleasant surprises. Of course, expectation management is not a concept exclusive to conflation; it applies to almost every project or transaction involving multiple parties.

Once a new/better landbase is sourced and secured, the new and old landbase datasets are compared; this creates a large set (thousands) of shift vectors. Each shift vector represents the direction and distance of the required shift for a given point. Individually, they don’t mean much, but combined they create a shift model.

The Shift Model is the ‘big picture’ for the entire project/area, indicating how far everything is off and where it all needs to move. It looks a lot like the wind maps on the weather report, with many little arrows evenly scattered across the screen. It provides a visual representation of the disparity between shifts from place to place.

The shift model is applied to one area at a time, in accordance with the plan set forth at the beginning. Each area is treated like an individual project. After a given area is done, it is first QA/QC’d prior to delivery, then its QA/QC’d by the client after delivery. Any errors, tweaks, omissions, etc. are identified and corrected. This process repeats until all areas are done and final QA/QC is done for the entire project.

Final delivery is not the end of the process, though. Old landbase, parcels, roads, and other features that no longer belong are removed. Field verification is performed, and any issues identified by field verification are resolved. There is constant communication for months afterward to ensure a smooth transition.

Once all the assets are aligned with the new landbase, many benefits are realised. Dial Before You Dig buffers are reduced, meaning fewer tickets in general and fewer tickets that don’t belong to the member specifically. The same holds true for regulatory compliance, as the inherent geospatial relationships (e.g. How far is that daycare from the

pipeline? How close is that sewer main to the wetlands?) are much more accurate. New information is much easier to incorporate, as the respective accuracies of the two data sets make for a better geospatial match. No more force-fitting.

No matter what you’re doing, if the main question is ‘where?’, then accuracy matters. Inaccuracy can cause a slew of problems, ranging in severity. However, inaccuracy can be corrected, and if bad landbase is the problem, then conflation is the solution.

Andrew Lund is a 20-year veteran of the utility industry and works for the North-American subsidiary of we-do-IT in Miami in the US. n www.spatialsource.com.au

45

feature

Positioning crabs

Researcher Jakob Krieger.

Paul Grad

T

he first large-scale study of any arthropod using GPS technology to monitor behaviour is being conducted on Christmas Island by a Germanbased team of biologists.

The study was conceived and designed

by Prof Bill S Hansson, director of the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany (www.ice. mpg.de), and Prof Steffen Harzsch, of the zoological institute and museum, University of Greifswald (www.uni-greifswald. de). The experiments were performed by Prof Hansson, senior scientist Marcus C Stensmyr, Susanne Erland, and Michelle M Drew, of the Max Planck Institute; and

by Prof Harzsch and Jakob Krieger of the University of Greifswald.

The study focuses on the world’s largest land-living arthropod, Birgus latro, known as robber crab because of its tendency to steal things from people, even cameras, and also known as coconut crab due to its ability to open coconuts. Weighing up to 4kg, and with a leg span of about 1m, the robber crab can live up to 100 years. It lives on islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Christmas Island has a largely undisturbed population of several hundreds of thousands of robber crabs.

The robber crab possesses great physical strength and is capable of lifting up to 28kg and climbing trees. They must be handled with care, as with their pincers they can tear off a finger.

The robber crab relies on its sense of smell. The central question of the group concerned how olfactory systems adapt to the habitat and needs of the animal. “We

46 position August/September 2013

are especially interested in how extreme specialisation affects the sense of smell, from the behavioural to the molecular,” the group said.

Prof Hansson said the robber crabs have become land dwellers in an extremely short time – in evolutionary terms – about 5 million years. He and his team are especially interested in understanding how the robber crab evolved its sense of smell, including the brain tissues involved in olfaction, in such a short time.

The study will also help conservation efforts relating to the robber crab and many other creatures.

The team said monitoring freely roaming animals in their natural habitat, especially for extended periods of time, is not an easy task. The miniaturisation of GPS receiver and transmitter units has revolutionised the field of animal tracking. The technology has allowed animals’ behaviour to be unobtrusively monitored, and has yielded valuable information on long-distance migration and key insights into the daily patterns of many animal species.

The team said although female robber crabs have been known to migrate to the coast for breeding, no such observations have been recorded for male robber crabs.

The team attached GPS tags to 55 male robber crabs and recorded more than 1,500 crab days of activity, following some individual animals for up to three months.

It recorded details of the crabs’ movements, routes taken and orientation strategies. The study has shown that male robber crabs observe exclusive side fidelity over several weeks, but can also perform directed, longdistance migrations over several kilometres.

