Thumb through Position and you will see many examples of GNSS products that can increase the productivity and quality of survey and mapping tasks. Articles on Continuously Operating Reference Stations and network RTK describe a future with widespread precise positioning services. These improvements are undoubtedly a boon to the spatial industry, but if we perceive GNSS simply as a ‘better widget’, then wider opportunities may be overlooked.
To put this in context: in 1999 more than 90 per cent of precise positioning users were from the spatial industry. In 2009, spatial practitioners comprise less than half; by 2019 they will make up less than five per cent. The vast majority of precision GNSS will be fitted to agricultural, construction, mining and material-handling machines using precise positioning services. How those services should be delivered is the subject of intense debate even though there is general agreement that most users will not operate in the single private reference station mode.
The nature of infrastructure is many users and few experts. Look at road, rail or electricity, for example. There is nothing to suggest that a precise positioning infrastructure will be any different, so where will the experts come from? The only user community that currently receives formal training in the fundamentals of GPS and GNSS is the spatial community.
There is a big opportunity for the spatial industry to ‘own’ this infrastructure, and indeed that outcome is being pursued by the Australian Spatial Consortium (ASC), which includes ANZLIC and the CRC-SI.
The question is, can spatial practitioners go beyond the role of infrastructure experts and contribute to the implementation of precision machine systems? There are certainly several roles in which a ‘spatial skillset’ would be advantageous.
The positioning expert is one role that would seem to fit. Many users of machine control systems need practical assistance in configuring their system to suit local conditions. Producing tailored coverage maps showing areas of poor satellite and communications availability is one practical example.
Introducing machine control and automating work process inevitably increases the quantity of spatially referenced data. The role of data manager requires the knowledge to merge datasets of varying epochs, datums and quality. This role is already passing to the surveyor on some construction sites and was described to me as follows: ‘When 3D machine control is introduced, the perception of the surveyor changes from being an unavoidable cost centre to a valueadding function.’
The quality control role of a surveyor is well established in extractive industries and civil engineering, but this has not yet been explored in agriculture. For instance, a horticulturist has installed drip tape irrigation with an expected lifespan of five years. He plans to mechanically cultivate between the drip tapes and wants to set up a controlled traffic system using a 2 cm auto-steer. What additional separation does he need to allow between rows for the cumulative effects of continental drift? This sort of advice from a qualified and indemnified professional certainly has a value.
The concept of legal traceability is also familiar to spatial practitioners. Environmental practices continue to gain importance in mining, civil engineering and agriculture. The ability to provide evidence of where your machines were working and what they were doing will therefore, increase substantially. In today’s climate it would be useful to be able to prove that your machine activities did not pollute a nearby watercourse with waste, chemicals or other undesirable materials. Traceability systems will require all the skills mentioned earlier. Yet they are beyond the capability of many extractive, civil engineering and farming operations today.
At present, virtually all GNSS machine control systems have human operators. Someone on board has responsibility for ensuring that safety, quality and environmental practices are observed. It gets really interesting when we move to machine automation. Unmanned GNSS machine control systems are already in use in ports, such as the container straddle carriers at the Port of Brisbane. Rio Tinto is working towards an automated iron ore mining operation in the Pilbara, and agricultural machinery manufactures such as Deere have prototype driverless tractors. Without the human operator, a systematic and rigorous approach to spatially oriented problems is required – and the opportunities for spatial scientists multiply.
The education of future practitioners will be critical to the ability of spatial companies to access these emerging market opportunities. If spatial sciences degrees offered a greater diversity of career opportunities, this might have the added benefit of attracting more recruits into the industry.
With the right education and mindset, spatial scientists have the opportunity to be at the centre of a new wave of industrial productivity. Maybe spatial can be special after all.
Rob Lorimer is the chief executive of PositionOne Consulting.
