In March, DSE called for tenders to build 57 base stations for its Vicmap GNSS real-time CORS network, GPSNet. In NSW, Lands has installed new receivers at existing base stations, created new ones and announced even more as it moves to extend the range of its network. What’s more, it will move to genuine networked RTK status within the next few years.
GPSNet has been in existence for several years. It currently covers the Melbourne metro and surrounding areas.
DSE recently announced plans to build sufficient stations to cover the entire state, specifically to deal with the needs of farmers and civil engineers. In May last year, state treasurer John Lenders allocated $4.87 million to the project, with the intention of increasing the existing 33 station network to 90 stations.
This will make it possible for the network to offer 2 cm accuracy anywhere in Victoria.
DSE says the new stations will be progressively installed throughout regional Victoria between 2009 and 2011. The project aims to deliver a robust statewide networked real-time kinematic positioning service.
In October 2007, CR Kennedy won a contract to supply seven Leica GRX1200 GG Pro GNSS units and a combination of standard and choke ring antennas for the network.
Three new reference stations were added in 2008. A Trimble NetR5 receiver, contributed by Geomatix Pty Ltd, was installed at the Kerang office of the Department of Primary Industries office on 31 October.
On the same day, Goulburn-Murray Water installed a second NetR5 at DPI’s Echuca office. A GRX1200 Pro went into operation at Lake Bolac Information and Business Transaction Centre on 15 December.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, the Department of Lands is inching closer to a fully networked RTK solution for surveyors in NSW. It’s not there yet, but Lands has made considerable progress in the last 12 months.
Most of the existing stations in the Sydnet network have been re-equipped with new hardware. The total number has been increased to 18. The first triple constellation receiver – capable of receiving GPS, Galileo and Glonass – has been installed in a new station at Dubbo.
Lands’ Simon McElroy told the Association of Public Authority Surveyors’ meeting at Ettalong Beach in March that seven new stations have been established. Importantly, three of them are owned by organisations other than Lands, including Wollongong City Council and the University of NSW. This is important because Land’s longterm plans for Sydnet will only be realised if it can manage partnerships with agencies at local and federal level.
It will also require customers. To make Sydnet easier to use, the surveyor general’s directions have been updated to remove outdated guidelines, which contained irrelevant international standards. They also help to explain some business rules that Lands uses in assessing external surveys.
This move – from an ad hoc experimental network to a production network – is accompanied by a change to pricing. The old system was free. From July, it will cost $2000 a year, or $100 a day.
Currently the management team is assessing new CORS management software from three vendors – Trimble, Topcon and Leica Geosystems. Apart from delivering significant increases in reliability and better flexibility, the new software is necessary to meet the next challenge: the creation of a viable Network RTK service. Lands is currently testing such a service in Sydney. The aim is to make it statewide by 2013.
By then, ten stations will be up and running, covering most of the state. Tenders for these are imminent. After that, plans for both GPSNet and Sydnet start to get a little murky.
Cost benefit studies indicate that the nation would get considerable returns – perhaps more than a percentage point of GDP – from a network supporting precision farming and automated machine guidance.
As a result, ANZLIC recently asked government for $300 million to build 2400 base stations and create a national network.
Even if that doesn’t get up, the 100- odd stations of the Auscope project are already budgeted, although their governance arrangements have not been finalised.
Officials in the various land authorities are still negotiating the relationship between these new state networks and the Auscope national science network. They are also talking about establishing cross-border networks, so that surveyors in border regions will not be disadvantaged.