The team studied the crabs over an area of about 3km2, assuming an optimal receiving range for data acquisition of 300m.

The GPS-RF tags attached to the animals were made by e-obs GmbH (digital telemetry) of Munich (www.e-obs.de), a company specialising in digital tags for the study of animal behaviour. The company’s special focus is lightweight GPS tags combined with data download capability.

The GPS-RF tags consisted of a power supply (4.5V lithium polymer battery cell), a flash memory SD-card, a GPS module (LEA 4S) from u-blox AG, of Thalwil, Switzerland (www.u-blox.com) a radio transmitter that transmits short and high-pitched signals at brief intervals, an on-board real-time clock, an antenna, and an interface for an RF link to a base station – a mobile interface between user and GPS-RF tag. All components were embedded into a hard, waterproof plastic housing. Tags were 6cm long, 1.5cm high, and 5cm wide, and weighed 57g.

In the locations where the team released the crabs after tag attachment, the GPS positions of the tagging sites and other data were recorded using a handheld receiver – GPSMAP 62 – from Garmin International, Inc. (www.garmin.com). After the attachment of the tags the crabs’ GPS positions were collected by the crab-borne sensor.

Tags were attached to the posterior part of the dorsal carapace of the crabs with epoxy resin. Only male crabs of more than 500g were tagged.

The tags were programmed to collect data at intervals of 30 min, 60 min and 120 min. Maximum battery life is 77 days and data retrieval ratio (number of tags with data download/total tag number

feature

Michelle M Drew on Christmas Island, holding a robber crab.

per year) is up to 95%. Rate of successful GPS fixes per programmed GPS fixes was 33.34% in total.

The tag will naturally fall off when the animal moults.

To download the animals’ GPS positions from the tags, the team used a base station, which worked wirelessly, but to get a download the team had to be within a range of up to 200m from the tagged crabs. The base station consisted of a flash memory, a power supply, a display, a USB interface and an RF-interface for a wireless connection to the tag via a highsensitivity antenna – custom-made by Henning Marter FUNKBAU, of Rudolstadt, Germany (www.funkbau.de).

For re-locating an animal from farther than 200m, the tags had a built-in pinger, a radio ‘beep’ signal that can be received by a VR500 radio communications receiver from Yaesu Musen Co Ltd, of Tokyo, Japan (www.yaesu.com), with a directional Yagi-Uda antenna.

The team had different frequencies for each animal, ranging from 867MHz to 868MHz in 25kHz steps.

The team also conducted 12 displacement experiments to analyse possible homing behaviour. To this purpose the team translocated four male robber crabs in opaque jute bags about 1km from north to south.

Every GPS position is accompanied by a horizontal error estimate. The team carried out tests in the field and got a mean error of 20m horizontal GPS – determined by a stationary tag in the forest.

For comparison and for calibration of the GPS modules, the tag accuracy was also

tested by placing 21 tags on a glade (open sky) to record 669 fixes over four hours.

Under open sky conditions the error was even less, and the team did not use a differential GPS. Under the canopy the error ranged from 2m up to 244m.

Thus, the team removed all values from the analysis with a horizontal error estimate of more than 20.4m.

All recorded data from the GPS-RF tags (GPS date, GPS daytime, horizontal error estimate and heading) was transferred into a Microsoft Excel table before being imported into ArcGIS as a geo-database. For a precise measurement of movement, a 3D model of Christmas Island was created and geo-referenced to the large variations in height above sea level. The model is based on a topographic map of the island (Natmap; edition 1; 1:30,000; GEOCAT 70145). The tagging data was analysed with ArcGIS as well as the open source tools Geospatial Modelling Environment (http://spatialecology.com/gme) and Home Range Tools. Individual home ranges of the crabs were analysed using the quadratic Kernel function with the least squares cross validation of the mean integrated square error.

The team’s experiments provide the first conclusive evidence for the homing abilities over large distances – up to 1km – of a land-dwelling crustacean. The data obtained also provides detailed information on the spatial and temporal aspects of homing, and shows the crabs’ remarkable orientation abilities within their migratory corridor. These abilities provide evidence for place and route memories.

Although Birgus latro have evolved

Untagged robber crab in its natural habitat. Photos courtesy of Jakob Krieger, University of Greifswald.

an excellent sense of aerial olfaction, the team’s experimental data do not provide any evidence that they use olfaction for orientation during their long migrations.

