Position 123 February-March 2023

Bass Strait’s role in SWOT satellite mission

The Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, launched on 16 December, is set to change the way scientists observe our oceans and inland waters. Jointly developed by NASA and French space agency CNES, along with the Canadian UK space agencies, this new mission is being described as a gamechanger.

For the past 30 years, satellite radar altimeters have been used with some success to measure ocean topography, boosting our understanding of the ocean and its role in the global climate system. The SWOT satellite boasts a new radar interferometric system that will increase the resolution of ocean topography maps from

approximately 25 km to 2 km over the next 12 months.

Australia is making a significant contribution to the international SWOT mission through the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Satellite Altimetry Calibration and Validation Facility in Bass Strait.

IMOS, working with partners the University of Tasmania and CSIRO, has upgraded the site with new GNSS-equipped buoys and sub-surface instruments to help validate the SWOT mission.

The GNSS buoys will measure the sea surface height very accurately in a way that is directly comparable with the SWOT satellite. To further assist, IMOS has supported instruments deployed in the ocean below the surface that will help tell scientists about ocean properties that contribute to its height, such as temperature, salinity, pressure and current.

During the validation phase of the SWOT mission, the satellite will fly over Bass Strait once per day for around three months. Bass Strait is the only site globally to be involved with SWOT that has contributed to altimetry validation since precision missions commenced in late 1992.

“This is one opportunity to provide an Australian contribution back to a satellite mission that will provide a step change in understanding water and its role in our lives,” said Dr Christopher Watson, leader of the IMOS Satellite Altimetry Calibration and Validation Facility, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Tasmania. n

Upcoming Events

15–16 March: Geo Connect Asia 2023 geoconnectasia.com

20–22 March: APAS2023 Conference apas.org.au

21 March: Global Surveyors’ Day 2023 surveyorsday.com

23–24 March: CSA of NSW Easter Conference 2023 countrysurveyors.com.au

2–5 May: Geospatial World Forum 2023 geospatialworldforum.org

9 May: 15th Australian Space Forum forum.andythomas.foundation/ 15th-australian-space-forum

10 May: Space & Geospatial Collaborative Workshop sssi.org.au/events-awards/events/ space-geospatial-workshop

10–12 May: Locate23 locateconference.com

23 May–1 June: FIG Working Week 2023 fig.net/fig2023

13–15 June: RPAS in Australian Skies aaus.org.au/events/upcoming-events

13–18 August: 31st International Cartographic Conference and 19th General Assembly icc2023.org

30 August–1 September: S+SNZ 2023 Conference surveyspatialnz.org

13–15 September: AIMS 2023 National Conference aimsconference.com.au

15 November: WA Digital Twin Summit & APSEA-WA sssi.org.au/events-awards/regionalconferences

For more events, go to www. spatialsource.com.au/event-listing

An artist’s impression of the SWOT satellite in orbit. Courtesy NASA.

This satellite altimeter Cal/Val GNSS/INSequipped buoy in the Bass Strait is used for precise sea surface height determination.

Credit: Jack Beardsley, UTAS/CSIRO.

GNSS in harsh environments

Developments such as SouthPAN and GNSS are enabling higher positioning accuracy in the trickiest of environments.

If someone had told me 10 years ago that they needed sub-metre accuracy under tree canopy, I would have warned them that achieving it may prove difficult and expensive at best, and, at worst, not possible in many environments.

However, satellite positioning just keeps on innovating. Recent developments have greatly increased the availability of higher accuracy in more places and for more industries, at a vastly reduced cost and with less user skill required.

There are many industries that need to work in areas that have varying amounts of sky obstructions such as tree trunks and canopy cover; these include arboriculture, forestry, environmental, cultural heritage, and archaeology. For sure, there are some environments where it is hard to see that GNSS will ever provide a solution… such as dense old-growth forests with trees that are tall, have wide trunks or thick branches.

But many forested environments have now yielded accurate location via space-based positioning since the advent of newer technologies such as SouthPAN, as well as better antennas, GNSS boards and firmware, and the ability to use all four global constellations at once — GPS (US), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (European) and BeiDou (China).

In Australia we also have access to a Japanese regional system called the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) which can add three or four extra satellites to the in-view constellations. QZSS is typically not used on L1-only sub-metre systems, but often is used on multi-frequency (L1, L2, L5) GNSS receivers such as the Eos Arrow Gold.

One of the major contributing factors to accuracy is how well spread around the sky the satellites are. You’re better off having a satellite in each quadrant than 20 satellites in a single quadrant. Having four constellations provides more opportunities to see a greater number of satellites and in a better geometry.

A receiver such as the Eos Arrow 100, which can use all four constellations in (for instance) tree canopy environments, provides an increase in performance and accuracy by using satellites that appear between the branches of the trees. GPS alone (or GNSS that only supports GPS and GLONASS) cannot use the additional satellites in view and therefore will suffer from lower performance and lower accuracy.

The second part in the accuracy solution for sub-metre is SouthPAN, Australia and New Zealand’s Space-Based Augmentation System (SBAS). Although quite new to Australasia, SBAS has been around for more than 20 years. Originally conceived for aviation to increase accuracy at remote landing sites, it is now used by nearly all industries that require submetre accuracy.

SBAS provides corrections for satellite orbit and clock errors plus an ionospheric correction. The corrections are highly accurate even when there is no local GNSS base station, and, as the corrections are provided by the L band transmission, there is no need for internet.

SouthPAN has complete coverage of mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. At present there is only one satellite (an Inmarsat geostationary satellite above the equator at 143.5° east) providing the

correction data, but using the same frequency band (L band) as the GNSS satellite systems… so it is received by the GNSS antenna, passed through and processed.

You have to be able to see the satellite to receive and apply the corrections. In the field with obstructions, this could prove problematic, however once you have received and applied the corrections, they can remain valid for quite a while as the corrections are for the orbit and clock of the GPS satellites, which do not change quickly.

It is important to be aware that SBAS works a little differently to CORSNet corrections; the issue is that there is a longer convergence time to get the highest accuracy. In the field, you place the antenna where you need the location, having consideration for the environment, then be patient and let GNSS do its job. Moving the antenna around and changing the satellites in use means that the convergence will have to start again for new satellites. Note also that not all GNSS receivers are capable of using SouthPAN until it achieves SoL (Safety of Life) Certification, expected in 2028.

In summary, new technologies are enabling many users to achieve surprising accuracy and performance in what once would have been deemed to be challenging environments. n

Peter Terrett is a GNSS specialist with more than 36 years’ hands-on experience with GPS/GNSS.

PETER TERRETT

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From the outback to the Moon

Putting together the articles for this issue of Position, it struck me how far we’ve come since the early days of surveying in Australia. Tony Proust’s article (p.24) on the role of surveyors in the building of the Overland Telegraph Line brings home the difficulties and hardships they faced in traversing the continent from north to south. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be thousands of kilometres from ‘civilisation,’ staking out a route that would connect Australia to the world like never before? It must have been simultaneously daunting and awesome to be a part of establishing a means to (at least partially) overcome the tyranny of distance.

Fast forward to today, and delegates at the 2022 IGNSS Conference in Sydney in December (p.28), heard about plans to establish a positioning system for operations on and around the Moon. It seems a bit surreal. Yet in many ways the Moon and the Australian outback have a number of similarities — the isolation of distance, a harsh environment and a real need to use the latest technology to enable the safe and efficient conduct of human operations. Australia’s burgeoning space industry sector has a good chance of playing a leading role in providing solutions to those challenges. The IGNSS conference was a great opportunity to learn about the latest developments in positioning, location and timing, at home and abroad, on Earth and in space.

With the introduction of Australasia’s SouthPAN service (p.27), a whole swathe of industries will now have access to cm-level precision for their operations. This will be a game-changer for transport companies, agriculture operations, public safety agencies, road and rail construction, the aviation sector and many more. No doubt there will be applications we haven’t even thought of — a sort of ‘build it and they will come’ situation.

Positioning professionals have always been at the forefront of human exploration and innovation, and there’s no sign of that changing any time soon.

Jonathan Nally Editor

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Position magazine, SpatialSource, Interpoint Events and The Intermedia Group acknowledge the traditional custodians of country across Australia, and pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to their elders, past, present and emerging.

Esri signs Earth science agreement with NASA

Esri has signed a Space Act Agreement with the NASA, which will provide the broader global community more access to NASA’s geospatial content… including from new datasets from nearly 100 spaceborne sensors.

The data covered by the Agreement will add to the existing NASA data in Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, making it increasingly available to more than 10 million users of GIS software in ArcGIS- and Open Geospatial Consortium-based formats.

“We are at a critical crossroads for climate action, and it is imperative that the global community has access to authoritative data to do this vital work,” said Jack Dangermond, Esri founder and president. “We are honoured that this partnership with NASA will make its data accessible to the geospatial community so we can all do our part in working toward the health of the planet.”

“We want NASA data to be used by the broadest possible audience for good,” said Gerald Guala, program scientist in NASA’s Earth Science Division. “We appreciate Esri’s vast community and are proud to take another step forward in making earth science data more accessible.”

Location data for electric vehicle charge-points

The UK’s Geospatial Commission has published a report on how location data can support the rollout of electric vehicle (EV) charge points.

Charge points must be rolled out where they are needed for today and tomorrow, and location data is key to building the right infrastructure in the right places, the Commission says.

With the UK government having committed to ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, a comprehensive and reliable public EV

charge point network will be critical to greater adoption of EVs.

The report — ‘Getting to the Point: Accelerating EV charge point rollout through geospatial data’ — identifies how location data can help model future demand, select suitable sites, create a seamless consumer experience and track rollout.

To improve the use of location data, the Commission will:

• Launch a feasibility study into how to widen access to demand modelling, to provide planners with data-driven

©stock.adobe.com/au/Monkey Business

evidence to identify how many and what types of charge points need to go where and by when.

• Explore the creation of a geospatial dataset for off-street parking, to support planners to identify suitable sites for charge points and avoid wasted effort.

• Support the government to make charge point data more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) and track how market innovators use the data to create new services which enhance the consumer experience.

“The Geospatial Commission’s report highlights how location data can help build the right infrastructure in the right places,” said Baroness Neville Rolfe, Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

“Drivers will then have the confidence to switch to EVs in the knowledge that they will be able to charge them easily and efficiently and not be delayed in reaching their destination wherever it is.”

“Location data is a crucial part in accelerating the transition to a sustainable transport system, and I look forward to working with the Geospatial Commission to realise our ambition for electric vehicles,” added Jesse Norman, Minister of State, Department for Transport.

New GPS III satellite launched on recycled rocket

A new GPS III satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 18. The refurbished launch vehicle had previously been used to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Lockheed Martin-built GPS III SV06 is the 25th Military-Code satellite introduced to the US Space Force’s GPS constellation. It will aid Space Force operators in their mission to providing

positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) data to military and civil users worldwide. GPS III satellites provide three times greater accuracy and eight times greater antijamming capability than older satellites in the constellation.

Lockheed Martin has completed production on its original GPS III SV1-10 contract, with the Space Force declaring SV10 Available for Launch on Dec. 8, 2022. GPS III SV06 will soon join SV01-05 in orbit. GPS III SV07-10 are completed and

Canada launches interactive marine mapping tool

Canada’s, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Joyce Murray, has launched the new Canada Marine Planning Atlas, an interactive mapping tool that will enable users to view and interact with data relevant to marine spatial planning. The Atlas includes data on economic, ecological and sociocultural activities that sometimes overlap in Canada’s marine spaces.

According to the Minister, marine spatial planning brings together all levels of government, Indigenous partners and stakeholders to shape better the objectives and future uses of marine space. Coordinating the management of ocean activities will be a key factor in achieving Canada’s part of conserving 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

“How we utilise Canada’s oceans, especially how we protect and restore them for present and future generations, will be greatly influenced by marine spatial planning in Canada and tools like the new Canada Marine Planning Atlas,” said the Minister.

in storage at the company’s facility waiting for the US Space Force to call them up for launch. The company is also designing and building the GPS III Follow On (GPS IIIF) for the Space Force, which will feature even more innovative capabilities than its predecessors.

GPS IIIF satellites will feature an accuracy-enhancing laser retroreflector array, a new search and rescue payload, a fully digital navigation payload and more next-generation technology.

©stock.adobe.com/au/Christian Pauschert

“I encourage Canadians to explore this new resource to learn more about how our waters are used and to support efforts to safeguard the health of the oceans.”

Precisely acquires location data firm, Transerve

Precisely, a data integrity company, has acquired Transerve, a location intelligence and data provider with expertise in spatial data handling, processing and analysis. Transerve, headquartered in the Goa region of India, provides a cloud-native location intelligence solution and data library with curated datasets, along with a spatial analytics SaaS solution for enterprise and midsize companies.

Transerve utilises AI and ML to make location analysis and data enrichment available to data-centric employees without the need for GIS expertise.

“In the past, deriving insights from location and creating visualisations was the domain of GIS specialists,” said Clarence Hempfield, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Location Intelligence at Precisely.

“With the acquisition of Transerve, Precisely adds new SaaS location intelligence capabilities to its portfolio of data integrity software and data. This allows users, without specialised knowledge or skills, to leverage location data and analytics and derive new insights about their business.”

“We’ve been on a mission to make spatial data easier to access, understand and take action on for businesses,” said Ashwanii Rawat, CEO and Co-Founder of Transerve. “We’re delighted to be joining Precisely who shares this passion for location intelligence and bringing the power of location data to everyday data roles to make an impact for the companies we serve and broaden our impact in the market.”

Satellogic to provide EO program for Mexico

Satellogic has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) to develop a fully featured and operational Constellationas-a-Service program to monitor approximately 2 million square kilometres of Mexico. The LOI provides a framework for the development of the program, leveraging Satellogic satellites to deliver high-resolution multispectral (70cm GSD) imagery.

