SAM utilizes the latest technologies to provide a 3D solution for planning, design, and construction projects within electrical substations. By combining our professional surveying and Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) services, our team of professional surveyors, engineers, and technicians are able to provide clients with an abundance of information that is valuable to multiple project teams and stakeholders across their organizations.
Our SAM survey team utilizes a 3D scanner collecting terrestrial static LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data to create a highly dense point cloud of the station that is registered to local ground control. The point cloud or clouds are classified into several different “classes” that can be visualized separately, such as ground, vegetation, foundations, and structures to aide in visualization, feature extraction, and overall performance while working with the dataset. RGB values are also added to the point cloud using a camera at the time of acquisition, which is processed into panoramic imagery that allows a virtual site to be created where users can view the point cloud from ground level.
Concurrently, our SAM SUE professionals identify, designate, locate, and map existing known, unknown, and abandoned utility facilities within and around the substation. Our field technicians initially isolate the station grounding grid, which is used to ground the structures within the station. Once isolated, the technicians are able to utilize a variety of techniques to designate the remaining utilities by way of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), electromagnetic, sonic, and acoustic technologies. Utility depth and size information is collected when possible and used to create a 3D model at elevation of the various utilities on the project. Once the features have been extracted and utility information added, the datasets are combined and QA/QC measures are taken to verify their locations. Prior to finalizing the deliverables, a site visit is made to verify the information collected and/or troubleshoot any conflicts found during processing, such as intersecting utilities.
Brian Belcher, Senior Project Manager at SAM, will be participating in a panel discussion for Substation Integrated Design & Construction at the IEEE ESMO Conference on June 24th in Columbus, Ohio. Brian will be speaking specifically about Terrestrial LiDAR High-Definition Surveying and Subsurface Utility Investigation within electrical substations. To learn more about our services please visit our Services webpage.