They seem, however, to rely on information stored during the outward journey (route memory). The team displaced animals up to 1km away within their familiar territories and most animals showed directed homing behaviour resulting in the animals returning close to their pickup points. Possible information sources include celestial cues (sun, moon, anisotropic radiance distribution from skylight or reflections from the ocean or breaking surf); the earth’s magnetic field; differences of substrate features; slope; breeze carrying ocean odours; and seismic low frequency cues from breaking surf.

The crabs may organise their migratory routes by extracting navigational information from those cues and combining them with memorised familiar topographic features.

The team believes its experiments reveal new aspects of robber crab life. These arthropods are more or less constantly in motion. To establish their navigation strategies with greater certainty will require much more study, as has been the case with the study of the navigational mechanisms of homing pigeons, which are just starting to be understood after decades of investigation.

The team has revealed the first aspects of robber crab movement and navigational mechanisms using state-of-the-art technology. Their data will form the basis for continued studies on how the robber crabs find their way around their habitat.

Paul Grad is a freelance writer. n www.spatialsource.com.au 47

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

August/September 2013 – No. 66

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

The FuTure is

here Official publication of

inside Mine automation The CSIRO’s autonomous mining machinery

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Position covers the acquisition, manipulation, application and presentation of geo-data in a wide range of industries including agriculture, disaster management, environmental management, local government, utilities, and land-use planning.

It covers the increasing use of geospatial technologies and analysis in decision-making for businesses and government.

Technologies addressed include satellite and aerial remote sensing, land and hydrographic surveying, satellite positioning systems, photogrammetry, mobile mapping and GIS. Position contains news, views and applications stories, as well as coverage of the latest technologies that interest professionals working with spatial information.

retailers cash in on real-time Gis

Filling the gap How Geoscience Australia overcame the loss of Landsat-5

Position magazine is the only ANZ-wide independent publication for the Spatial Industries.

Positioning crabs GPS-tracking the largest land-living arthropod

It is the official magazine of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute.

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carDholDer name: _________________________________________________ eXpIry Date: _____/_____ sIgnature: ________________________________ name: _______________________________________________________________ Job tItle: ____________________________________________________________ company: ___________________________________________________________ aDDress: ____________________________________________________________ suburb/town: ____________________________ postcoDe: _____________ ph: _______________________________ FaX: _____________________________ emaIl: _______________________________________________________________

new products GIS software Pitney Bowes’ new MapInfo Professional v12.0 includes significant cartographic output improvements with new labelling capabilities, and an improved scale bar, legend designer and layout window.

It also offers a number of productivity and ease-of-use improvements, including a new translator for easily bringing data in and out of MapInfo Professional, Autodesk SQLite integration, new productivity tools, support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, PostGIS 2.0 and WFS 1.1.

For more information visit www.pitneybowes.com.au/MIProV12.

Corporate geoportal Open Spatial has released enlighten Business Intelligence (Bi) version 3.1 Improvements include compatibility with Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server 2013, homepage quick links, configurable bookmarks, expanded redline functionality, and single sign-on administration. enlighten Bi enables integration of engineering, corporate databases, imagery, mapping data and multimedia.

The software takes advantage of Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server by extending its functionality with solutions for managing water, stormwater and sewer infrastructure assets, as well as property and infrastructure assets for councils, utilities, airports and campuses.

Accessed on-premise through an Internet browser or in the cloud, enlighten Bi 3.1 requires no browser plug-ins or application software on the desktop, and can include managed services.

For more information contact info@openspatial.com.

Augmented reality for mining Maptek PerfectDig software brings together 3D modelling, laser scanning and handheld communication devices, allowing operators to effectively monitor excavation progress by comparing actual surfaces against designs.

The software combines mine plans and design information from Maptek Vulcan with laser scans of working areas, providing 3D visual and spatial analysis information in near-real time.

The software can also be accessed in the field via smartphone, tablet or laptop.

A Maptek I-Site laser scanner captures surfaces while mining continues - there is no need to stop equipment to scan an area.

PerfectDig automatically determines the location and registers the scan data against the mine survey grid. The data is geospatially accurate and up-to-date.

The user then pulls up PerfectDig on a tablet and compares scanned surfaces against the design imported from Vulcan. Overlays showing the conformance to plan parameters are then made available via secure online server to others in the organisation.

For more information visit www.maptek.com/products/perfectdig.

Mobile imaging data capture system Trimble has introduced its MX2 mobile spatial imaging data capture system.

Designed for mapping, surveying and engineering environments, the MX2 is rugged, lightweight and portable. It is also easily deployed and redeployed on projects similar to conventional surveying equipment.

The MX2 includes a precise laser scanner, along with an embedded Trimble-Applanix GNSS/Inertial positioning system, and is available in single and dual-laser versions.