The deal will help to support Mexico’s innovation and participation in the New Space economy with multipurpose, country-wide monitoring up to three times a year, enhancing Mexico’s EO competence via commercial capabilities.

The LOI also includes details for a pilot project utilising archive imagery.

“Satellogic’s Constellation-as-a-Service program will introduce a new level of Earth observation autonomy for the government of Mexico to service many programs across defence, agriculture, maritime security and census plus geography, enriching data resources for the respective agencies managing them,” said Dr Adán Salazar Garibay, General Coordinator of Scientific Research and Space Technological Development at AEM.

WA awards $75,000 to SPUR grant recipients

Three recipients have each received $25,000 in grant funding through the SPUR Location Grants Program, which rewards businesses that are finding innovative ways to use Western Australia’s location data.

The Program is supported by the WA state government through Landgate and five partner agencies.

Kimberley-based Burrguk Aboriginal Corporation (BAC) — in charge of the Banana Well Getaway bush campgrounds, located on the Dampier Peninsula — is the recipient of the First Nations Grant, for its proposal to develop a plan for an interactive historic nature trail, and signage for the area.

BAC demonstrated how its project is culturally significant and uses place-based information, such as supporting cultural mapping and on country programs.

Two applicants were successful in the General Grant category, for innovative proposals that leverage the State’s location information and deliver value for the land sector.

Aero Vines, from Perth, will develop an app to gather key field data for the horticultural industry. Dark Stry, also based in Perth, will develop a new interactive self-guided tour for visitors to the Coral Coast region.

The SPUR Location Grants Program is delivered through Landgate, in partnership with the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation, Department of Finance, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage and the Small Business Development Corporation. Over the next six months, the three grant recipients will also have access to additional resources such as targeted networking opportunities with partner agencies and information sessions.

US NGA awards contracts to Maxar

The US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has awarded Maxar Technologies two new contracts worth up to US$35.8 million.

The first award is a one-year Period of Performance contract worth up to US$22.5 million with US$11.3 million initially funded under NGA’s Janus Geography program. Janus is a cloud environment that will enable near-real time access to commercially created and enriched content.

Under the second award, worth up to US$13.3 million, Maxar will provide NGA’s Foundation Program with a modern, enhanced application programming interface (API) capable of querying, discovering and downloading Maxar products derived from the company’s 125-petabyte (PB) high-resolution commercial imagery archive.

Additionally, this enhanced API will deliver content to the end user’s

Michele Allan is the new chair of SmartSat CRC

SmartSat CRC has appointed current board member Dr Michele Allan AO as its new Chair, following the sudden passing of inaugural Chair Dr Peter Woodgate in December.

Dr Allan is also currently the Chair of the Boards of Charles Sturt University, the Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre (FIAL), Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence CRC, and Wine Australia. She is a non-executive director of the CSIRO, the Food Agility CRC, and Dairy Food Safety Victoria, and has previously held many other senior roles within the agriculture and food sectors.

“We are delighted to appoint Dr Allan AO as Chair, albeit under very sad circumstances. As one of our

founding board members, Dr Allan AO has already made an enormous contribution to our organisation,” said the CEO of SmartSat CRC, Professor Andy Koronios.

“We are all deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of our inaugural Chair, Dr Peter Woodgate, whose dedication and service will be deeply missed. As we look ahead, we are determined to ensure that we continue Peter’s legacy with Dr Allan AO at the helm.”

“I would like to acknowledge the untimely passing of Dr Woodgate and his leadership at SmartSat CRC,” said Dr Allan.

“He was an inspiring leader, and

cloud account rather than via legacy dissemination methods. Additional options include third-party content integration, full business analytics and greater production capacity.

The enhanced API award is for a performance period of up to 4.5 years consisting of a base of six months and four full option years. The new API will support computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

I am honoured to take on his legacy. I look forward to working with the SmartSat CRC team to pursue our goals for advancing Australia’s space and spatial industries.”

NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

LiDAR survey of NZ’s Taranaki region

A ground-breaking aerial LiDAR survey of Taranaki’s land surface has been completed, opening up a wealth of valuable land-surface and elevation data for a wide range of uses. Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) partnered with Taranaki Regional Council on the NZ$1m project.

The dataset — collected in 2021 and two years in the making — will be used to generate high-definition 3D maps and models for environmental management and planning. It will also be used by the Council to manage natural hazards, plan facilities, services and infrastructure, and track changes to the coastline and river channels.

“It’s exciting that we now have accurate elevation information, right down to the property scale, for the entire Taranaki region,” said Bjorn Johns, LINZ Technical Leader, Imagery and Elevation. “The new digital elevation data provides certainty to councils and landowners and ensures their terrain modelling is as accurate as possible.”

The LiDAR data will enable improved 3D visualisation of the land, providing valuable context for planning and mapping, and is available to anyone via the LINZ Data Service.

“As new datasets across the country are completed and contributed to the LINZ National Elevation Programme, the amount of national coverage increases, giving us the best possible picture of New Zealand,” added Johns.

“It’s fantastic to see the completion of the Taranaki Regional Council-led project and now we can start using that invaluable data to keep caring for our environment and supporting livelihoods,” says Council Director-Operations, Daniel Harrison. “There is a myriad of applications where we and our partners can use this data and it is available to the public as well. The level of detail is incredible and it will be a really useful tool for our staff.”

Funding for the project came from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) via LINZ, with contributions from the Council, New Plymouth District Council, Stratford District Council, South Taranaki District Council and the University of Auckland.

The PGF — one of six funds administered by the Kānoa–Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment — is now fully allocated.

Taranaki Regional Council was one of 10 regional councils nationwide given funding from the PGF for regional-scale LiDAR mapping projects.

Harrison said the LiDAR information will help the district councils in land-use planning and assessing the provision of services, while the University of Auckland is interested in the surveys of the Taranaki Maunga volcanic cone.

“We’re expecting surveyors, engineers, construction companies, farm planners and others to find the maps and models useful as well,” he said.

John Deere to use Matterport digital twin tech

Equipment and machinery manufacturer, John Deere, has selected Matterport’s Digital Twin Platform and 3D capture technology to implement a virtual Operations Centre for remote management of more than 60 facilities across North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

The platform will produce simulated digital replicas of John Deere manufacturing facilities, where teams can remotely track progress, plan for site changes and collaborate remotely.

Utilising Matterport’s Pro2 and Pro3 cameras, John Deere will capture spatially accurate, 4k resolution digital twins to optimise facility operations. John Deere employees will be able to remotely access any facility’s digital twin to track assets and materials, monitor vehicles, and integrate real-time IoT data streams.

Such collaboration will take place in real-time and will reduce the need for costly site visits.

“For global businesses with facilities spread across several regions and time zones, the ability to remotely optimise each space based on its own unique parameters is a critical unlock for operations management,” said Jay Remley, Matterport’s Chief Revenue Officer.

Paper charts are not quite dead yet

In July 2022, the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) announced its intention to withdraw from the production of paper charts. But following feedback, the decision has now been made to continue chart production until at least 2030.

The initial decision to cease production of paper charts was made following consultations with the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency and national user groups, with a target date of late 2026 set for completion of the process.

The withdrawal was subject to the development of digital solutions for those remaining users of ADMIRALTY Standard Nautical Charts (SNCs) and Thematic Charts, to ensure those user have viable, official alternatives, as well as meeting the technical and regulatory steps required to achieve this.

The UKHO also made a commitment to consult closely and more widely with its UK and international stakeholders on the proposal and to listen to their feedback, stating that “we would leave no one behind”.

To that end the Office engaged with many groups and organisations in recent months, including distributors, defence customers, commercial and leisure users, international regulatory authorities, and colleagues in the global hydrographic community.

According to the UKHO, those conversations have “highlighted a number of important transnational and regulatory factors that need further consideration”.

“It has become clear that more time is required to address the needs of those specific users who do not yet have viable alternatives to paper chart products, so we will continue to provide a paper chart service until at least 2030,” the office said in a statement.

Peter Sparkes, Chief Executive of the UK Hydrographic Office, said that “As we further develop digital navigation solutions, our long-term intention to withdraw from paper chart production remains unchanged and we will continue to withdraw elements of our chart portfolio over the coming

Two new spatial tools for Digital Twin Victoria

There are now two more tools available within the Digital Twin Victoria (DTV) platform — a line-of-sight tool and a spatial query tool. The tools give users the ability to visualise, analyse and assess more than 4,000 Victorian datasets.

The line-of-sight tool enables users to draw a line between two locations and identify if any obstructions lie along it.

This capability will prove useful for the planning and development of residential properties, viewshed protection, telecommunications planning as well as urban and rural council planning.

The spatial query tool enables users to draw a shape on the map and use it to select a subset of 2D data from spatial layers. Information can then be

period, on a case-by-case basis”.

“However, having listened to the feedback we have received and in light of the consequential impact of the international technical and regulatory steps required to develop digital alternatives, we will be extending the overall timetable for this process,” he added.

“Please be assured that the elements of our paper chart portfolio necessary to support safe navigation for our customers will be maintained throughout this transitional period as we increase our focus on digital navigation products and services.”

exported from the selected layers as a downloadable report.

The new tools will be available for integration into TerraJS-based applications, and join a range of other tools and capabilities already available within the platform, such as:

• Searching and selecting 3D data

• A pedestrian mode for exploring at street level

• A slider for comparing datasets

• A timeline to support the tracking of data across time

• The ability to produce, annotate and share ‘stories’ with colleagues.

• The DTV platform, which became publicly accessible in August 2022, is part of the Victorian Government’s $37.4 million investment in digital twin technology and spatial innovation.

The spatial query tool enables users to draw a shape to select and display features on a 2D map. Courtesy DTV.

Q&A with Sherif Mohamed

A passion for applied research has led to an exploration of the potential of GIS in construction applications.

Professor Sherif Mohamed is Dean of the School of Surveying & Built Environment at the University of Southern Queensland. His professional background is in civil engineering, specialising in construction, having earned his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in construction from the University of Southampton in the UK. Following graduation, he worked in the UK for a few years prior to moving to Australia in the mid-1990s.

What sort of research is the School undertaking?

We are involved in a wide range of collaborative research wherever spatial data is concerned. This includes environmental monitoring, hydrology, mining and agriculture. Recently, we had an awardwinning project, in collaboration with industry, where farmers can use drone technology for crop health monitoring.

We also undertake collaborative research in spatial data analysis and management to facilitate decision-making. In a recent collaborative study, we helped decisionmakers to have a better floodplain management plan as a result of modelling the relationship between vegetation response and available water below the soil surface.

Additionally, the School has an active construction research group focusing its efforts on creating practical solutions to challenges associated with trends such as digitalisation and climate change.

The workforce shortage is driving everybody crazy. Do you have any thoughts about what can be done?

Yes, we are facing skill shortages. Naturally, one of the easiest ways to fill a skills shortage is by inflating wages and salaries, but this is not sustainable because you are dealing with symptoms and not the cause of the problem. Another option is to rely on government intervention on immigration… but practically speaking every industry is now lobbying for the same, and I can see limited benefits in pursuing this path. So, this leaves us with a third option where industry, in partnership with the academia, can open up skills pathways for their current and prospective staff. Surely, this is not a quick fix solution, but is much more reliable and sustainable over the medium and long terms. Sponsoring a scholarship

and offering industry placements are two examples of how industry can contribute to our efforts.

Micro-credentials are an alternative learning option for those who don’t have the time to enrol in a longer qualification. At UniSQ, we are in the process of developing micro-credentials courses in GIS, as well as drone mapping and navigation. Such courses will suit individuals who may not be interested in pursuing a full degree but have a natural interest in GIS, drones, and subsequent data visualisation and analysis.

A lot of people who use geospatial data do not see themselves as being part of the geospatial industry. Is this a concern?

With the emergence and common use of smartphones these days, everyone uses spatial data for even the most basic needs. Location-based services are an important element of everyday life, from finding the fastest route to locating the nearest petrol station. As professionals, the use of GIS/ spatial analytics by various industries is only expected to go up in a market driven by increasing global demand for geographically correlated information.

Against this background, I do not see fixed boundaries for the constantly evolving geospatial industry. Having blurry boundaries should pave the way for this industry to embrace and accommodate a variety of disciplines and different kinds of expertise that could lead to the creation of new fields. My personal view is that the attraction for any discipline to become part of this industry will continue to be its flexibility and its capability tapping into emerging applications. The industry, in turn, will need to welcome and endorse any discipline that can help further growing its domain.

Smart and sustainable cities are the way of the future. As an educator, what kind of professionals are you trying to produce to meet this new future?

I am glad that you asked this question. Given my construction background, I see huge potential for several professional disciplines working together to add value to the various processes of urban planning, design and construction to create a physical environment that adequately supports a healthy, inclusive and productive lifestyle. A ‘smart city’ uses information and communication technology to provide innovative and efficient services, raising the standard of living for all while promoting sustainability and reducing human impact on the environment.

As an educator, I aspire to produce professionals who understand and appreciate that their professional choices have major implications for environmental sustainability and cohesion. They need to be tech- and business-savvy. Their way of thinking should change from linear thinking to multi-dimensional thinking: traditionally, graduates are trained for solving deterministic problems, but the future is all about better decision-making that include uncertainty in problem solving.

The national geospatial education system has shrunk in recent years, but your School seems to be flourishing. What is it doing differently?

Unfortunately, public funding per student, over the years, has fallen in real-dollarterms, and consequently universities are expected to do more with less. As government funding per student continues to decline, applied programs, in particular, become more costly to run, so no surprise here when universities regularly review and re-evaluate their program offerings.

