Land Surveying and GPS

· 2 min read
Land Surveying and GPS

Land surveyors once used tape measures and transits to measure distances and positions. Since the 1980s, electronic distance measurement, or EDM, devices have allowed for a lot more efficient and accurate measurements. These use a wave of energy that's shot between your EDM instrument and a reflector. The time the beam takes to come back is then calculated as distance. Today, such calculations can be done using sophisticated GPS systems.



The Global Positioning System runs on the network of satellites to precisely pinpoint the device's location on the planet at any moment. GPS uses the principle of trilateration, using the location of several satellites to pinpoint an exact location. A receiver can determine the latitude, longitude, and elevation of a spot using four or more satellites; there are always a total of 24 Global Positioning System satellites currently in use. First created by  Look at this website . Department of Defense as a navigational assist in 1994, today it is found in many devices, tracking from cell phones and delivery vehicles to the movement of the tectonic plates of Earth's crust.

Land surveyors use Global Position Systems to notice the complete coordinates of spatial locations. Exact measurement of the positions is among the fundamental elements of land surveying. The advantage of is that it is a lot more accurate than hand-measuring these locations. There's some extent of error in all land surveying measurements, due to human errors, environmental characteristics like variations in magnetic fields, temperature, and gravity, and instrument errors. GPS permits much more precise measurements than previously available to land surveyors using measuring tape and an angle sight.

Another benefit of the use of its use as a land surveyor is that the coordinates can be located precisely, while other ways of land surveying depend on measurements from other known locations, including the edge of the property line, the corner of a house, or another landmark. These locations could change over time, such as if a house is torn down or another obstacle is made between your structure and the measured point; even a surveyor's stake may be removed before the land is re-surveyed. The coordinate of a given location on the planet, however, remains the same. Therefore, using GPS as a land surveyor produces measurements that'll be accurate no matter what happens to the surrounding land.

Although Global Position System receivers enable very precise measurements, there is still a degree of error involved. A receiver on a tripod will record the location slightly differently each and every time; when many measurements are taken, these data points will form a cluster around the actual location. Better-quality receivers, needless to say, reduce this amount of error. Survey-grade receivers, instead of those meant for non-surveying uses, may create a band of measurements clustered in a matter of one centimeter of the specific location. Today's receivers are steadily gaining in use, but may not be as accurate as the surveyor want, especially in areas which are heavily wooded or that have other large obstructions. However, the technology is rapidly advancing and gaining a foothold in the available equipment for land surveyors. Since 1994, the accuracy available when using GPS units has improved steadily.