Accompanied by Trimble Trident software to capture, process and analyse point data, the MX2 offers a ready-to-use workflow.

New features in Trimble’s Trident Software v6.0 include the incorporation of direct trajectory import and the Trimble Coordinate System Manager.

For more information visit geospatial. trimble.com/About_TrimbleMX2.html or contact Ultimate Positioning www.ultimatepositioning.com.

www.spatialsource.com.au

49

sssi news

President’s report - Gary Maguire Welcome to this edition. Thank you to all the members and sustaining partners who have re-joined SSSI for this coming financial year. Some people may be wondering: what’s the value of a membership with SSSI, and should I join or continue my membership?

The benefits SSSI offers come in two forms: the tangible benefit to you as an individual and the intangible benefit that comes back to the profession. SSSI has been working very hard over the past few years to identify all the benefits, but what is obvious is that the benefits are of different importance for each member. Some of the tangible benefits SSSI offers are: • Discounted local, national and webinar events.

• Commission based training programs.

• Magazine and journal publications.

SSSI Board of Directors 2012-13 President – Gary Maguire Past President – Gypsy Bhalla President Elect – John Trinder Treasurer – Jonathan Saxon Director – Simon Callaghan Director – Chris McAlister Director – Simon Ironside Company Secretary – James Curnow Company Secretary/CEO – Roger Buckley

SSSI Commission Chairs for 2012-13 Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Commission Chair John Trinder chair.rspc@sssi.org.au Land Surveying Commission Chair Phil Pozzi chair.lsc@sssi.org.au Hydrography Commission Chair Simon Ironside chair.hc@sssi.org.au Spatial Information & Cartography Commission Chair Penny Baldock chair.sicc@sssi.org.au Engineering & Mining Surveying Commission Chair Bernard O’Sullivan Chair.emsc@sssi.org.au

50 position August/September 2013

• Website for tracking CPD. • Professional certification programs.

• Discounted products and service offerings through NBSA Online.

• Grant sponsorships to participate in or represent SSSI. • Leadership development.

• Advocacy on state and national issues effecting the profession.

• Tax deductions for membership.

• Representation of the surveying and spatial profession on international organisations.

The intangible benefits start with SSSI being recognised as an international professional institution representing surveying and spatial sciences professionals in the Asia Pacific Region. They also include: • World-class training opportunities through conferences, seminars and e-learning to increase your knowledge in techniques and expand your skill set through industry experts.

• Valuable and lasting connections made at the local level through local involvement. This is an ongoing opportunity to share information, support one another, and create mutually beneficial alliances.

• Opportunities to advance your professionalism.

• Opportunities to increase your knowledge through webinars, social media forums, surveys, GeoMessage, the Journal of Spatial Sciences and Position magazine, providing the latest news affecting the profession and industry.

• Professional guidance from your peers, and alliance of your professional career with the Geospatial Body of Knowledge and the recently endorsed Geospatial Technology Competency Model.

• Leadership development by speaking at conferences, writing articles, contributing to research, or teaching other professionals at a SSSI seminar.

• National and local award programs to recognise your commitment and achievement To summarise the benefits, I see making connections and building a network of peers and experts as one of the biggest benefits of being in a professional organisation like SSSI. But, as with everything else in life, you need to be involved! The more involved you are with SSSI and your peers, the greater the return on your investment, YOU!!

I would like to congratulate all the organisations and individuals who have been nominated by their peers in the Regional APSEA’s and we look forward to announcing the winners from each region in the coming editions of GeoMessage.

As this will be my last article in the Position magazine as president, I would like to thank a few people. Firstly, to the directors of the past two boards, thank you for your invaluable support, guidance, leadership, and a sense of balance and place. To the consultative council members, thank you for your hard work and commitment in providing a mindset of collaboration and the many hands to do the heavy lifting and make sure SSSI has a strong place in our industry. To the staff of SSSI, it goes without saying that your continuity of knowledge and understanding of members’ needs and requirements is paramount to making SSSI run smoothly daily, thank you for you commitment and passion to excel and serve our members. To the commissions, regional committees and members thank you very much for making me feel welcome at your special events, conferences and award evenings, I have been humbled by the support.

It has been a great honour and privilege to serve as your president for the past two years. It has been a very difficult time over the past few years with the global financial crisis impacting government and business and our Institute, but SSSI’s maturity has evolved to a point where it has stabilised in membership and is now growing. Its volunteers and staff have created new and valuable service offerings for members. But more importantly the institute has shaped itself by listening to the existing and potential membership base about what they want, and it is for these reasons that I believe SSSI will become the peak body for surveying and spatial professionals in the years to come.