Fortunately, at UniSQ, our School is bucking this trend. Due to the reputation and flexibility of our program offerings coupled with the professionalism and dedication of our staff, we are now the largest surveying education provider in the country. We offer two-, three- and fouryear degrees, i.e. ADSS (Associate Degree Spatial Science), BSST (Bachelor of Spatial Science Technology), and BSPH (Bachelor of Spatial Science (Honours)), respectively. Our student progress rate has risen from 87% in 2018 to 94% in 2022, well exceeding the government benchmark of 80%. Having said that, we still face the challenges of reduced funding, and for our programs to sustain their leading position there is an urgent need for effective partnership with industry.

What else can be done to promote geospatial careers?

It is worth noting that students under 21 years of age remain the dominant group in higher education. Our School is actively marketing our academic programs via high school visits in our various catchments. We engage with senior high school students, connecting them with experiences that develop their confidence and aspirations for further education. However, we urgently need industry support to further develop our outreach activities to raise high school students’ awareness and level of engagement.

Unfortunately, the surveying/ geospatial profession does not effectively

and positively sell itself to the broader community, and more specifically to parents and career advisors.

What we need, on top of our existing outreach activities, is to form an academia/ industry network that is visionary and entrepreneurial — to be the catalyst for change, thinking outside the box by making the private sector central to our university efforts to inspire young people.

Using the marketing term of ‘call to action,’ I am inviting your readers — the industry representatives — to proactively engage with the School, so that we can develop an inspiring program of promoting the profession to high school students, nationwide.

What fresh ideas are you bringing to your role?

Strategically, the School aspires to be nationally renowned both for the quality of our education programs and for the relevance of our research and scholarship, as well as for the strength of the partnerships that underpin them. With this in mind, I am developing an ambitious engagement agenda with clear objectives to establish close links with industry, professional associations and high schools in order to advance our education and research agendas.

Education-wise, the role of our future graduates will continue to change. The focus of the profession is changing from being

very much related to doing measurements to now being increasingly related to management of the measurement processes, the geospatial data, and the property and land-use domains. Consequently, I’d like to see in our programs a stronger focus on integrating modern surveying technologies into a broader process of problem solving and decision making within the context of surveying applications. Measurement and the ability to integrate data from numerous surveying equipment will continue to be critical but data and information management will continue to gain momentum as we go forward.

What is the School hoping to achieve in 2023?

Our goals include but are not limited to: Grow our student load, enhance our research performance and establish an engagement agenda to facilitate industry partnerships, sponsorship, and student internship. We will be undertaking an unprecedented level of industry engagement to better understand their priorities and we will be using this insight to develop a vibrant education and research unit which meets their expectations. Our focus is on having positive relationships with our internal stakeholders (i.e. students), and external stakeholders (i.e. employers and research end-users). We must put our stakeholders at the heart of everything we do. n

We urgently need industry support to further develop our outreach activities to raise high school students’ awareness and level of engagement.

©stock.adobe.com/au/Francesco

Scatena

Application-ready insights: The fourth era of geospatial data

Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, deep-learning and analysisready data are ushering in a fourth era of geospatial data and analysis. The scaling of geospatial artificial intelligence makes it possible to transition from analysis-ready data to application-ready information. This new era will enable an easier, more flexible way to integrate geospatial artificial intelligence data directly into enterprise applications.

This is a game changer. It will transform how we access and use data on objects, events, or other location features that describe our ever-changing world.

A walk down memory lane

At the dawn of digital mapping, location information and maps first became available on mainframe computers. Satellites increased the scale and reach of data captures.

The World Wide Web, search engines, big data and the scaling of personal computing were some key milestones in the second era of geospatial data. This was the era of MapQuest, the first commercial webmapping application, and the start of the democratisation of geospatial data.

The sector then took a huge leap further during the renaissance of artificial intelligence, in the third era. Deep learning and machine learning enabled organisations to systemically create location datasets and geospatial artificial intelligence. This would eventually enable the creation of AI-derived data products.

Responding to a changing climate with smarter intelligence

The fourth era of geospatial data could not have arrived at a better time, as the world grapples with the challenges of a changing climate. This era provides webscale computing and storage, new artificial intelligence techniques and high-resolution capture systems. This enables the rapid and consistent creation of nation-wide property level information, ready for use in enterprise applications.

We only need to look at the past year for evidence of this. For the third consecutive time, Australia is in the grips of La Niña, spelling more devastation ahead for many Australians.

When it’s not pouring, parts of Australia are battling bushfires and drought, including the unprecedented 2019–20 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires that burned

DAN PAUL, GENERAL MANAGER ANZ, NEARMAP

through more than 10 million hectares of land in southern parts of the country.

Never before has Australia and the world needed powerful data, insights and tools as much as it does now to rapidly evaluate, manage and respond to environmental and property risks.

Tapping into hyper-local data

Fortunately, today’s modern aerial imaging technology offers far more than just a bird’seye view.

These days, governments and organisations can access a suite of smart technologies including regularly updated high-resolution aerial imagery, explorable 3D data, and automated, AI-powered analytics that provide rich layers of invaluable information and insights.

In other words, modern location intelligence and aerial imagery — produced by companies including home-grown Australian technology company, Nearmap — can give organisations in sectors including insurance, government, financial services, architecture, construction and engineering, another powerful type of data to make better informed decisions.

Next phase of property risk management

With the latest generation of Nearmap AI, application-ready information is created by a new deep-learning model trained on a much larger data set. This includes over a million labelled images.

This machine learning capability now acts as a powerful platform on which a suite of AI-products will be developed. This starts with one of the most accurate AI-enabled property risk management capabilities in the market.

This includes giving organisations access to automated roof condition

Learn more about the newest aerial technology solutions:

assessments, fire risk assessment and flood risk assessments. Nearmap is also applying machine-learning analysis to our capture of weather catastrophes and natural disasters, providing even more rapid insights to aid response and recovery efforts.

This latest version of Nearmap AI also includes performance enhancements to existing layers, access to 78 layers of automated mapping, and five new AI packs that bundle the AI layers into products for different use cases, including identifying objects on roofs or debris.

15 years of building the most intelligent map on Earth

Nearmap is the only company in its field that owns the entire technology stack for location analytics, including camera technology, image processing, data and content, delivery and machine learning capability. With Nearmap technology and mapping, organisations can access a reliable and trusted end-to-end solution for location analytics and aerial imagery to help

them better predict, prepare, respond and recover from the evolving challenges of a changing climate.

Access to rich data will inherently become more important as our globe and weather patterns change. Equipping organisations with world-leading machine-learning intelligence and giving them access to an extensive library of historical and current location data, will undoubtedly transform the management of environmental and property risks where we’ll see decisions made in almost real-time.

Having all this information on hand opens some wonderful opportunities to contribute to science and our collective understanding of how we live as a nation. Even better, we can effectively jump in a time machine and rerun this analysis on our back catalogue of imagery, with the potential for multi-time analysis in future. This delivers powerful and enlightening information, accessible at any time from a desktop, worldwide.

Nearmap has come a long way since

starting 15 years ago in Perth, WA. We’re proud to be celebrating this milestone while congratulating and cheering on fellow Australian-founded technology and innovation firms, punching well above their weight in a globally competitive sector. Some of these firms, including Nearmap, recently featured on the ‘2022 AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies’ ranking.

Our team at Nearmap loves connecting with innovative organisations, and working together to help grow your business, and solve your biggest challenges. And with the latest Nearmap data, insights, and tools, you too can be at the forefront of the fourth era of geospatial data. n

Dan Paull is General Manager of Australia and New Zealand at Nearmap, a location intelligence company with operations in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. The company provides organisations with instant access to high resolution aerial imagery, city-scale 3D content, artificial intelligence data sets, and geospatial tools.

Above: Fifth and latest generation of Nearmap AI, showing Watsons Bay, NSW.

Below: A prototype of the Assessment Report for automated Nearmap Flood Risk Assessments, showing Cornwallis, NSW.

Access to rich data will inherently become more important as our globe and weather patterns change.

SURVEYING above and below

Toitū Te

Whenua Land

Information New Zealand (LINZ) and City Rail Link Limited (CRLL) are collaborating to ensure the integrity of ownership and protection of not only the railway stations and tunnel infrastructure along Auckland’s new City Rail Link (CRL), but also the subsoil surrounding the infrastructure.

The CRL, established by the New Zealand Government and Auckland Council, will comprise a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link up to 42 metres below Auckland City, linking Britomart to Mount Eden. It will eventually accommodate up to 54,000 passengers per hour at peak travel times.

The collaboration between LINZ and CRLL aims to ensure that future use of the land and subsoil, be it private or public property, or road, is minimally impacted by the tunnel and rail stations.

LINZ Principal Cadastral Surveyor, Mike Morris, says the CRL survey is not without its challenges.

“The magnitude of the project is not so much the huge quantity of data coming through, but the complexity of the information which makes it such a significant project,” he said.

“New Zealand was groundbreaking in its introduction of a two-dimensional cadastre in the early 2000s; the current redesign of the system,

Landonline, is the start of a journey to a fully 3D land information system.”

Light at the end of the tunnel

Rick Galli, CRLL Head of Property, says the collaboration project has only just commenced and will be a long journey.

“Geo-referencing in 3D is really exciting and it will be fascinating to see where LINZ is going with it,” he said.

Both public entities share a duty of care to look after New Zealand’s land and environmental resources, so they are sustained for future generations.

“Land and property are finite resources requiring protection

to ensure their use can be maximised, which is also a key purpose of LINZ,” said Galli.

“CRLL has engaged with LINZ across multiple points in the project, including acquisition under the Public Works Act, willing purchase negotiations, the naming of rail stations (through the New Zealand Geographic Board), meeting survey standards and ensuring the Cadastral Survey Datasets are compliant and fit for purpose.”

According to Morris, “historically, the amount of rework required to achieve compliance with the required survey standards is high, and the more complex the surveys, the more difficult it is to achieve first-time compliance”.

City Rail Link and LINZ are collaborating on Auckland’s new 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link.

The 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link will run below Auckland City. All images courtesy CRL.

“LINZ has an objective to work with surveyors to help them improve first-time compliance. This project is a good opportunity to test that objective.”

Non-compliance is an issue that both adds cost to projects and ties up valuable LINZ resources. LINZ plans to be the ‘fence at the top of the cliff’ helping companies provide correct and compliant information, Morris says.

Galli says CRLL is delighted to collaborate with LINZ, as it is imperative New Zealand has a “world-class property system where people can own, transact, develop and invest in land and property with confidence”.

The need for quality, highvalue geographic and property information is self-evident, but given the nature of the CRL project, it is complex to deliver, he says.

In preparation for the lodgement of the Cadastral

Survey Datasets, staff from both entities met to ensure mutual understanding of the methodology for what will be complex land and subsoil surveys.

“With that level of understanding, LINZ staff can now work with the surveyors to maximise the opportunity for how the surveys are captured and depicted,” said Galli.

“Given the scale of the CRL project, and the importance in establishing robust Cadastral Survey Datasets along the route, the parties were able to share their individual thoughts about what they imagined were important issues relating to the surveys, their integration with the cadastre, and the spatial integrity of the current parcel fabric,” added Morris.

“There was good commonality, but it was also healthy to note sufficient differences to warrant the continued collaboration.”

“We are keen to ensure the Cadastral Survey Datasets are prepared in such a way that the data will be aligned with the requirements for the future 3D cadastre,” said Galli.

The multi-year survey project will capture land parcel data that can be viewed in 3D in the future, once the 3D cadastre is released.

Bringing this project to life in 3D will give a much clearer picture of what the infrastructure looks like below the surface of each overlying property.

Contractor collaboration

In support of Link Alliance — a consortium of seven companies that are building the tunnels and main stations — a range of contractor firms have played vital roles in the CRL project, including surveying specialists Survey Worx and CKL New Zealand.

“I am a firm believer that a robust, fit for purpose survey control network is critical in helping deliver successful projects of any size and complexity,” said Link Alliance surveying consultant, Sam Williams.

“We now have a team of 20 surveyors on site and they have enough to worry about with time constraints and design changes, I didn’t want to add control to the list,” Williams added. “Unlike other factors, survey network area is something that we have total control of. I wanted to help the team install a network that enabled them to be able to set up anywhere on site and have confidence in the network.

“Historically on previous projects I have worked on, I have found that it is preferred that a third-party consultant would be engaged to install the control network for the project,” he said. “Essentially the

“The current redesign of the system, Landonline, is the start of a journey to a fully 3D land information system.”

Mike Morris, LINZ

Building a new underground rail line through the heart of a busy city, is a challenging task.

The project involves different tunnelling techniques and the construction of two new underground stations.

surface works, civils and tunnel teams would create their own independent networks.”

“In this instance I wanted to take full ownership and create a precise network of a high enough quality that would facilitate all works, ensuring the stations and tunnelling works would tie in accurately,” he said. “This equated to an accuracy standard where the threedimensional absolute accuracy of a Primary Control point would be 2mm ± 1ppm at the 95% confidence level.”

One tricky aspect Williams had to take charge of, was engaging with stakeholders and local building owners to gain access to buildings that had the vantage point of being visible from the summit of Mt Eden.

“Fortunately, we were granted permission to access the rooftops of 6- and 10-storey buildings at Karagahape and Aotea stations,” he said. “As part of this process, we needed to get myself and another team member trained in working at heights and purchase the appropriate PPE equipment. We also had to have the workingat-height anchor points for the buildings re-certified or installed if they didn’t exist.”

Dealing with data

“The point cloud data and all other as-built information that

is captured by the Link Alliance Survey Team is integrated and managed by the Link Alliance BIM team into their BIM (building information modelling) infrastructure,” said surveying consultant with Survey Worx, Michael Cutfield.

