Home > What We Do > Acquisition & Base Mapping > Mobile Lidar > Mobile Lidar Applications

MOBILE LIDAR APPLICATIONS

TRANSPORTATION, HIGHWAY, AND ENGINEERING

Sanborn Mobile Lidar provides a remarkable capability for the rapid 3D mapping of highways, infrastructure, and buildings using vehicle-mounted lasers and 5mp digital video cameras. It is a proven solution for collecting engineering/survey-grade Lidar data over large areas where surveys are impractical with static Lidar sensors and require an accuracy and resolution exceeding those available from airborne technologies. Traveling at normal road speeds, day or night, the system offers a 360° field of view with high-precision mapping to very long ranges. Capturing every detail along a highway corridor—including road barriers, cracks in the road surface, ditches, and overhead wires— surveyors can create highly accurate 3D digital models for new planning, road maintenance, wide load route assessment, and asset management applications such as:

  • Analysis of road infrastructure
  • Location of encroaching overhead wires, light poles, road signs, etc.
  • Bridge structure and overhead clearances
  • Road surface conditions
  • Complete asset management for cities and counties.

BENEFITS

  • Rapid, accurate collection off all features it “sees’ from Lidar and imagery in a single pass—allows additional information and products to be generated from the data
  • Collection of data at road speeds—eliminates traditional surveyor safety issues, keeps roads/lanes open, minimize impact to traffic
  • Collects 1,000x more data in less than 10% of the time taken for traditional collection methods
  • Collects both GIS & survey data
  • Can be used to QC other sources (airborne Lidar, GIS, orthoimagery)

  • Can be used in emergency response for both emergency and tactical planning, with potential uses for insurance and property inventory
  • Obtains data under canopies or overhead obstructions, low cloud ceiling, and/or light rain
  • Can integrate with airborne Lidar for a complete Ground2SkyTM dataset
  • Adds value to the survey as it is a current “snapshot” of as-built structures allowing for “near” real time updates as change occurs.

Railway Infrastructure

Traditional railway survey methods require frequent measurements on the rail base, the top of the rail, and the rail base on the opposing side—a labor-intensive, disruptive, and occasionally dangerous process. The Sanborn Mobile Mapping System is a safe, easy, and rapid solution for collecting Lidar survey data in and around railway areas of operation. Installation of the equipment on a railway “speeder” has demonstrated the Lynx’s ability to provide unprecedented survey detail for rail asset management. In contrast to traditional survey methods, Lidar and video data acquisition take much less time, minimizing the disruption of rail traffic, measurements are more frequent, and are easily chosen by the system operator, and in addition, surveyors are not put in harm’s way.

BENEFITS

  • Complete and geospatially precise inventory collection takes hours instead of days. This minimizes traffic disruption, and improves the value and timeliness of the data collected

  • Data acquired includes clearance of overhanging wires, natural obstructions (trees, rock faces), tunnel/bridge clearances, switches (locations and types) and “frogs”.

Data to support Positive Train Control (PTC) Requirement by 2015

  • Accurate knowledge of train location (GIS) & GPS for signal and braking control
  • Create a complete inventory of assets, obstructions, clearances, switches, frogs, crossings, etc.
  • Crossings are especially sensitive to rail applications because of the potential for accidents. Sanborn Mobile Mapping collects the complete environment of the crossing, including the condition of railway cross guards (if any), allowing for maintenance of these guards—this data has potentially critical value to railroad, insurance, and forensics agencies if an accident occurs.

Automatic Track Inspection Program—ATRIP

  • While GIS and mapping is important, it always will be secondary to rail design/build. Rail engineers are most concerned with relative accuracy between rails. With a 7mm relative accuracy and high density, the Lynx system hits the primary concern of all rail engineers—drawing steel/track.
  • Accuracy supports clearances (both horizontal/vertical) on all bridges and tunnels
  • Lynx Data can support US DOT National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory Program
  • Point density is great enough to obtain all relevant information in one pass minimizing needed track time. V100 (V200 at half throttle) generates 4,200 points per square meter behind the vehicle at 40mph
  • Point density on vertical targets in the right of way is dense enough to pick up EVERYTHING. This includes small (6-inch) marking signs
  • 200m range allows for data from multiple parallel tracks to be obtained in one pass from a single track
  • Conventional survey and mapping techniques obtain cross sections every 25 feet. Lynx data can be mined and used by various departments for different information needs at different times
  • Changes and redesigns can be rapidly and cost effectively mapped with greater accuracy than other methods
  • Mobile Mapping data can be integrated with other data (ortho, Lidar, etc.) to build a complete picture of rail right-of-way.

Marine and Coastal

Sanborn Mobile Mapping offers unsurpassed 3D detail when surveying from a marine craft (boat) in motion. Even with movements associated with navigation around river bends, the Lynx Laser system collects high-accuracy data of river banks, vegetation, ridge walls, gravel bars, etc.—all in a single pass.

BENEFITS

  • Mapping of harbor and port infrastructure, for security and engineering analysis
  • Mapping of dams, levees, breakwaters, seawalls, etc., for as-built and condition/structural assessments
  • Navigational feature documentation—accurate mapping of hazards, beacons, buoys, markers

  • Assessment of environmental needs—provides a rapid “snapshot” of all above surface marine and near-shore conditions
  • Monitoring of gravel bar erosion, habitats of aquatic species, to ensure regulatory compliance and effective remediation efforts, etc.

Utilities

Sanborn Mobile Mapping provides a remarkable capability and flexibility for the rapid 3D mapping overhead wires, utility, and power infrastructure including substations and power transmission corridors (when mounted on an ATV).

BENEFITS

  • Accurate / rapid survey of overhead lines and wires
  • Complete inventory of connectors, transformers, poles, etc.
  • Mapping as-built infrastructure for dams, power plants, etc.

  • Accurate and rapid identification of obstructions and encroachments within utilities rights-of-way

AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

The Sanborn Lynx Mobile Mapping System provides a remarkable capability for rapid 3D mapping of airports, structures, runways, terminals, access areas, to support FAA NextGen Initiatives, etc.

BENEFITS

  • Complete and accurate survey of airport facilities, runways, infrastructure, etc.
  • Detailed and complete survey of critical infra- structure such as power plants, communications facilities, gas distribution hubs, etc.

  • Accurately survey as-built government facilities and properties for inventory purposes, asset management, environmental and security purposes, etc.
  • Support for Homeland Security and border areas by creating accurate, super high-resolution terrain maps and 3D datasets for analysis and planning

Building Information Modeling (BIM)

A Mobile Mapping system is an accurate, cost-effective means to capture a building’s exterior, site, and environmental conditions as input for the BIM process. This allows for a complete picture of the building and infra- structure in minutes, versus hours for traditional external laser scanning.

  • “The acronym “BIM,” is historically linked to 3D modeling, and is linked also to 4D (time) and 5D (cost) virtual modeling of buildings

  • Mobile data can be added to a building’s interior scan to create a complete 3D structural “pointcloud”.

Sanborn LogoFor more information or to order Sanborn Mobile Lidar products or services, call Sanborn customer service at 1.866.SANBORN (1.866.726.2676), or contact us by e-mail at information@sanborn.com.