In the November / December issue you will hear from our Incoming president John Trinder, who will bring a wealth of experiences to the presidential role. I look forward to being part of the board under his leadership.

Gary President SSSI

SSSI sustaining partners

RS&P Commission Update

Space Community of Interest (CoI) John Trinder represented the SSSI at the initial Space CoI Workshop held in Canberra on 13 June. The creation of a Space CoI was identified in the recently released Australia’s Satellite Utilisation Policy. The Space CoI is within the Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) for Critical Infrastructure Resilience that has been developed by the Australian Government to ensure critical infrastructure services delivery.

One of the seven principles of the Satellite Utilisation Policy is to ‘Protect and enhance national security and economic well being’, and establishing a Space CoI was identified as a key outcome in achieving this principle. The objective of the Space CoI is to bring relevant interested parties from industry, academia and government together to explore vulnerabilities, including interdependencies between space-related infrastructure and critical infrastructure, and to develop options to mitigate risk.

The Space CoI Workshop had presentations from the Space Coordination Unit and the Attorney General’s Department.

There was a broad group of people participating in the Workshop representing the three areas of space supported by the Satellite Utilisation Policy, namely communications, positioning and Earth observation.

The workshop participants were reminded of the existence of the recently formed Australian Earth Observation Coordination Group (AEOCG) and that some of the goals of the AEOCG could be represented in the Space CoI work plan.

Although the activities of a Space CoI have not been finalised, potential activities include: • Documenting government and commercial dependencies on remote sensing from space-based platforms.

• Raising the awareness of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) vulnerabilities and the extent of GNSS dependencies across Australian industry sectors.

• A forum to consider telecommunications issues specific to use of satellites and their related ground-based infrastructure.

It is intended that the membership of

CoI will be finalised a few weeks after the workshop. EO will be an important part of the Space CoI as it is a vital infrastructure, especially for weather forecasting and disaster response and environmental monitoring in general.

More Information about the TISN for Critical Infrastructure Resilience can be found at www.tisn.gov.au and more Information about the Space Coordination Office and the Satellite Utilisation Policy can be found at www.space.gov.au

Conference reports Conference reports that are considered too long to publish in the RS&P eNewsletter are available on the on the SSSI Website.

Recent conference reports by members include:• International Conference on Computer and Robot Vision; Canada, May 2013.

• Joint Workshop of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing; Germany, May 2013.

• International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing/ GEO Workshop on High Resolution Global Land Cover Mapping; China, April 2013.

• 35th International Symposium on the Remote Sensing of the Environment; China, April 2013.

The reports and other resources can be accessed by member login to the SSSI website, then going to the RS&P Commission page, and click on the ‘Resources’ link on the right of the page. www.sssi.org.au/details/commission/5/ cat/205/sub/208.html

17th ARSPC The 17th ARSPC will be held at the Cairns Convention Centre from 7–10 October 2014 in conjunction with the SSSI Queensland Surveying and Spatial Conference 2014 (QCON14).

The 17th ARSPC themes will include: • Fire mapping & management.

• SAR/radar/InSAR processing and applications.

• Image processing techniques incl. object-based image analysis.

• Land, coastal, and wetland management.

• Geological/Earth science applications.

• Photogrammetry.

• LiDAR. • Emergency management/hazard mapping.

• Vegetation mapping.

• UAV. The 17th ARSPC Technical Committee is being formed and the conference website will be available soon.

Consultative Council for 2012-13 President – Gary Maguire Past President – Gypsy Bhalla Treasurer – Jonathan Saxon NT Rep – Renee Bartolo QLD Rep – Chris McAlister WA Rep – Peter Douglas NSW Rep – Greg Goodman NZ Rep – Chris Weir VIC Rep – Robyn McCutcheon SA Rep – David Trengove TAS Rep – Penny Douglas ACT Rep – Noel Ward RS&P Rep – John Trinder HC Rep – Simon Ironside SIC Rep – Penny Baldock YP Rep – Simon Callaghan LS Rep – Phil Pozzi EMS Rep – Bernard O’Sullivan Company Secretary – James Curnow CEO/Company Secretary – Roger Buckley