“The BIM environment on the CRL project is comprehensive and world class, providing a single source of truth for all assets that are procured. A key component of the metadata that the BIM system provides is the geospatial location of all assets,” he added. “The close working relationship between the Survey Team and the BIM Team ensures the positional accuracy of all features and assets, as it is directly connected to the highlevel survey control.”

This is where Survey Worx came in. With its experience of working on large infrastructure projects and utilisation of cutting-edge geospatial technology — together with cadastral surveying experience and dealing with LINZ and New Zealand’s digital cadastral database — the company was able to provide the data that is required by a Licensed Cadastral Surveyor, ensuring accuracy and completeness. This is achieved by utilising compatible software to access the BIM system, analysing

the data, and extracting the correct level of detail required for a successful creation of a new Cadastral Survey Dataset, ready to be submitted to LINZ through LandOnline.

“Given that the survey control for CRL was established, and checked, against high-order survey control provided by LINZ, the calculated location of the CRL assets in terms of the Mt Eden 2000 coordinate system are determined to a high level of confidence,” said Cutfield.

“Given also that the Mt Eden coordinate system is also the basis of all locations of land titles in the area, the direct link between land, asset and title can then be established and plotted with an equally high level of confidence to ensure people’s land rights are protected.”

CKL New Zealand has been involved in the preparation of the survey plans associated with the legal separation of the City Rail Link Tunnels from the existing parcels of land (including roads and Motorway).

“Plan preparation was greatly enhanced by the accurate as-built of the tunnels and associated structures by the CRL surveyors and Survey Worx,” said CKL surveying consultant, Simon Reid. “With all parties working in the same horizontal and vertical datums there has

been a seamless integration of the separate sets of data for below ground, above ground and existing cadastral boundaries.

“The basis for the new parcel boundaries for the railway is based on the tunnel positions supplied, designations and design levels. From this, offsets have been calculated for the railway parcels in both vertical and horizontal extents,” he added. “This has ensured an accurate representation of the upper and lower limits and horizontal extents of the required parcels.”

In terms of the central motorway junction, laser scanning was undertaken of the area of land above the tunnels at this point. This allowed remote access to the required area for survey without having to enter the motorway corridor. With the survey data captured, CKL’s survey team was able to analyse the relationship of the ground levels measured with the upper limits for the tunnels that had been defined. 3D modelling of the data on the ground and the tunnel boxes themselves helped determine if there were any conflicts.

“The ability to trust supplied data has been extremely beneficial to this point of the project and will continue to be of great importance moving forward,” said Reid. n

“The BIM environment on the CRL project is comprehensive and world class, providing a single source of truth.”

Michael Cutfield, Survey Worx

One of the tunnel boring machines breaks through.

The Locate conference and exhibition is back for 2023, to be held this time in Adelaide from 10 to 12 May. The venue will be the Adelaide Convention Centre on the banks of the River Torrens.

The theme for this year’s event will be ‘Geospatial Evolutions: From lands to seas to stars,’ the latter term reflecting Adelaide’s place in the Australian space industry ecosystem — it is the home of the Australian Space Agency, the SmartSat CRC and numerous space-related companies and research groups.

Although the full program had yet to be announced at the time these words were written, the basic outline of the event had been set: It will include a welcome reception, a formal opening ceremony, plenary sessions, workshops (some of them focusing on young professionals), plenty of concurrent presentation sessions, and shorter ‘deep dive’ and tech talks presented in a special theatrette.

Workshops are always a popular feature of Locate conferences, and 2023’s will be no exception. Attendees can look forward to engaging with experts from a variety of backgrounds, covering a wide range of

New horizons for Locate23

topics of direct, hands-on relevance for those who work with geospatial data.

Keep an eye on the Locate23 website for program details as they become available.

One unique and interesting aspect of this year’s event, is that it will be held back-toback with the 15th Australian Space Forum, which will be held at the same venue on 9 May. As mentioned above, Adelaide has become the heart and soul of the Australian space sector, so it makes a lot of sense for the Forum and Locate23 to coincide… after all, there is a huge (and growing) amount of crossover between the two sectors.

To that end, new for 2023 will be a special Space & Geospatial Workshop, to be held on Wednesday, 10 May, between 9:00am and 1:00pm. This workshop will be a chance for professionals from the space and geospatial sectors to come together to share views and explore opportunities for working together in fields such as PNT (positioning, navigation and timing), Earth observation and telecommunications. You can find more information at sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/space-geospatial-workshop.

The Locate conference is also the occasion for the annual Asia-Pacific Spatial

Excellence Awards (APSEA) dinner and presentation. This is always a fabulous opportunity to mingle and socialise and, through the awards, to celebrate outstanding achievements by individuals and groups within the geospatial sector.

The merger of the SSSI and SIBA|GITA into the new Geospatial Council of Australia is an exciting and highly promising development. As Tony Wheeler has outlined in his column on page 39 of this issue, Locate23 has been chosen as the logical occasion for industry members to come together to mark the launch of the new body. Stay tuned to SpatialSource. com.au for more information on this as it becomes available.

Conference registration is now open, with early bird, group-booking and other special discount options available. Head to locateconference.com/the-conference/ registration-23 for all the details.

Locate23 will be only the second chance since COVID struck for industry members to experience a full, face-to-face national meeting. So make sure you’re there to meet and greet, learn new things and expand your horizons. n

Webster Survey Group is a familyowned and -operated business that was established by Neil Webster in the late 1970s. The company is based in Eltham, a north-eastern suburb of Melbourne, and undertakes work all over the metropolitan region as well as rural Victoria. Its clients include architects, engineers, builders, developers, legal practitioners, councils, service providers and real estate agents. Being licensed land surveyors, Webster Survey Group is heavily involved in cadastral surveying.

“Land surveying equipment has evolved dramatically over the last 30 or so years with equipment and technology becoming increasingly advanced and digitalised,” says Evan Webster, the company’s director. “Today we use equipment which can measure to the most amazing accuracies and we are always striving to achieve perfect results.”

Webster Survey Group is a heavy user of Leica Geosystems solutions supplied by C.R. Kennedy. Evan says his relationship with the two companies began years ago.

“I was travelling through Europe and found myself within proximity to Leica’s headquarters in Switzerland,” says Evan. “I sent a general enquiry to Leica asking if it was possible to visit, and my email was received by C.R. Kennedy in Melbourne.”

“C.R. Kennedy were only too happy to help facilitate the visit and a short time later I found myself being warmly welcomed by Leica. I was fortunate to spend a day touring through their showrooms and factories.”

Evan says the first Leica total station he used was an 1100 model, and over the years

A new angle on surveying

Leica Geosystem’s new AP20 AutoPole with tilt compensation is providing productivity improvements for in-the-field surveyors.

the company has used many other models, such as 1200s, TS 15s and TS 16s.

“Adapting to new technology is important as this allows us to expand our range of products and services and meet the changing needs of our clients,” says Even.

“We have progressed from using mainly total stations to using a range of different surveying equipment including GPS units, laser scanners and drones, and we also have a 360-degree panoramic camera that we use to provide virtual site inspections.”

Webster Survey Group’s most recent purchase from C.R. Kennedy is Leica Geosystem’s AP20 AutoPole.

Made for productivity

Leica Geosystems describes the AP20 AutoPole as a “unique and productivityboosting smart solution” for the company’s robotic total stations, “removing the last analogue steps” in users’ digital survey workflow.

The company says it saves time spent on-site and “reduces cumbersome postprocessing corrections in the office” with three powerful smart features.

The AP20 AutoPole enables users make measurements with a tilted pole, providing automatic height readings and enabling target search and locking. On-site obstacles can be overcome by adjusting the height and tilting the pole to reach hidden points, quickly re-establishing line of sight and relocking to the robotic total station, even with multiple surveyors working simultaneously.

Tilt Compensation removes the need to level the pole, meaning the user can

measure and layout more points per day, conveniently and comfortably, while maintaining high standards with control and clarity over the point quality. The Tilt Compensation feature enables point measurements with an arbitrary aligned pole, and therefore increases flexibility and productivity in the field to enable even upside-down and nearby hidden-point measurements.

The PoleHeight functionality updates height automatically as the pole height changes, to ensure reliable and accurate measurements. This removes the need to read, check and enter height changes, and eliminates time consuming post-processing efforts to fix incorrectly entered or forgotten target heights.

The AP20 AutoPole’s TargetID feature enables automatic target search, identification and lock on the target, prevents locking to foreign targets and avoids work interruptions that can occur on a busy site, which is especially important when there are several surveyors working simultaneously at busy locations.

Depending upon use, the AP20’s exchangeable lithium-ion battery can provide operating times in excess 16 hours. The whole unit, including battery, weighs only 500 grams.

Putting it to use

The AP20 AutoPole solves three common workflow problems surveying and construction professionals face daily: entering the pole height manually into the field software, having to level the pole, and accidentally locking to a foreign target at a busy site.

Evan Webster, Webster Survey Group

When using the unit, the base of the prism pole is positioned at the location to be measured. Evan says that “The great advantage is that the pole no longer has to be held straight and you are able to lean it in any direction while measuring. It allows us to measure points that previously were impractical or not safe to measure.”

He adds that while Webster Survey Group has used the AP20 for different tasks, they’ve found that it provides the greatest advantage when undertaking feature and level surveys.

“Previously, sending a one-person survey crew and robotic total station to carry out a feature and level survey, as opposed to a two-person crew, always had an element of risk in case obstructions were encountered such as overgrown vegetation or inaccessible areas,” he says.

“The AP20 eliminates this risk as a one-person crew can generally capture all the information needed and in a shorter timeframe.”

Evan also points to the AP20’s safety benefits.

“Direct measurements can now be obtained for road features such as kerbs and channels while standing well back from the roadway, or for the top of retaining walls and steep embankments,” he says.

“This piece of equipment has been exciting and proven to be very valuable.” n

“It allows us to measure points that previously were impractical or not safe to measure.”

The Overland Telegraph Line

Most people know the story of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, arguably Australia’s greatest engineering and surveying achievement. But what about the Overland Telegraph Line (OTL), built 80 years earlier? I didn’t know much about the OTL until my wife and I did a road trip through the Red Centre in early 2022 and subsequently read the recent book, Twenty to the Mile – The Overland Telegraph Line, by Derek Pugh.

Surveyors were critical to the success of the OTL. Pugh details many of them, including Surveyor William Harvey who conducted route-finding in northern South Australia in 1870. Near Mount Samuel, Harvey had difficulty with his theodolite because the hill was ‘crowned with immense ironstone rocks’ rendering the compass needle useless.

The greatest challenge facing Australia in the early 19th century was the tyranny of distance. Until the OTL was built in 1872, the fastest that news could travel from the UK to Australia was three months

on the famous clipper ships. But upon commissioning of the OTL in October 1872, news could reach Australia from the ‘home country’ in a day, which was extraordinary.

In 1862, surveyor and explorer John McDouall Stuart was the first European to traverse the mainland from south to north through the centre of the continent, and, in 1863, South Australia annexed what is now known as the Northern Territory. Just ten years after Stuart’s amazing expedition, the OTL was constructed along his route. (The Stuart Highway from Darwin to Port Augusta was built in 1942 and generally follows the same path.) Another book about the OTL — Overland Telegraph by Frank Clune, published in 1955 — explains that the highway was nicknamed ‘Hirohito Highway’ during WWII. Later it became known simply as ‘the Track’.

Clune describes some of the early explorations which ultimately led to the construction of the OTL, including the story of licenced surveyor John Darke

who, in 1844, led a small exploring party northwards from Port Lincoln, reaching the Gawler Ranges. Returning to Port Lincoln he was speared by angry locals and buried at the foot of a mountain that now bears his name. Today the Eyre Highway passes Darke’s Peak and its sad monument that relates the story.

The telegraph

The telegraph was invented in 1837 and perfected by Samuel Morse in 1844. The first telegraph line in Australia was built in Melbourne in 1853. The South Australian government was aware of the technology’s potential and in 1854 recruited Charles Todd, an experienced telegraph professional, to become head of the Electric Telegraph Department, which quickly built the first telegraph in South Australia. Adelaide and Melbourne were connected in 1858 and soon after Sydney was connected to Melbourne. Sydney was connected to Brisbane in 1860 and a direct connection from Sydney to Adelaide was completed in 1867.

TONY PROUST

Surveyors played a critical role in scouting the inland route for the telegraph line that connected Australia to the world.

Although telegraph lines criss-crossed much of the British Empire, telegrams sent from London to Sydney were written on paper and carried by ship from Sri Lanka or Singapore. In 1856, Todd proposed a telegraph line linking Adelaide to London, but not everyone was impressed by the idea. After all, who would pay for it, and would it be worth the cost? And would people pay just to get news quickly?

Fortunately, the advantages of international telegraphy were obvious and as the technology improved a connection from Australia to the outside world became inevitable. Not least, of course, was the potential for military use. At the time, people were concerned about the Russians, which led to the construction of Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour. A century and a half later we are still concerned about Russian aggression!

But the Australian colonies could not agree on the best route. Some wanted to connect Melbourne to Darwin (known then as Palmerston) while others wanted to connect Brisbane to Darwin. The Queensland government was keen to connect the line to Normanton and onto Darwin, but once Stuart had shown the way and the South Australian government had acquired the Northern Territory, the north-south route was preferred, driven primarily by Todd.

And of course, there was the problem of where the undersea cable would land in Australia. Some suggested North West Cape in Western Australia, but soon common sense saw Darwin chosen as the location.

The technical aspects of the telegraph system intrigue me. It relied on electricity, and this had to be supplied by batteries. Power was produced by a chemical reaction between copper sulphate crystals and magnesium sulphate on the zinc and lead electrodes. All supplies, including batteries and building materials, were transported by camel trains and bullock drays, taking months in some cases.

