Land surveying apparatus and method

• Main Authors: SHAWN E JOHNSON, BARBARA A KOVELL
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 13.03.2002
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; GYROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; MEASURING DISTANCES, LEVELS OR BEARINGS; NAVIGATION; PHOTOGRAMMETRY OR VIDEOGRAMMETRY; PHYSICS; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; SURVEYING; TESTING

A land surveying apparatus (8) for real-time acquisition of earth position data and land distance data includes a distance measuring instrument (16), a GPS receiver (18), a controller (20) and a memory (22) coupled to a land vehicle. The distance measuring instrument receives input regarding a distance the land vehicle travels on the land and outputs land distance data regarding the distance. The GPS receiver receives GPS signals and outputs earth position data regarding a position of the GPS receiver on the surface of the earth as a function of the received GPS signals. The controller generates a plurality of sample intervals, and acquires for each sample interval the earth position data output by the GPS receiver and the land distance data output by the distance measuring instrument. The controller relates the land distance data and the earth position data as a function of the corresponding sample interval and stores in a memory for each sample interval the corresponding earth position data and land distance data.