SSSI Regional Chairs 2012-13 New South Wales Regional Chair Gaby Van Wyk chair.nsw@sssi.org.au ACT Regional Chair Gypsy Bhalla chair.act@sssi.org.au Northern Territory Regional Chair Garry West chair.nt@sssi.org.au New Zealand Regional Chair Chris Weir chair.nz@sssi.org.au Victoria Regional Chair Chris Pettit chair.vic@sssi.org.au Queensland Regional Chair Chris McAlister chair.qld@sssi.org.au South Australia Regional Chair David Trengove chair.sa@sssi.org.au Western Australia Regional Chair Peter Douglas reo.wa@sssi.org.au Tasmania: Regional Chair Penny Douglas chair.tas@sssi.org.au SSSI Head Office 27-29 Napier Cl, Deakin, ACT 2600 (PO Box 307) Phone: +61 2 6282 2282 Email: support@sssi.org.au www.spatialsource.com.au

51

sssi news LAND SURVEYING COMMISSION UPDATE

AS5488-2013 Launched Knowing precisely ‘where & what’ a subsurface utility is, its condition and its status in the asset lifecycle can significantly reduce the occurrence of interference and conflict with valuable subsurface utility infrastructure. In an effort to improve public safety and reduce costly property damage, this standard provides for more accurate and consistent information on the location, type of utility and condition of subsurface utilities than has been available in the past The need for underground utility standards was first mooted in 1977 and gathered further momentum in 2006 with the release of an issues paper by the Surveying and Mapping Industry Council of NSW. In May 2010, the NSW RTA submitted a proposal to Standards Australia for the development of an Australian standard for the mapping of underground utilities.

A standards committee was set up under the chairmanship of Mark Gordon with wide industry representation. The committee worked diligently and intensely to release a draft standard for public comment in August 2012. Over 200 comments were received for consideration by the drafting committee which indicated the level of interest in the standard.

The Australian Standard for the Classification of Subsurface Utility Information AS5488-2013 was launched on June 12 last.

The primary objective of this Australian standard is to provide utility owners, operators and locators with a framework for the consistent classification of information concerning subsurface utilities, the standard also provides guidance on how subsurface utility information may be obtained, and how that information should be conveyed to users.

This is a document that all surveyors and spatial professionals should make themselves familiar with. Congratulations to Mark Gordon and his team who brought this project to its successful conclusion.

FIG Commission 5 (Positioning & Measurement) FIG Commission 5 actively participated recently in two events held in Manila.

• South East Asia Survey Congress 18-20 June.

• Reference Frame in Practice Technical Seminar 21-22 June.

52 position August/September 2013

The South East Asia Survey Congress (SEASC) was held at the Philippines International Convention Centre (PICC) attracting local surveyors, international registrants, corporate sponsors and administrative / technical support, from countries throughout the Asia Pacific region. There were 15 plenary sessions and 85 technical presentations, all of which were related to the theme “Geospatial Cooperation Towards a Sustainable Future”. The National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NMARIA), and Philippine Engineering and Geomatics Society (PhilGEGS) organised this congress for the ASEAN Federation of Land Surveying and Geomat.

FIG Commission 5 chair Mikael Lilje delivered several presentations, and together with vice chair of administration Rob Sarib, was actively involved in subsequent discussion forums on behalf of FIG and Commission 5. These were: • A plenary presentation about the contributions, roles and functions of Commission 5 towards geospatial cooperations for a sustainable future in the region.

• An overview presentation of Commission 5 and its activities, to the Philippine Young Surveyors’ Forum.

• Technical input into the round table discussions on Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction Management in the ASEAN Region by highlighting previous FIG technical papers on disaster management.

• A technical presentation at the round table discussion on the Adoption of a Common Reference System for the ASEAN Region and the involvement of our sister organisations International Association of Geodesy (IAG), and United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management – Asia Pacific (UN GGIM-AP) on such issues.

The Commission 5 ‘take home messages’ from SEASC proceedings and forums were:• Geo-spatial data infrastructure (SDI) needs to be ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘maintainable’.

• The importance of developing fundamental SDI framework components, such as institutional, legal, technical, data accessibility and timeliness, data quality and accuracy, are re-emerging as key drivers or justification for geospatial action.

• The increasing use of ‘cloud’ technology for accessing data, integrating data, computations, crowd sourcing and engaging users / citizens of geo-spatial information.

• The need for smarter data collection / gathering / management techniques for the large quantities or ‘mass’ amounts of data / information that is coming in the future.

• The need for up to date specifications, uniform practices and standards for new measurement techniques and mass data from sources such as laser scanners, digital cameras, LIDAR, INSAR, IFSAR, digital imagery, etc.

• The ongoing need for building the capacity of not just young surveyors but also mature or present surveyors.

• Education of geospatial data users.

• More promotion of FIG and sister organisation initiatives and our role / function so as to avoid duplication and the wasting of the precious industry ‘time and limited resources’.