Repeater stations were needed about every 320 kilometres to ensure the messages were relayed onwards to their destination. And the line itself required poles at twenty to the mile; one pole every 80 metres. Poles were to be 6 metres tall, buried about 1.5 metres into the ground. Locally sourced timber poles were to be used where possible, otherwise expensive Germanmanufactured Oppenheimer poles were employed. Termites loved the timber poles so, over time, most of them were replaced with metal poles.

It was a huge project, completed largely on time and within budget — conceived, planned and built in less than 10 years. It was a magnificent achievement under the most difficult of circumstances.

Revisiting the OTL

On returning from our road trip through the Red Centre, my research led to yet another fascinating book about the OTL — Rediscovering the Overland Telegraph Line by Earl and Wendy James. Earl is a wellknown Territorian surveyor. In 1984 he and his wife Wendy undertook a month-long recce of the OTL and wrote their book, a copy of which I borrowed from Charles Darwin University. They write:

Australia in the mid-nineteenth century was in a hieroglyphic world where all communication with the outside world was done by hand — the written word. Communications from London took upwards of three months to arrive.

It was obvious that a telegraph cable connection had to be made to Australia and the South Australian government was determined that it would come through Darwin and onto Adelaide. In 1869 The SA government sent the SA Surveyor General Goyder and a team of surveyors to select and survey a site for the capital of the Northern Territory and the place where the undersea cable would come ashore. Goyder selected Port Darwin as the site and there he and his surveyors pegged the Town of Palmerston on the plateau above the port. To the south they pegged enough rural lots, mostly three hundred and twenty acres in area, to satisfy the land orders that had been sold.

Many years later, Earl’s surveying firm was instructed to subdivide one of these original parcels of land.

In 1984, Earl was commissioned by the National Trust to undertake a reconnaissance survey and report on the original OTL with a view to declaring it a heritage item as a Bicentennial project. Earl presented a paper on the project to the South East Asian Survey Conference in Hong Kong in 2003.

Earl relates an absorbing tale of how he and Wendy spent a month tracing, finding and recording the remains of the OTL from Darwin to Alice Springs after researching the local survey records for maps and field notes of the early surveys.

Sir Charles Todd, photographed here in 1871, was the architect of the Overland Telegraph Line. National Archives of Australia, 1990196.

Planting the first pole of the Overland Telegraph Line at Palmerston (now Darwin), 1870. National Archives of Australia, 11776468.

Postmaster General’s Department linesmen at work on the Overland Telegraph Line in the 1950s. National Archives of Australia, 11657320.

He was delighted to discover that early editions of the 1:250,000 topo maps showed the route of the OTL. A colleague overdrew the boundaries of the cattle stations along the route, adding the names of the station owners and managers, which proved to be very valuable information.

They also found the survey records, including the original maps by Mr Surveyor McAlister Blain, who surveyed the line from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs in 1930. Blain was a remarkable character… a surveyor, soldier, prisoner of war and Member of Parliament. He served in both World Wars and was re-elected to parliament while incarcerated in a POW camp. Extraordinary but true.

Harsh history

There are many stories about the OTL, one of the most moving of which concerns

the events at the Barrow Creek repeater station about 280 kilometres north of Alice Springs. In early 1874, a group of local Aborigines attacked the staff at the station, killing two, including the officer in charge. As he lay dying, instructions were requested by telegraph about how to treat the wounded. But the officer died having sent a final message to his family.

The reason for the attack is unclear. It was suggested that the attackers had asked for food, which had been refused. Others suggested that it was revenge for the rape of a local woman, while still others say it was because the staff of the OTL had denied the locals access to an important waterhole. Whatever the reason, it was tragic. Today, you can read about the event at the old repeater station at Barrow Creek adjacent to the Stuart Highway. It is reported that in a reprisal attack, 50 local aborigines

were massacred. In his book, Pugh states unequivocally that the murders and retribution massacres were a travesty.

The James’ concludes their book by writing of their admiration for the men and woman who helped complete the OTL project under some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

As the Australian people prepare to vote on ‘The Voice’ to parliament, we must acknowledge the traditional owners of the land through which the OTL traversed. They had no say whatsoever and, of course, they sometimes resisted the onslaught of the white people who came and occupied their country. Who can blame them? They can only have watched in wonder and amazement as the thin strand of wire, which gave a ‘kick’ when touched, passed through their ancient land. It was only 150 years ago, yet it changed Australia forever. n

Labourers bringing the cable ends ashore from the cable-laying vessel Hibernia at Palmerston (now Darwin) in the Northern Territory, 7 November 1871. National Archives of Australia, 32018586

The author at the site of a memorial to Surveyor Darke, located adjacent to the Eyre Highway in South Australia. Credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Walter_D.

The Barrow Creek Telegraph Station is now a tourist attraction.

GMV to implement SouthPAN centres

Spain-based multinational technology firm GMV has signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin to develop the processing and control centres for Australia and New Zealand’s Southern Positioning Augmentation Network system, SouthPAN.

SouthPAN will be the Australasian implementation of a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) for navigation and precise point positioning (PPP) services.

SouthPAN aims to deliver a signal augmenting GPS and Galileo over the Australasian region, improving accuracy from 5 to 10 metres, to within as little as 10 centimetres.

The system will serve a range of industries, such as agriculture and road, air, maritime, and rail transportation, and geomatics.

With SouthPAN, Australia and New Zealand will join the list of countries and regions that have their own SBAS systems, such as the USA (WAAS), Europe (EGNOS), India (GAGAN), and Japan (MSAS).

The development, entry into service and operation

of SouthPAN is being led by Geoscience Australia and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand.

In 2020, the two agencies signed the Australia New Zealand Science, Research and Innovation Cooperation Agreement (ANZSRICA). Two

it complies with the committed performance levels. In addition, GMV will be providing support for the system’s operation and maintenance.

The CPF is in charge of generating correction messages for signals transmitted by GPS and Galileo satellites, a process

monitor and control the system. It will also provide information to the community of users about the system’s operation and availability of its services.

weeks later, the first services were provided by activating transmission of the system’s first signals.

SouthPAN is the first project where an industry consortium is providing an SBAS system as a service, rather than as a turnkey system.

GMV will be responsible for developing two key subsystems for SouthPAN: the Corrections Processing Facility (CPF) and the Ground Control Centre (GCC). The company will also be responsible for monitoring the system and for ensuring that

that improves precision for the system’s users.

The CPF is also responsible for detecting malfunctions in the satellites and for generating warnings for users. This will enable the use of SouthPAN by civilian aircraft as a navigation system during flight operations, including precision approaches to runways for landing. Safetyof-life services such as these will be available in 2028.

The GCC, in turn, in operation 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, will perform all the functions needed to

“This contract is the result of years of effort and dedication. We feel very honoured and fortunate, because some engineers may work for their entire career without the opportunity to work on a project with the importance and societal impact that SouthPAN will have,” said Miguel Romay, GMV’s Satellite Navigation Systems General Manager.

GMV has been working on SBAS systems for more than 25 years. It is responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of the Correction Processing Facility Processing Set (CPFPS) for Europe’s current SBAS, known as EGNOS V2.

It has also carried out various projects for implementing SBAS technology in other regions, including the Caribbean and South America (2010) and South Africa (2016). n

The company will develop the Australasian processing and control centres and monitor the service.

An artist’s impression of a GPS III-series in orbit. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin Australia’s satellite communications facility at Uralla in NSW. Courtesy Lockheed Martin.

Australia

and New Zealand will join the list of countries and regions that have their own SBAS systems.

The GNSS gathering

Members of the GNSS community gathered at the University of NSW in December for the 2022 IGNSS Conference, organised by the Sydney-based IGNSS Association, a not-for-profit international association comprising around 1,500 academics, industry partners and professionals.

This was the first time that participants had been able to gather in person since the COVID epidemic really got going, and it was clear from the atmosphere that people were glad to be mingling and networking face to face again. There was a definite buzz of enthusiasm throughout the whole three days of the conference, and it was great to see representatives attending from Australasia, Asia, the USA and beyond.

The event was a technical forum focused on developments in GNSS technologies and services, PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) overall, and potential alternatives to GNSS. It also left Earth orbit and pondered the need for PNT services on the Moon and in lunar space. The theme of the conference was ‘Look UP, Look OUT — GNSS Horizons’.

In his welcoming remarks, Craig Roberts said that “What we’re trying to do is encapsulate the fact that PNT is starting to grow up — it’s not a teenager anymore. We’re starting to reach out more and expand to a growing range of applications. So what we do is having an impact more broadly.”

Concurrent sessions meant it was not possible to attend every lecture, but the following is a summary of two of the major sessions that caught my attention.

PNT in Australia

The first major session covered PNT and related issues within Australia. Elizabeth Pearce from the Australian Space Agency spoke about the development of Australia’s PNT Roadmap, the publication of which was imminent at the time this issue of Position went to press. Pearce explained that the ASA has seven priority areas and is in the process of producing roadmaps for each of them. Three have been published already – communications, robotics and Earth observation. PNT is next.

Pearce explained that PNT is at the heart of both terrestrial and space operations, from secure communications to timing synchronisation, space situational awareness to ionospheric

monitoring, astronaut positioning (for search and rescue) to SLAM for robotics, Earth observation, lunar operations, and many more emerging fields.

The ASA has collaborated widely with industry (41 businesses in total), government (55 agencies) and academia organisations (16) in the development of the PNT roadmap (and other roadmaps), without which the work would not have been possible.

It’s fair to say that the Australian geospatial sector is eagerly awaiting the publication of the PNT Roadmap, so stay tuned for coverage when that happens.

The next speakers were from Geoscience Australia (GA), who covered a range of topics. Martine Woolf, the head of GA’s Positioning Australia Branch, gave an overview of developments in the Positioning Australia program over the past few years. Woolf pointed out the range of needs for reliable and accurate positioning, including the use of GNSS by GA to undertake mm-level modelling for Australian tectonic plate research.

Four years ago, the federal government made a major investment, averaging to about $86.3 million in funding for two major programs, being the Better GPS for Regional Australia program, which will see down to 10cm positioning available anywhere across the continent

JONATHAN NALLY

Current and future positioning, navigation and timing systems were on the agenda at the IGNSS conference.

The ‘PNT from LEO’ panel session included Zak Kassas (standing), Joshua Morales (centre), Patrick Diamond (right) and Bryan Chan (not shown, on a remote connection).

and offshore, including a safety-of-life certified service; and the Better GPS to Support Australian Businesses program. The latter will “enable 3cm- to 5cm-accurate positioning capability, anywhere in areas with mobile phone coverage or internet [access],” Woolf said. “This also includes investment in open source tools and software to deliver positioning services.”

Woolf then spoke about SouthPAN, the first government-owned satellite-based augmentation system in the Southern Hemisphere, designed to improve on standalone GNSS services. SouthPAN promises to be game-changer for a wide range of applications, from farming to transport to public safety and more.

Ryan Ruddick, Director of GNSS Infrastructure and Informatics at GA, then spoke about the national positioning infrastructure capability, which provides a unified approach to the management of Australia’s positioning infrastructure. This goes together with Ginan, the open source software toolkit that processes multi-GNSS data.

Anna Riddell, a GA geodesist, gave an update on Australia’s geospatial reference system, which is fundamental to the ability to deploy new positioning technologies in Australia and get the benefits of cm-level positioning, without which the other systems would not be possible.

Other sessions on the first day covered PNT developments in Japan and Europe; the application of GNSS in disaster response, weather forecasting and land surface movement research; developments in receiver technology and anti-jamming systems; and many other terrestrial and space applications from both Australia and abroad.

PNT from LEO

A highlight of the second day’s presentations was a panel session on PNT in low Earth orbit (LEO). The panel comprised four international experts. Zak Kassas is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University, and the director of CARMEN, the Center for Automated Vehicle Research with Multimodal AssurEd Navigation. Joshua Morales is currently a principal and co-founder of StarNav LLC, producing PNT receivers using ambient radio signals as a backup to GPS. Patrick Diamond is the CEO of LEOPNT. And Bryan Chan, who joined the session remotely from the USA, is the Vice-President of Business Development and Strategy at Xona Space Systems.

Diamond, who has worked extensively with US government agencies, pointed out that in the US there are 16 critical industry sectors that depend on GNSS services, primarily the timing signal. It has been estimated that, if the PNT system were to fail or be attacked, it would cost the US economy around US$10 billion per day in damages and disruption. Just think of the delivery services sector alone, which is heavily reliant on positioning services — could they go back to printed street directories if the GNSS system was denied?

Chan pointed out that as recently as three years ago, PNT and LEO didn’t really go together. But that has changed. He spoke about how his company is trialling PNT services from a test satellite that’s in orbit right now. Chan said that Xona Space Systems is taking the approach of, “What if we could invent GPS today, from scratch? That’s what we’re taking a really hard look at.”

Several of the speakers, as well as several questioners from the audience, spoke of their concern about the vulnerability of modern society to disruption or denial of the GNSS system… even going so far as to say that it could have been a mistake for the US military to have made GPS available to non-military users — doing so has brought on a reliance on a service that could be denied to civilian users in the event of a major conflict. There’s also the question of sovereign risk — countries such as Australia are dependent on satellite services provided the US, Europe, China, Russia and now Japan. What would happen if access were denied or withdrawn for some reason?

Could PNT services from new constellations of inexpensive satellites in LEO (as opposed to mid-Earth orbits) be the answer? Very possibly, but such a system would have its own vulnerabilities. Kassas raised the hypothetical problem of the Kessler syndrome. This is where space junk collides with satellites, producing more space junk, which then collides more with satellites, and before you know it you have a runaway chain reaction that would result in a debris cloud encircling the Earth. Such a scenario would see major destruction of orbiting assets and the denial of entire orbital altitude bands for decades to come.

