The Leica AP20 AutoPole Addresses Customer Challenges with Total Stations

Sanjay Gangal, CEO and president of AECCafe recently conducted an interview with Hans-Martin Zogg, Business Director of Total Stations at Leica Geosystems, which is part of Hexagon. Zogg spoke about the new Leica AP20 AutoPole which is product solution designed to increase the productivity of Leica Total Station users, and boost speed, accuracy and safety on the jobsite.

Sanjay: Tell us about the Leica AP20 AutoPole.

Han-Martin: The Leica AP20 AutoPole is an absolutely unique solution, which we have just announced. The AP20 is an enhancement to the productivity of our Total Station users, and is easy to use. When we develop product solutions at Leica Geosystems, we always want to address actual customer challenges. And with the AP20, we actually address three main customer challenges, which occur when customers are using Total Stations in the Total Station workflow. The first challenge is, when you measure the Total Stations, actually you need to hold the prism pole always vertical. So this slows up the measurement process.

This is something found with every level, is that need to level up the level bubble that brings the bubble into the center so that the pole is exactly vertical and then the user can measure its speed. But it’s also limiting the measurement area, because you always set up the pole or a point which you want to measure and if you have an obstruct level you cannot measure the point. Thus the verticality of the pole is a big challenge today. The second challenge which we are going to address with our AP20 AutoPole is actually the automatic pole height reading, respectively when you measure the pole height, you always need to enter it manually into the field software. And that’s very error prone and can cause cumbersome and time consuming pole processing. If you can actually fix it in the pole processing, you might be even lucky. Quite often, you need to go again into the field and redo your measurements.

The third challenge with the AP20 is that especially when you have several surveying crews working on the same deck, the same site at the same spot, that the Total Station locks on to the wrong target. And this we address as well with the AP20. The AP20 addresses these three customer challenges with its three features functionalities, like the tilt compensation, the automatic pole height reading, as well as the unique target ID.

Sanjay: Okay. So I think you mentioned the challenges that led you to design this and create this new AutoPole. So I’m assuming it has addressed all of these three challenges. And what benefits does this automated solution provide to the industry professionals in their daily workflow?

Hans-Martin: The AP20 addresses these three main challenges, the pole verticality, the pole height reading as well as the target ID all in one product. We have different variants of the product, but the full solution actually addresses all three in one product. And the benefits for the tilt compensation for our customers is speed. It does not need to do any more to level the pole, so it speeds up the measurement process. So there are time savings over the day. It’s also extending the measurement range. That means you can now with a tilt pole measure many more points, more objects than you could measure before. Just imagine, just measuring the edge of a house today is not so easy, because you cannot level the pole at the edge of a house when you might want to measure that. And now with a tilt pole you just can put the pole tip to the edge and it gets measured by the Total Station.

With speed, you can measure more points, and another important aspect is safety. Safety whether it is on a construction site or whether this is along a busy road. When you have to focus on the level bubble, you focus on the level bubble but you should actually focus where you walk or if there is a lot of traffic, you need to be careful where you walk. And now with removing the level bubble, you can focus on where you walk or as well on the traffic. And due to the speed increase, you can actually leave a dangerous site more quickly than before. Those are the advantages of the tilt compensation. Now when we come to the automatic pole height reading, as a surveyor when you work all day long, you experience quite often that you have what we call “line-of-sight” interruption. When you measure with a Total Station, you always need a line-of-sight between the Total Station and the prism. Now it can happen that for instance, a car drives by or you have a bush where you need to measure behind the bush. And for this you need to adjust the pole height, so you reflect the height changes. Today you need to enter it manually and often you forget it. With the AP20, you just adjust the pole height and everything is done automatically for you. So it gets updated in the software directly.

This speeds up the process, but it’s much, much less error prone and removes the cumbersome time-consuming post-processing. And even today, when you measure with Total Stations, you have two setups. You measure robotically, that means one person set up so you can steer the Total Station robotically and it follows your prism, and you’re at the pole site. And then you are able to determine with more accuracy which pole height you enter. But quite often, surveyors out in the field are measuring using the so-called two-person mode. So they have two people, one person stands at the Total Station, the other person stands at the pole. Now, the trouble starts when the person at the pole side changes the pole height. You need somehow to communicate that to the person at the Total Station, and either he probably shouts or he uses a walkie-talkie. But on a busy construction site with loud roads and loud machinery, it’s difficult to transmit these values. So again, very error prone and this gets solved with the AP20.

Sanjay: Okay. Great.

Hans-Martin: Last but not least, the target ID. Here is the target ID function of the AP20. We ensure as well on a busy construction site, and several crews are on site, that the Total Station really locks onto your target and you can continue with your layout, with your measurements, and ensure that the Total Station measures on the right target.

Sanjay: In the press release, I did notice that you also mentioned that you’re able to lock into a foreign target on a site with multiple reflectors. Tell us about that.

Hans-Martin: We can lock onto your target even though you have multiple reflectors standing around. Today, a Total Station sends out a laser, and where the target is, it gets reflected and the Total Station needs to know this is now my target, or the wrong target which I need to ignore. Now in combination with this unique target ID which we have on the AP20, the Total Station reflects that signal as well, and it knows, “Oh, that’s my target,” and it locks on to the target where it should even though there are other targets, other moving targets around onsite. And we have that often on construction sites, on decks when they build large houses. Time is critical, and often contractors are working there measuring with several Total Stations, several crews work in parallel, therefore it’s very crucial that the crew is as productive as possible, and therefore the target ID helps them to find and lock on quicker to their target.

Sanjay: And how does the AP20 AutoPole complement the Leica Geosystems’ existing Total Station portfolio?

Hans-Martin: The Leica AP20 AutoPole can be used together with our latest generation of total stations to TS16 MS60, TS60. By having a software upgrade, our customers are also able to use their equipment, which they have bought a couple of years ago. It’s an upgrade to the existing one, but if you could buy a new Total Station, you can immediately use it together with the AP20. So it complements the Total Station portfolio and makes it as a very smart solution, Total Stations together with the unique AutoPole solution.

Sanjay: And what is the best way for our audience to find out more about AP20 AutoPole on the internet?

Hans-Martin: Please visit our website, Leica-Geosystems, and there you find all the information about AutoPole, you find also interviews or expert insights where our experts talk about the AP20 in more depth, in a more technical way, how the AP20 works. And yeah, that’s the best way to get additional and more information about the AP20.

Tags: 3D Laser Mapping, mobile mapping

Categories: analytics, asset management, climate change, data, disaster relief, field GIS, geospatial, GIS, Hexagon, Leica Geosystems, lidar, mapping, mobile, photogrammetry, public safety, spatial data, transportation, utilities, utility geographic information systems, Video Interview

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