• 70% of the world’s wealth is associated with land-related activities and as FIG has an important role in this industry, this needs to be emphasised at all levels of SDI organisations.

Reference Frame in PracticeTechnical Seminar (RFIP TS) The RFIP Technical Seminar, also held at the Philippines International Convention Centre (PICC), was an important event for not only FIG Commission 5 but also for the International Association of Geodesy (IAG), and United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management – Asia Pacific (UN GGIM-AP).

The objectives of the seminar were to: • Facilitate a regional forum for geodetic agencies focussing on the needs of Asia and the Pacific.

SSSI sustaining partners

• Build the geodetic capability of the Asia Pacific through technical agencyto-agency exchange.

• Improved data sharing and international participation in the APREF initiative and IGS. This two-day event was organised by PhilGEGS (Philippine Geodetic Engineering and Geomatics Society) the local surveying organisation and was co-sponsored by the IAG, UN GGIM-AP and the UN-International Committee on GNSS (ICG), with generous corporate support provided by ESRI, Trimble and Leica Geosystems. There were over 40 participants primarily from the region and the Pacific Islands, and 20 technical presentations with speakers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Fiji, PNG and Sweden.

Presentations were given by experts such as Prof. Chris Rizos from the IAG, Dr John Dawson from GeoScience Australia, and numerous geodetic specialists from the UN GGIM – AP working group such as Prof. Kwon Jay-hyoun and Mr Tetsuro Imakiire. The organisation and administration of the technical program was controlled by Commission 5, and presentations were specifically aimed at reference frame, geodetic and positioning issues and infrastructure.

For the more detailed information about the presentations go to the Commission 5 website www.fig.net/ commission5/index.htm.

The profile of FIG Commission 5 was also enhanced in this region. Many participants commented on how valuable the information was to their agency and that they (including presenters) would like to participate in similar technical seminars in the future. From a PhilGEGS perspective, this event was very important to its regional profile and the geodetic community, as they are developing strategies and implementation plans to modernise their geodetic framework by adopting an ITRF-based ‘geocentric datum’. In fact, an additional outcome from this event was a proposal from PhilGEGS to hold a 3-day workshop on this specific geodetic subject in June 2014 on the Philippine island of Boracay.

A technical manual on “Reference Frames in Practice”, which uses specific information from this event and the RFIP seminar held previously in Rome, is currently under preparation. It is anticipated that it will be ready for FIG publication and be officially released at the FIG Congress next year in Kuala Lumpur. Achieving this will fulfil part of Commission 5’s work plan commitments but it will also further consolidate joint IAG – FIG – UN GGIM AP activities and serve as foundations for the years to come.

WORLD HYDROGRAPHY DAY – 2013 “Hydrography – Underpinning the Blue Economy” For HMAS Shepparton it was business as usual on 21 Jun 2013 (World Hydrography Day), conducting sounding operations between the port limits of Darwin and Clarence Strait in company with HMAS Benalla. Recent tasking for the SML have been order 1A surveys in the vicinity of Torres Strait and now near Darwin where the aim is to provide more precise under keel clearance for the ever increasing volume of shipping through those waters. By identifying channels for deeper draught vessels, or allowing for merchant ships to increase the volume of their cargo will help boost our economy in the longer term, and demonstrates how important hydographic survey work is to our island nation.

larly the kilns, chimneys and hospital kitchen, are still in good condition even after the numerous cyclones and bush fires that have passed through over the last 175 years.

The port itself was first surveyed

by Philip Parker King in April 1818 during his first surveying voyage around northern Australia in the cutter Mermaid. He found it to be a safe anchorage and thought through its

However, it has not been all work over this period around World Hydrography Day. Both Shepparton and Benalla took some time off their important survey tasking and visited the historic settlement at Port Essington, called Victoria after the young Queen, landing personnel to walk through the ruins of the early settlement in the Northern Territory; established in the late 1830s before being abandoned in 1849 after much hardship. A walk through the old cemetery at the site really highlighted the tough life these settlers endured during the brief settlement, with many of the people buried there being women and young children as well as numerous Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines.

Testament to their skills with the materials they could find around the area of the settlement, much of the stone and brickwork of their buildings, particu-

proximity to Singapore and the East Indies, and the trade route through Torres Strait to India, that it would become a hub for trade and a port of great importance. However, the time of year he visited was when conditions were very favourable and through time the settlement had to contend with harsh conditions including cyclones, bushfires and the ravages of disease during the oppressive wet seasons.

Settled in 1838, the settlement was eventually abandoned in 1849 after failing to attract people and trade as first thought.