One thing is clear — urgent steps need to be taken to improve the robustness and redundancy of global PNT systems, otherwise we could just be asking for trouble.

Going beyond Earth

The Conference also featured a lot of presentations about emerging uses of PNT and GNSS in the space domain, including plans for establishing a kind of ‘lunar GPS’ for upcoming missions to the Moon. This was the stuff of science fiction when I was a young lad, so it was somewhat surreal to hear it described and spoken of in such a matter-of-fact manner. The next few decades are going to be a brave new world of exploration beyond the Earth, and PNT technologies and services are going to be front and centre of those missions.

Overall, the 2022 IGNSS Conference was a very enjoyable and enlightening experience, with something of interest for everyone — whether that was policy matters, technical developments or research applications. The event is normally held every two years, and I can’t wait to find out about the latest developments the next time the conference comes around. n

Elizabeth Pearce from the Australian Space Agency spoke about the soon-to-be-released PNT Roadmap.

Anna Riddell from Geoscience Australia gave an update of Australia’s geospatial reference system.

Developing better digital terrain ELEVATION MODELS

With a 50-year legacy, Digital Terrain Elevation Data inches towards its next goal: 10-metre post spacing.

When US National GeospatialIntelligence Agency (NGA) partners plan operations, the agency provides them with products that identify the latitude and longitude of various locations, so that they can pinpoint the path to their objective. Yet, sometimes a partner needs more than latitude and longitude to get the job done.

That’s where digital terrain elevation data comes in.

“It gives the Z value of every location on the Earth,” David Bidinger, a Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) lead in the Source Office of Geomatics, explained. “If you want to know how far a location is above sea level, what the slope of an area is or surface roughness you need a Z value, and you get that from DTED.”

Digital terrain elevation data is a standard of digital datasets which consists of a matrix of terrain elevation values that are essential to creating a wide

range of GEOINT products for disaster relief, humanitarian aid, international cooperation, scientific research and other national security objectives.

For example, analysts in Analysis’ Office of Science and Methodologies — which applies leading scientific technologies to GEOINT applications — have used DTED to help both civil and military partners to find areas of significant flooding while estimating its impact on local facilities and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, NGA’s International Affairs directorate uses DTED during its engagements with foreign partners to support host-nation or combined military operations training. This elevation data is key to help tanks and other military equipment navigate varied terrain effectively; providing military planners a better idea of where they can conduct cross-country transit of both light and heavy equipment.

“When you are moving ordinance [supplies] through the slopes in Afghanistan, anything more than a 10 to 30% slope would make it difficult to move equipment,” Bidinger said.

Ups and downs

Digital terrain elevation data has been in production since 1968 when the US Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, the oceanographic and charting services of the US Naval Hydrographic Office, and the US Army Map Service used it to support plastic relief mapping. These organisations later merged into the Defense Mapping Agency — an NGA predecessor agency — in 1972.

By the early 1980s, DTED had proved its value to Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) and its partners in a wide range of mapping, charting and geodesy applications. But DMA leaders quickly found that gathering and processing DTED data was expensive.

A massive 36-bit UNIVAC 1108 computer system like the ones that DMA used to process DTED data could cost up US$3 million each, depending on which accessories and service package the purchaser bought. The UNIVAC 1108 was an early computer used in the 1960s, 1970s and even in the early 1980s. Yet, the computer system operated inefficiently and was prone to errors and memory overload, as a 1978 government report noted.

Meanwhile, as the calendar turned from the 1980s to the 1990s — and computer technologies improved — DMA likewise boosted its engineering abilities in the digital terrain elevation data arena. As the tools and techniques became available, the resolution of DTED products improved.

By the early 1990s, NGA’s military partners could use DTED to help it plan a variety of military operations — such as air navigation — while the disaster responders could use data to

Artist’s impression of the TanDEM-X synthetic aperture radar satellite.

Courtesy DLR.

prepare for floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

But even higher resolution digital terrain elevation data — at 30-metre post spacing [the horizontal measurement between two elevation readings measured in arc-seconds] — wasn’t high enough resolution for targeting, said Bidinger. And despite the increased processing power of computers in the late 1990s, obtaining and storing higher resolution DTED data remained expensive. Much of that elevation data was collected manually, using stereo imagery on a plotter, or collected off a map source.

“It was very labourintensive,” Tyler Shipp, senior GEOINT officer for elevation in Source’s Foundation GEOINT Group, said of the DTED collection efforts.

Through this data acquisition process, NGA obtained 2,063 one-degree by one-degree cells of traditional digital terrain elevation data level-2 that comprise 8% of the Earth. Those 2,063 cells take up 42 gigabytes of disk space, making it impractical to put that data on the servers that most NGA partners own. Even today, DTED data is sent to NGA partners on compact disk, instead of being uploaded to a shared server or being sent by email.

Traditional DTED level-0, level-1 and level-2 products were captured using what is known as ‘bare earth’ data. That is to say, traditional DTED contains elevation data from the ground surface, and does not capture information about treetops and building heights, said Bidinger.

To make it easier to capture elevation data, in the early 2000s, NGA shifted to the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission. SRTM was an international research effort that obtained digital elevation models from 57 degrees south of the equator to 60 degrees north.

SRTM — a February 2000 mission of the space shuttle Endeavour — is a reflective surface digital elevation model or digital surface model, a DSM, meaning that the elevation

readings from the first radar return indicates treetops and tops of buildings. While SRTM is distinct from DTED, it can be saved in the same file format as traditional DTED. The shuttle mission obtained reflective elevation data, meaning that the data showed ‘bumps’ that indicated treetops and building heights.

The resolution of SRTM elevation data was leaps and bounds better than previously captured DTED data. In fact, a November 2008 article noted: “The improved DTED contributed incomparable accuracy to everything from geophysics to earthquake research to the best location for cell towers to missile targeting.”

Yet, NGA still didn’t have a global coverage for elevation data.

Data for DTED

To fix the problem, NGA shifted again — this time to TanDEM-X, a reflective elevation data set that a German satellite collected, between 2010 and 2015. TanDEM-X data (which NGA obtained starting in 2016) is more current than legacy DTED data and has global coverage. Additionally, TanDEM-X is more accurate than the legacy digital terrain elevation data because it was collected at 10- to 12-metre post spacing, compared with DTED level-2, which was collected at 30-metre post spacing.

TanDEM-X fills the elevation data void seen in legacy DTED and SRTM data — and does it at a higher resolution than NGA previously had.

NGA’s US government partners are using TanDEM-X data to support their missions, even though the raw, unprocessed data has voids and anomalies that still need to corrected. As a temporary fix, those voids are filled in with legacy DTED and SRTM data, before the TanDEM-X data is put into GeoTIFF format.

These GeoTIFF files, in turn, are put on NGA’s Map of the World — a tool that enables NGA and its partners to visualise and access integrated intelligence content

TanDEM-X fills the elevation data void seen in legacy DTED and SRTM data - and does it at a higher resolution.

tied to accurate and reliable geographic features on Earth. The GeoTIFFs are also loaded on the Geospatial Repository and Data Management System, a database for the storage, processing, visualisation and dissemination of threedimensional point cloud data. These GeoTIFFs can likewise be put on compact disks and other storage devices.

But processing the huge volumes of TanDEM-X data and correcting the anomalies takes a lot of work. To help complete the work, NGA has joined forces with 31 other nations to finish a 12-metre resolution elevation dataset that has global coverage.

The partnership, known as the TanDEM-X High Resolution Data Exchange is working to edit the raw data and stitch it together into a seamless global elevation dataset. The goal of TREx is to have a finished TanTEM-X dataset by early 2026. But even

as NGA works with the TREx consortium, traditional DTED still has value… and it isn’t going away.

For example, organisations that require elevation data, but which don’t have access to TanDEM-X data, will continue to use older DTED. TanDEM-X data, on the other hand, is unclassified, but still LIMDIS. LIMDIS is short for limited dissemination, a measure the US government takes to protect information that is not publicly releasable, but isn’t at the secret level.

“What’s most impressive about DTED is that it’s been around for almost 50 years, and is still the most requested elevation product by our military and other partners,” said Bidinger. “There is an extensive range of functional use for DTED such as aeronautical, maritime, topographical, controlled imagery, mission planning and analysis.” n

Article courtesy of NGA

A Shuttle Radar Topography Mission-generated image showing New Zealand’s impressive terrain. Courtesy NASA/JPL/NGA.

Determining Positional Uncertainty of NRTK observations

TOM BERNSTEIN and VOLKER JANSSEN

A new methodology will enable NRTK data to be rigorously included in the NSW GDA2020 state adjustment.

The Geocentric Datum of Australia 2020 (GDA2020) is Australia’s new national datum and is based on a single, nationwide least squares network adjustment that rigorously propagates uncertainty. This article presents a new approach to include Network Real-Time Kinematic (NRTK) observations and their Positional Uncertainty (PU) in the NSW survey control network via the GDA2020 state adjustment.

Our approach exploits the automatically computed Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) baselines between NRTK observations and their Virtual Reference Station (VRS) to create a connected network that can be adjusted like a static GNSS network. Using a typical urban NRTK survey in Sydney as an example, it is shown that this method offers a rigorous computation of PU while maintaining the quick and easy nature of NRTK positioning.

GDA2020 state adjustment in NSW

DCS Spatial Services, a unit of the NSW Department of Customer Service (DCS), is responsible for the establishment, maintenance and improvement of the state’s survey control network, which comprises more than 250,000 survey marks on public record made available via the Survey Control Information Management System (SCIMS).

Currently, the growing GDA2020 state adjustment consists of approximately 971,000 measurements between 131,000 stations, translating into about 109,000 SCIMS marks and making it the largest Jurisdictional Data Archive (JDA) in Australia. It was

computed with DynAdjust using a phased-adjustment least squares methodology that provides rigorous uncertainty across the entire network. The GDA2020 state adjustment includes about 115,000 GNSS baselines, 19,700 baselines originating from AUSPOS sessions (Geoscience Australia’s free online GPS processing service), 223,000 directions and 234,000 distances.

DCS Spatial Services has developed and implemented several innovative, highly automated tools and workflows to prepare, process and ingest existing and new GNSS baseline data, AUSPOS datasets and street-corner traversing data. Over several years, efforts have been undertaken to source, harvest, clean and utilise legacy geodetic measurements, build state-of-the-art GNSS CORS network infrastructure (CORSnet-NSW), observe new high-quality GNSS measurements to connect the existing survey network to CORS, and systematically rationalise, maintain, upgrade and collect AUSPOS datasets at key sites across the NSW survey control network, including trigonometrical (trig) stations and Australian Height Datum (AHD) spirit-levelled marks.

Key components of these datum modernisation efforts have been the preservation and upgrade of survey infrastructure, including physical maintenance of permanent survey marks, and the update of metadata such as survey mark information in SCIMS and survey mark photographs. This will allow future users to achieve DCS Spatial Services’ vision of a PU of 20 mm in the horizontal and 50 mm in the vertical (ellipsoidal height) component anywhere in NSW

and to easily apply transformation tools to move between current, future and various historical datums and local working surfaces.

It is worth noting that a single, state-wide levelling adjustment for NSW is currently also being generated, based on data-mining existing levelling files in the DCS Spatial Services archive and the recently digitised historical levelling data that was used to define the AHD across the state. Presently, the NSW levelling adjustment comprises about 132,000 measurements and 98,000 stations.

While still underway, the enormity of this task and its benefits to the profession should not be underestimated. Victoria has already completed a state-wide levelling adjustment, and other jurisdictions are now also starting similar projects.

Determining PU for NRTK observations

PU is defined as the uncertainty of the horizontal and/or vertical coordinates of a point, at the 95% confidence level, with respect to the defined datum. It can be separated into Horizontal PU (HPU) for horizontal position and Vertical PU (VPU) for ellipsoidal height.

HPU is expressed as the radius of a 95% circle of uncertainty, generally calculated from the standard error ellipse produced by a least squares network adjustment. VPU is a linear quantity and obtained by scaling the standard deviation by 1.96 to convert it to 95% confidence.

Given that NRTK observations are generally treated as pointbased position solutions lacking connection to the surrounding datum, it is necessary to investigate how to propagate PU to NRTK observations and assign realistic uncertainties that can be incorporated into the GDA2020 state adjustment.

When using CORSnet-NSW, single-base RTK positioning results can be expressed as a baseline to the CORS used and thus ingested. However, while NRTK has been shown to provide superior positioning quality compared to single-base RTK and is therefore preferable, this process is not as straightforward.

Initially, we investigated the possibility of empirically estimating PU based on a dataset of more than 1,500 observations on more than 750 marks, collected under typical conditions encountered in surveying practice. This resulted in estimates of 0.036 m for HPU and 0.059 m for VPU.

This simplistic method can be easily applied to all NRTK observations, including historical NRTK data. However, major limitations are that it provides estimated (rather than rigorously calculated) uncertainties and continues to treat NRTK observations as point-based position solutions, causing poor correlation with surrounding survey marks. Furthermore, these empirical values may not always be realistic, particularly under challenging observing conditions.

Then we calculated PU individually for each NRTK observation, based on the coordinate quality (CQ) indicators provided by the GNSS equipment, resulting in overly optimistic values. While a scale factor can be applied to obtain more realistic PU values, this adds statistical guesswork to a process that was intended to be more rigorous than the empirically derived PU estimate.

The varying proprietary methods of CQ computation between GNSS receiver makes and models add further complexity to the derivation of a reliable scale factor, and separate scale factors may have to be applied for the horizontal and vertical components.

NRTK observations continue to be treated as point-based solutions with uncertainties (poor correlation with surrounding marks), and historical data would have to be reprocessed. Consequently, this does not provide a significant advantage over the use of empirically derived values, while adding a degree of complexity.

