Use of Airborne LIDAR in Transmission Line Projects
The growing energy demand is an issue that power utility authorities incessantly face. The creation of new transmission lines is not always probable due to complications in acquiring rights-of-way and obtaining environmental approvals.
Airborne LIDAR uses a precise laser scanning technology that offers decidedly accurate terrain and tower elevation data for the transmission line corridor. The advanced software tools allow the analysis of critical distances, obstacles identification, slackness calculation, catenary shape calculation, and location of structures besides allowing data to be exported to specialized engineering softwares. GIS plays an important role regarding operation planning, data maintenance and design of transmission lines. A great amount of data is required for the operation and maintenance of data related to transmission lines, which includes property ownership data, corridor land use/land cover (LULC), transmission line situation and characteristics. The physical features of the lines and corridor LULC are determined during construction but has to be updated due to the constant change in surroundings during the lifetime. Automation of technological procedures involved in data collection, integration and processing will ensure increased efficiency in the management of the utilities. Dispensation of the data discusses to the production of complete topographic GIS products including their custom-made presentation and analysis.
LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a contemporary remote sensing technique for the collection of high density and accurate topographic data, which allows high-speed and economical data acquisition of power utility networks. LIDAR together with GIS technology offers efficient tools for database management and analysis. To view more click here