After a day of reflecting on the historical significance of Port Essington, the focus of activities shifted back to the current survey tasking and the reasons why hydrography truly does underpin the Blue Economy.

www.spatialsource.com.au

53

sssi news Long-term practice For those of you who practice in the field of engineering surveying, whether in the mining infrastructure, building and construction or at a local or state government survey and mapping level would be aware, our field is technical and offers great challenges on a daily basis. It is for this reason that our sector, within the many surveying streams, is so competitive and trade secrets are guarded so carefully.

We include a varied and dynamic ranges of spatial professionals who can project manage, data manage, run machine guidance, monitor movements, map topography, infrastructure, calculate quantities and much more.

During times such as now, with a slowing economy and a distinct industry downturn it is critical to stand out and/ or diversify to increase your worth to employers or customers alike.

All of us aim to have a marked difference to our rivals and opposition, much like a sporting team or a good brand name does. This is the reason the SSSi Engineering Surveying Certification (ESP-AP) is becoming so popular. Our certification scheme gives

the recipient a mark of excellence and allows the holder to stand out from the crowd of other spatial professionals.

The scheme has the potential to become a national and even international benchmark for all to strive for and for industry to measure against.

Applications are coming in very steadily across Australia with ESP-AP certified surveyors now in WA, QLD, NSW, VIC, NT and SA. Hopefully Tasmania and ACT will not be far behind.

Some movement is now coming from industry and government in recommending the certification as the first steps to adopting this as a standard that has no boundaries (our overall goal).

You may also be aware that the certification scheme has an initial method of application available known as the ‘long-term practice’ provision. This pro-

YP Career Development

Every year, hundreds of surveying and spatial science students graduate from higher education institutions across the country ready to begin a career along their chosen path. It’s a career that could follow any number of directions in a broad and everexpanding industry, however, a successful career means managing life, learning.

Career development is an ongoing process of planning and decision making about education, training and career choices as well as developing skills and knowledge. Advice from professionals provides constructive and practical insight into the industry and vital connections that may lead to future employment opportunities.

The South Australian YP group in particular is actively supporting students and young professionals in their region by recognising the importance of linking this group with professionals from the industry.

They recently held a career development evening at Flinders University, Adelaide.

The evening attracted a large number of attendees with five professionals invited

54 position August/September 2013

to present career advice to the group and answer questions.

Verity Kingsmill, project coordinator for skills development at Flinders University spoke about ‘Preparing for life after study’.

Stephen Fildes, a lecturer in remote sensing and spatial information science and a geospatial analyst at Flinders University discussed ‘Postgraduate GIS courses at Flinders University’. Dean Howell, the founder and CEO at GeoSpatial Connect, gave recommendations on ‘Strategies for navigating the current job market’. David Medlow Smith, a lecturer at Flinders University Business School, spoke about a ‘MBA and other professional development opportunities’. Gary Maguire, the manager of business & location intelligence services at the Department for Communities & Social Inclusion and SSSI president, gave advice for ‘Employees from a manager’s perspective’. The evening concluded with an hour of networking.

The committees around the country arrange similar events for young professionals and students to assist in developing their career and network with industry professionals. Look out for event notifications via email or on the SSSI website. We look forward to welcoming you to an event soon.

vision is to allow professionals within our field acceptance via substantial experience and industry expertise in lieu of academic qualification. You will be happy to hear SSSI’s Engineering and Mining Surveying Commission has agreed to extend this offer for a further 12 months to 30 June 2014.

This is commonly known as the Grandfather Clause and although the extension was debated with some for and some against extending the timing, it was concluded the offer for longterm professionals could not be ended before SSSI has given enough time to market and promote the scheme.

Some handy dates to keep in mind: SA Spatial information day, to be held on Friday 16 August 2013. www.spatialinformationday.org.au/ Spatial Networking – Crossing the Great Divide NSW Regional Conference 2013 and Annual Dinner, to be held on Friday 15 November and Saturday 16 November 2013 in Bathurst at the Mount Panorama Pitt Complex.

Any comments or input?

Please email Bernard O’Sullivan chair.emsc@sssi.org.au.

SSSI and Facebook SSSI has joined the social media revolution and now can be found on Facebook. Make sure you jump online and like the page!

NEW members’ online forum page A member-only forum page is now available on the SSSI website. This forum page is designed to connect members and provide a platform to collectively share ideas, provide insight into industry issues, and enhance networking opportunities.

To help with the understanding of the forum and its features, please see the functionality document for clarification.

To access the forum, simply log in via the membership interface.

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