Generating a NRTK baseline network

NRTK observations are generally treated as point-based solutions with VRS data being discarded after computation, which causes issues when attempting to incorporate NRTK observations and their uncertainties into a least squares network adjustment. Our new approach overcomes this issue by exploiting the automatically computed GNSS baselines between NRTK observations and their VRS to create a connected network.

Depending on fieldwork practices, multiple observations share a common VRS and are therefore linked by GNSS baselines. A VRS generally remains active until the GNSS rover is turned off or moves more than 5 km away, i.e. a typical NRTK survey usually exhibits a high degree of connectivity. These connections potentially allow PU values to be rigorously computed via least squares analysis, facilitating simple integration of NRTK data into the GDA2020 state adjustment.

While the VRS coordinates are computed from surrounding CORS data (with the CORS forming the backbone of the datum), it can be argued that the VRS itself is technically not connected to the datum. However, the VRS can be treated as a pseudo-datum station, with the connection to datum completed by deriving a baseline from each VRS to the nearest (or multiple) CORS.

Following the philosophy applied by the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) for including National GNSS Campaign Archive (NGCA) data in the national GDA2020 adjustment, a connection to the two nearest CORS is used here.

It is important to note that these derived baselines are not observations, but simply joins used to connect the VRS (and thus the

1: Descriptive statistics for HPU and VPU, calculated based on the NRTK baseline network for 56 adjusted marks (all values in metres).

Figure 1: NRTK automatic baseline network being connected to datum via a join between each VRS and the two nearest CORS. Courtesy DCS Spatial Services.

survey) to the datum and to transfer the uncertainty of the datum connection through to the survey network in the adjustment.

As such, this approach employs the automatically computed GNSS baselines between NRTK observations and their VRS together with a derived join between each VRS and the two nearest CORS to create a connected network that is adjustable like a traditional, static GNSS network (see Figure 1).

Practical example

We can illustrate this approach by investigating a typical urban NRTK survey conducted by DCS Spatial Services, incorporating 126 observations on 62 marks in Sydney. Best practice guidelines were followed, with each mark occupied at least twice, at least 30 minutes apart, and for a minimum of 2 minutes.

Multiple occupations on each mark add redundancy, strengthen network geometry and help minimise outliers. The resulting network exhibited a high degree of connectivity through the baselines automatically generated between VRS and observed mark. While the user has limited control over the network geometry created in this way, the network can be processed akin to a static GNSS survey.

In order to perform a least squares adjustment and allow this

survey to influence and be influenced by the datum, it must be connected to it. In this case, six control marks that are part of the GDA2020 state adjustment were observed to provide this datum connection, leaving 56 marks to be adjusted.

However, considering that a new VRS is generated when the instrument is turned off or moved more than 5 km from its original VRS location, some marks can potentially become isolated (or disconnected) from the network and datum. To ensure connection of all marks to the network, the VRS were treated as pseudo-datum stations joined to the nearest two CORSnet-NSW sites, which were then also constrained in the adjustment (see Figure 2).

This survey network was adjusted separately to the GDA2020 state adjustment to analyse the statistical results produced by this approach and to obtain preliminary values of PU. These PU values will be updated when this network is incorporated into the GDA2020 state adjustment.

The determination of NRTK uncertainty based on modelling the contributing errors is an ongoing area of research. We chose baseline weightings to mimic the standard deviation values (1σ) routinely applied by DCS Spatial Services for NRTK uncertainty in practice: 0.014 m (horizontal) and 0.030 m (vertical). These values include allowance for to/from centring errors and have proven realistic in

Figure 2: NRTK baseline network including the joins from each VRS to the two nearest CORS. Courtesy DCS Spatial Services.

Figure 3: Calculated (a) HPU and (b) VPU for NRTK observations based on the NRTK baseline network. Courtesy DCS Spatial Services.

The enormity of this task and its benefits to the profession should not be underestimated.

most practical observing conditions using CORSnet-NSW.

While NRTK observations exhibit a small degree of distance dependency, recent studies have found no significant effect for NRTK solutions located up to 40 to 50 km from the nearest CORS. Consequently, residual NRTK distance dependency can be ignored.

Since each observation is connected to the datum by two baselines (CORS to VRS and VRS to occupied mark) and to avoid inflation of the uncertainties through this join in the adjustment, these initial values were divided by √2 according to the error propagation law. This resulted in final weightings of 0.010 m (horizontal) and 0.021 m (vertical) for each baseline, with no distance dependency applied.

As previously mentioned, the two CORS served as constraints in the fully constrained adjustment, along with the six GDA2020

These preliminary results demonstrate the appropriateness of the observational weighting strategy used and that this method can provide reliable results. Current work investigates tweaking the observational weighting strategy to optimise the inclusion of NRTK observations with realistic uncertainties in the GDA2020 state adjustment.

Conclusion

We have presented a new approach to determine Positional Uncertainty of NRTK observations. It uses the automatically computed GNSS baselines between NRTK observations and their VRS, together with a derived join between each VRS and the two nearest CORS.

This provides a rigorous method of computing realistic PU and

Galileo commences 20cm High Accuracy Service

Europe’s Galileo satellite positioning system can now deliver horizontal accuracy down to 20 cm and vertical accuracy of 40 cm, for appropriately equipped receivers, thanks to the system’s newly implemented High Accuracy Service (HAS).

The HAS is enabled through an additional level of realtime positioning corrections, delivered through a new data stream within the existing Galileo signal. The service was declared operational on 24 January 2023 following months of testing by ESA engineers at the ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.

“Galileo is not standing still,” said Javier Benedicto, ESA Director of Navigation, speaking at the European Space Conference in Brussels.

“This new High Accuracy Service offers a new dimension of precision to everyone who needs it, while the Open Service Navigation Message Authentication — already available — allows users to authenticate Galileo signals as they make use of it, to minimise any risk of spoofing.”

Benedicto added that an upgraded integrity message of the signal rolled out last year, reduces the time to first fix while enhancing the overall robustness of Galileo.

“Further service improvements will come with the launch of the remaining Galileo satellites, followed later

this decade by Galileo Second Generation,” he said.

The HAS correction message is embedded within the E6 band of the Galileo signal, typically not accessible via smartphones and other mass-market products but only through high-end receivers.

However, the message is also being made available through the internet, opening the prospect of wider adoption by connected devices, and its development into the Open Service standard in years to come.

“With this new High Accuracy Service, Galileo becomes the first constellation able to provide a high-accuracy service globally and directly through the signal in space and via internet,” said Rodrigo da Costa, Executive Director of EUSPA.

“This new feature for Galileo will foster innovation in many downstream sectors.”

Corrections

Both the orbits of the satellites and their on board atomic clocks, are prone to drift. This, plus signal delays produced by ionospheric conditions, tend to reduce overall accuracy. To accommodate for this, a global network of Galileo Sensor Stations performs continuous monitoring of the satellites and their signals, using the data to compile a set of corrections which are uplinked to the satellites to be incorporated into

their navigation signals every 100 minutes or so.

HAS improves on this performance through the use of a High Accuracy Data Generator based at the Galileo Control Centre in Fucino, Italy, generating additional corrections for Galileo as well as US GPS satellites. These corrections are then relayed to compatible receivers in real time through the Galileo satellite signal, compiled into a single message of 448 bits per second.

“Compared to the Galileo Open Service, the corrections are made available very rapidly and very often – with an update for satellite orbits every 30 seconds and for satellite clocks every 10 seconds,” said ESA’s Galileo System Performance Engineer Daniel Blonksi.

“And the HAS correction message is designed in such a way that suitable receivers can benefit from multiple satellites broadcasting it, to reconstruct the overall message very fast.”

The HAS will have two service levels. Service Level 1, already available, corrects satellite orbit and clock errors as well as internal signal biases unique to each satellite in which, once known, can enable still higher precision through direct comparisons of their signal phase.

Service Level 2, intended for roll out across Europe, will combine these with additional ionospheric corrections, made possible by the use of additional ground stations for which ESA is preparing the needed infrastructure upgrades.

EUSPA, the EU Agency for the Space Programme, is targeting the HAS for current high-precision applications such as precision agriculture, resource prospecting, land and hydrographic surveys as well as emerging sectors such as robotics, autonomous cars, trains, ships and drones and augmented reality gaming and marketing. n

The improved accuracy comes courtesy of real-time corrections delivered within the existing Galileo signal.

ESA/P. Carril

A High Accuracy Data Generator based at the Galileo Control Centre in Fucino, Italy, generates additional corrections for Galileo as well as GPS satellites. These corrections are then relayed to compatible receivers in real time through the Galileo satellite signal. Image courtesy EUSPA.

Utility and excavation solution

The Leica Geosystems DD175 utility locator and Leica DA175 signal transmitter complement the existing Leica DD100 series to help operators detect underground utilities and ensure site workers’ safety. The DD175 connects to the Leica DX Field Shield/DX Manager Shield software to enable users to connect the site to the office in real time with fast and stable data transfer. Its automated pinpointing technology and clear display helps users discover buried utilities with confidence. The built-in self-check verifies that the tool is functioning properly, ensuring the dependability of the information and thus enhancing operator safety. The tool’s datalogging and GPS features enable managers to see how and where the locator is used. The DD175 and DA175 are designed for construction, civil engineering, utility and general site workers.

Digital twin plug-in

Presagis has announced the V5D Plugin for Unreal Engine, which enables users to load a GIS-generated V5D digital twin into Unreal Engine to create highly realistic visualisations and simulations of entire cities and even countries. V5D users will be able to make powerful 3D fly-throughs and immersive simulations of their GIS-based digital twins, while Unreal Engine users will be able to incorporate geospatially accurate cityscapes and terrains into their 3D experiences. The cloudbased V5D platform quickly and automatically converts massive volumes of geospatial data into high-fidelity 3D digital twins. With no geospatial processing expertise, users can easily produce accurate digital twins from multiple 2D data sets, including GIS vector layers, remote sensing imagery, and other structured and unstructured data of any size, format or type.

Field data capture

The latest release of the Trimble TerraFlex software (v5.80) adds two new features to enrich and expand on the capabilities of data captured in the field. The first enables users to capture images of an asset in the real world and then annotate, crop and mark up those images to highlight certain content or add context. The second enables users to log a breadcrumb trail to provide an independent record of where crews have worked in the field. When breadcrumb logging is enabled, TerraFlex will automatically record the user’s location and write that to a file. The breadcrumb files are periodically synchronised to a folder within their Trimble Connect project and can be combined with other sources of data or used during audits.

Real-time workflow solution

Teledyne Geospatial has released Galaxy Onboard, a workflow-focused solution that enables airborne surveyors to deliver quality-controlled processed data in real time, which, the company says, lowers the barrier of entry for organisations venturing into airborne mapping as it does not require expertise or months of training. Comprised of a rugged onboard computer, with a state-of-the-art real-time processing engine and quality control system, Galaxy Onboard extends the LiDAR sensor into a full solution that accelerates workflow from aircraft to office. Through real-time quality control during acquisition, Galaxy Onboard enables faster turnaround time for wide area programs and engineering-grade corridor applications.

News and views from the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute

CEO’s Column

A geospatial ecosystem, 4IR and knowledge on demand

In a conversation with a group of professionals this week, a hydrographer told us his industry was ‘more of a lifestyle than a job’.

GCA Board Members

Paul Digney Acting President

Alistair Byrom Co-Deputy Chair

Darren Mottolini Director

Roshni Sharma Director

Jacinta Burns Director

Kate Ramsay Director

I can imagine many SSSI and SIBA members — accustomed to some difficult and remote locations, long hours, heat and flies — smiling at that, but what a great endorsement for the profession.

When what we do is more than a job, it speaks to the heart of our value to the community, our passion for the sciences and the adventures we enjoy on the journey we spend our lifetime travelling.

In preparing to launch our new peak industry body — the Geospatial Council of Australia — we have had many conversations across the various fields represented by our membership.

We have been able to get feedback on everything from our new name (yes, members like it) to ideas on achieving greater recognition and ways to convey our attractiveness as a career choice.

We have asked ourselves: How does our industry provide the opportunity not to simply work in a job but show a way to make real change? And how can someone identify with geospatial in a way that connects them to a purpose and a mission and brings them into the broader industry?

It is what the next generation of young and emerging professionals is seeking, and answering these questions will be a key priority for the GCA.

The job ahead for GCA

By the time we officially launch the Geospatial Council of Australia in late March, we expect to have identified many of the programs and priorities that will help us achieve the three goals we have for the geospatial sector.

1. Increase the profile of geospatial-related occupations to attract and retain talent. Workforce and talent development have been identified as a key strategic area for the GCA. Many members will be aware there is a severe skills shortage at all levels of seniority within the geospatial sector, as well as many other challenges around workforce capacity-building.

SSSI and SIBA|GITA, the founding organisations of the Geospatial Council, collaborated for years with a shared understanding that workforce planning would be increasingly pivotal to ensuring the sector had access to the right skills and capability mix.

Both organisations agreed that Australia needs a relevant and skilled, digitally enabled, space and spatial industry workforce to be assured of a thriving industry in the immediate and emerging future.

But there can be a lack of understanding about what a career in geospatial looks like. And while we need to attract people to the industry to address shortages for current roles, we also need to understand what skills will be needed for emerging roles in the future.

To strengthen the workforce our priorities are: professional development and certification; development of a national skills and career pathway; development of a taxonomy of occupations; and national competency frameworks.

2. Increase investment into, and the recognition of, the geospatial ecosystem to provide global best practice technology and services across the economy. There appears to be generally low

Council of Australia develops its leadership and advocacy agenda, we will be speaking out on behalf of members, calling for substantive government policy aimed at developing the sector.

