Mobile Solutions for Faster, Safer and More Cost Effective Survey

26th November, 2019

Over the course of the year, we have developed our mobile ground penetrating radar (GPR) solution to allow rapid data capture in all environments.

Significant developments include the addition of a 1.8m wide high-density array from 3D Radar and our custom built off-road Utsi Electronics array mounted on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV).

These super high tech yet practical solutions allow us to acquire the highways bi-directional GPR data within a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of the traditional GPR survey approach. Better data, faster.

Key Differentiators:

  • Mitigate traffic management
  • Mass data collection
  • 3D data set
  • Advanced processing
  • PAS128 compliant
  • Added value provided by mobile mapping approach (point cloud and 360-degree imagery)
  • Reduced cost
  • Increased safety
  • High accuracy
  • High detection rates

The 3D Radar System

  • Antenna: high density array of 20 antennas spaced 75mm apart. More data = more detected services.
  • Custom built frame: the GPR antenna can be raised and lowered safely from within the vehicle meaning there is no need for surveyors to step into potentially dangerous environments. You can transit safely to site at full road speed.
  • Collection speeds: underground utility mapping up to 30mph / pavement mapping up to 70mph.
  • Advanced positioning: GPR data is positioned by an odometer, IMU and GNSS receiver contained within a mobile mapping system. Removing GPS dropouts and allowing continued data collection in urban environments and environments with poor sky visibility.
  • Added value: point clouds and 360-degree images (site wide) from the mobile mapping system, 3D visualisations/BIM.
  • Step frequency: The 3D Radar samples a linearly increasing set of discrete frequencies over a large bandwidth of 200Mhz to 3Ghz.  A large bandwidth is important as it allows mapping of both small and large, shallow and deep services and buried features within one data set. A traditional impulse antenna, despite sometimes being referred to as ultra-wide band, operates over a relatively short bandwidth. To achieve the same bandwidth, at least three typical impulse antennas would have to be deployed. This would result in three separate data sets and a huge uplift in processing time and associated costs.
  • 3D data set with one direction of travel: the advanced software package, 3D Examiner, allows the linear polarization to be flipped and a synthetic section created whereby utilities can be detected in all orientations from a single direction of travel.
  • Visualisation/GIS based processing software: 3D Examiner is a processing software specifically designed for mass data processing and is capable of handling in excess of 100GB+ data sets. Quick and easy extraction of detected services and buried objects. Exports directly to AutoCAD or GIS packages.

Off Road Mobile GPR

New guidance and standards such as PAS128 mean that GPR collection needs to be achieved in all environments; LandScope has developed a custom-built array which has been mounted on an all-terrain vehicle. This has been most successful in enabling pragmatic and cost-effective surveys of agricultural land for large scale redevelopment (HS2, housing projects, brownfield developments etc.).

Hydrographic GPR

LandScope also complete GPR surveys in freshwater environments. GPR can successfully be used to ascertain sediment and hard bed levels. It has recently been deployed for utility detection and bed assessment prior to the development of a shallow ford crossing.

For more information, please contact our commercial team on 01694 731930 or via email on enquiries@land-scope.com