There is enormous untapped potential for economic benefit. While the global geospatial market is US$520 billion, and expected to reach US$681billion by 2025, the Australian market is forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2025. The average growth of geospatial globally is running at more than 14% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), however Australia is only growing at 5.5% CAGR.

Achieving our growth potential is of vital importance, and GCA will tackle this through influential advocacy, policy development and identification of growth opportunities.

3. Strengthen the voice of the geospatial ecosystem across whole of government, industry and communities throughout Australia and internationally. For many years, Australia has been challenged by a fragmented landscape with numerous industry voices and silos across surveying, space and spatial.

The Geospatial Council will be unique in that it represents both individual and business members of all types including public, private, research and education, regulators and non-profit.

Each member, no matter what size, discipline or jurisdiction will have the opportunity to actively participate in the growth and development of our peak body

LAUNCH DATE: 27 MARCH 2023

our senior colleagues in government, corporates and other sectors have been asking for.

GCA will be collaborative and inclusive with everyone in the sector and will aim to engage more strongly with other sectors to develop synergies and opportunities for our members. Through a decade of digital disruption, virtually every industry in Australia utilises geospatial services. It is now time to engage more widely on the application of location-based services. Other industry bodies could be valuable collaborators — consider, for instance, the geospatial services successfully underpinning precision agriculture.

We have the opportunity to become the trusted voice for Australia’s surveying and spatial sector, and we will be advising and engaging with Australian governments, businesses, educational institutions, research organisations and users of spatial services and technology.

The fourth industrial revolution

Our industry, with its various disciplines and technologies, is transforming to a new integrated geospatial information ecosystem that will deliver knowledge on demand.

We chose the name Geospatial Council of Australia as ‘geospatial’ is a widely accepted and recognised term nationally and globally. It is taken to mean the accurate knowing of ‘where,’ which includes surveying, hydrography, cartography, geographic information systems, positioning, navigation and timing, spatial

robotics, automation, edge computing, continuous internet connectivity, sensors, digital twins and advanced interoperability — the same technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) driving an economy-wide digital transformation. The industry is made up of those technologies, services, software, hardware, data and knowledge.

Celebrating a new era

On 27 March 2023, all members of SSSI and SIBA|GITA will seamlessly become members of the Geospatial Council of Australia. It will be a milestone in our shared history, and although I’m sure many will be sad to see the end of an era, we will never forget the decades of achievement by our founding bodies.

We would like to see you at a shared celebration of the creation of the GCA! Because our members work and live all across Australia, when we looked for the best place to mark the launch of the Geospatial Council we agreed that the Locate23 conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre (10-12 May) would be the perfect meeting time and place. We will have a chance to reminisce on the early days as well as to look forward and hear about some of the new programs and initiatives being planned for the Geospatial Council.

I look forward to catching up with you there. n

Tony Wheeler Chief Executive Geospatial Council of Australia (t/a Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute)

SSSI and SIBA|GITA members have voted in favour of both organisations merging to form a new united peak body

Geospatial Council of Australia.

Vale Peter Woodgate: A champion of spatial sciences

The geospatial community is mourning the loss of a true industry leader, following the sudden passing of Dr Peter Woodgate. Peter was a well-known figure in the fields of geosciences, spatial sciences, life sciences, business, public policy and administration. He was best known for the impact he made through leading and mentoring research and innovation organisations.

With more than 30 years of professional and academic experience, Peter made significant contributions to the development of innovative solutions to complex problems, resulting in practical and conceptual advances in knowledge. Throughout his career, he was driven by a passion for great ideas, discovery and the promotion of knowledge exchange to support sustainable development.

Peter commenced his career as a forester with the Victorian Department of Forestry in the early 1980s, after graduating from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Forest Science in 1982. His potential for innovation and problem solving was quickly recognised.

In 1986, Peter established the first satellite remote sensing unit in the Victorian State government. He then went on to lead a team that established the first agreed national method for mapping and identifying old growth forests in 1994, using GIS and remote sensing technologies. He completed a Masters of Applied Science (Remote Sensing) in 1991 — his thesis topic was ‘The development of methodologies for the mapping of wildfire damage in Eucalypt forest using Landsat MSS imagery’.

From 1996 to 1998, he managed the National Airborne Geophysics Project,

evaluating the use of new technologies for mapping dryland salinity. He also led a national team of scientists to help develop the technique for monitoring Australia’s forest cover as part of the National Carbon Accounting System.

In 1999, Peter joined RMIT University as CEO of the Geospatial Science Initiative and led several initiatives that advanced the geospatial science disciplines and increased the profile, academic standing and capability of RMIT. He was instrumental in the creation of RMIT’s first spin-off company (Spatial Vision, which now employs more than 50 staff), the development of a business case to establish the RMIT Institute for Global Sustainability, and the creation of the Risk and Community Safety Research Centre, a partnership between RMIT University, the Australian National University and Emergency Management Australia.

In 2003, Peter became the founding CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) The success of CRCSI is one of Peter’s greatest legacies. Under his leadership, the CRCSI grew at that time to become one of the largest Cooperative Research Centre in the 25-year history of the Program, with over 500 specialists drawn from 120 partners, including 75 companies, 15 government agencies, and 25 universities, research institutes and overseas organisations… all of them adhering to Peter’s vision of a collaborative research environment that could build the teams and access the expertise needed to tackle the big, crosssectoral spatial research challenges that underpin infrastructure development in today and tomorrow’s digital economies. Peter’s vision for the CRCSI was to create world-class research and new wealth in Australia through the better use of spatial information and its related technologies.

The CRCSI delivered around $1.07 billion in benefits arising directly from its research and development outputs, representing a direct benefits ratio of 3.13 to 1 on data independently assessed by the CRC Program guidelines administered by the Australian Government. This success has provided the platform for CRCSI’s new incarnation, Frontier SI, to continue as a successful innovation collaborator, without requiring ongoing CRC funding. During his tenure as CEO of CRCSI Peter completed a Doctorate of Business

Administration in 2007 at RMIT — his thesis was on ‘Innovation in the Australian Spatial Information Industry: Incentives and Impediments’.

Peter’s contributions continued with his conception and design of Australia’s National Positioning Infrastructure program and the National Elevation Data Framework.

Peter was also the Co-Chair of Australia’s working party to develop a 10-year strategy and roadmap for growing Australia’s spatial industry (the 2026 Spatial Industry Transformation and Growth Agenda), as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

Peter conceived the 2030 Space + Spatial Industry Growth Roadmap in 2020. He garnered support and participation from the most senior industry and government leaders from the space and geospatial sectors who agreed with his vision of the growth potential — that by having the right policy settings that recognise the synergies between space and spatial, it was possible to accelerate the growth of both sectors. He worked tirelessly in leading the working group of this important roadmap, who under his leadership consulted extensively with key stakeholders to develop what has become a substantial contribution towards diversifying and transforming Australia’s industry and economy. The 2030 Space + Spatial Industry Growth RoadMap will be officially launched on 14 March 2023.

Throughout his career, Peter was recognised for his contributions to the field. He was awarded life membership of the International Society for Digital Earth in 2016, the Chairman’s Award of the Spatial Industries Business Association of Australia Excellence in 2015 and the President’s Award of the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) in 2007. He was also an honorary fellow of SSSI, our highest form of

Dr Peter Woodgate. Image courtesy SmartSat CRC.

Dr Peter Woodgate and Graeme Kernich.

recognition to outstanding individuals.

In recent years, Peter was a highly sought-after board director and chair. He supported his natural board and governance abilities by completing the AICD Company Directors course in 2008 and the AICD Advanced course of Mastering the Boardroom in 2011. In 2012 he was appointed to the Board of AUScope, Australia’s provider of research infrastructure to the national geoscience community working on fundamental geoscience questions and grand challenges — climate change, natural resources security and natural hazards. He remained on the AUScope Board until 2020. In February 2018, Peter was appointed Chair of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) and during the five years of his time there he positioned AURIN as a key institution between academia, government, and industry, providing national research infrastructure to enable the development of an Australian sovereign capability for urban digital twins.

In August 2018, Peter was appointed the Chair of the SmartSat CRC Board, after playing a leading role in the successful bid process. He brought with him a wealth of experience and connections from the space and spatial industry, as well as from the broader CRC sector. SmartSat has gone on to become the largest-ever nationally coordinated ecosystem of space industryresearch collaboration in Australia’s history, involving the major universities, Department of Defence and leading space companies as partners, some of which are truly global enterprises, while also including more than 60 SME partners.

Peter also chaired Canthera Discovery (a cancer research organisation), where he played a significant role in rebuilding confidence in the board and management. He was a long time Board member of Geoscape until late 2022 and a member of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee at Charles Sturt University.

Peter’s most recent appointment was President of the newly formed Geospatial

Council of Australia. Though Peter was President for merely six weeks, in the period leading up to his appointment and once he assumed the role, he brought a wealth of knowledge, expertise and governance experience, and it became apparent that he was going to make a profoundly positive impact as the new organisation developed. His short involvement was extremely valuable during the crucial formation stage of the Geospatial Council. We will be forever grateful for his guidance during the Council’s initial months.

Peter was a true visionary and a leader of innovation, new understanding and change. His contributions have driven important changes in land allocation, landscape management, and resource policy and have helped to create new wealth in Australia through the better use of spatial information and its related technologies.

Peter’s legacy extends far beyond his professional achievements. He was known for his warmth, generosity and unwavering commitment to his work.

As a colleague, Peter is remembered for the respect he showed to each person, the values that informed every decision and the tireless work and passion he committed to his various roles with which he was involved. He was also a friend to many in the community, who will greatly miss the many conversations held. Peter was always respectful, considered and never short of valuable thoughts and well considered ideas. People who knew Peter always came away from a conversation with him with a sense of being uplifted. With his guiding words, there are literally dozens of professionals in the industry today who benefitted greatly from his mentorship.

He will be deeply missed by his colleagues, friends and family, and his contributions to the field of spatial information and technology will always be remembered. n

Tony Wheeler Chief Executive Geospatial Council of Australia (t/a Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute)

Dr Peter Woodgate and Professor Clive Fraser in the early days of the CRCSI.

Phillip Delaney, Dr Peter Woodgate and Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse.

Dr Peter Woodgate, Gary Nairn AO and Professor Mary O’Kane.

MENTORING: An Investment in our future

In today’s competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent is more important than ever before. Peak industry bodies play a pivotal role in providing services and resources that help their sector build a robust and sustainable talent pipeline.

Emerging professionals find it daunting entering the workforce. They are faced with challenges such as lack of experience, limited professional networks, and critically, limited access to mentorship opportunities. That’s why five years ago, the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute’s (SSSI) Young Professionals (YP) identified the need to implement a National Mentoring Program to help emerging professionals overcome the challenges they faced as they entered the workforce.

The National Mentoring Program was devised to connect early-career professionals with experienced mentors who could offer guidance, support and advice. The program was designed to provide a structured and supportive environment in which young professionals could develop their skills, build their networks and establish valuable relationships within the industry. The Program also facilitated the transfer of knowledge, skills and experiences from experienced professionals to those who are in the early stages of their careers.

The National Mentoring Program aimed to create a more skilled and capable workforce, and to support the longterm growth and success of the industry. With building workforce capability and capacity being a key driver for SSSI and Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA|GITA) merging to form the Geospatial Council of Australia, it is critical to support initiatives that strengthen our talent pipeline.

SSSI has been overwhelmed by the support shown by industry for this program. Mentees have been eager to sign up and be mentored by some of geospatial’s most prominent academics and industry leaders, and the positive feedback from the experience has been overwhelming. The benefits gained from being a mentor often

surpassed expectation. The positive impact that a mentor had on the lives and careers of their mentee, coupled with the satisfaction of supporting the next generation of professionals, was immeasurable.

Over the past five years, the National Mentoring Program has attracted more than 350 mentors and 461 mentees. In 2021, the Program was open to individuals worldwide, leading to an increase in participants. However, the Program encountered difficulties due to the various time zones of the participants, which led to some constraints for mentors and mentees. To address this issue, in 2022 the program was restricted to those residing in the AsiaPacific region.

Spatial/GIS professionals have consistently been the most active participants in the Mentoring Program, comprising at least 40% of the total participants each year. The general trend showed that hydrography and remote sensing and photogrammetry also increased over the five years. It must also be noted that in 2022, the Hydrographic Commission Coaching Program was established to help mentor young professional hydrographic surveyors to work towards certification, be involved in the industry and Commission, and network with other professionals. This program will continue in 2023.

Over the course of the National Mentoring Program, mentors and mentees could explore a number of soft skill-based

topics. The general trend has shown that the top two topics covered most frequently were networking and career goals and pathways. This is no surprise as networking can open up new opportunities, create valuable connections and help mentees learn how to effectively navigate their industry. In addition, career goals and pathways are important because they give mentees a sense of direction and purpose, help them identify areas for growth and enable them to make informed decisions about their career.

From 2022, diversity and inclusion was a set topic for discussion for each mentor/mentee pair. It is important to discuss diversity and inclusion because these topics are crucial to building a more equitable and inclusive workplace. Mentors and mentees can identify ways to promote greater understanding, respect and collaboration among colleagues from different backgrounds. This can help to create a more welcoming and supportive environment for all employees, which in turn can improve morale, productivity and retention. Additionally, discussing diversity and inclusion can help to raise awareness of unconscious biases and systemic barriers that can limit opportunities for underrepresented groups.

In the future, the Geospatial Council of Australia will continue to contribute to the growth and development of individuals and the overall success of the geospatial sector through the National Mentoring Program. n

SSSI would like to thank The Surveyors Trust for sponsoring the 2022 SSSI National Mentoring Program and for nurturing the next generation of geospatial professionals.