Colibri supports land care in Rheinland-Pfalz

As part of the ever-increasing automation of work processes the Rheinland-Pfalz administration has been using Mettenmeier field computers since 1999. The area of application covers land care, a special task in agricultural land surveying. In field service biotopes, protected areas and other land care operations are being mapped with the support of ortho photos (air photographs). The robust computers are also being used for surveying with connections to tachymeters made by the Trimble and Leica companies, e.g. with three ground control point instruments of the central technical office, which are being used for for basic work and support with independent teams doing agricultural land surveys throughout the state for the land development departments.

The in-house GRIBS software is used. The graphic information and processing system used by the and development departments is based on the DAVID geoinformation system developed by Riemer ibR engineering office in Bonn. The seamless data flow is guaranteed by the use of the software on the field computers in field service and also in the office. This integrated office/field solution significantly simplifies the work processes by including graphics in field service. Coupling the tachymeter and the GPS enables control of the tachymeters and the GPS systems (with and without SAPOS®) as "reading heads" completely from the software. This means that the surveyor with the field computer has complete control of the connected surveying systems, processing the surveying procedures with visual graphical monitoring and recording many attributes on site where they occur. This allows required data in land surveying to be recorded as it actually is and the results can be visualised, evaluated and monitored immediately on site.

"Display reaches the optimum"

Because this technological connection of software, hardware and sensors has now been implemented, additional field computers have been procured over the last few years. By now more than 40 colibri devices and the predecessor model MicroPC Pen are in use throughout the state.
Equipping the complete field service with the colibri required some basic consideration of the requirements on the hardware. "The field computers must be fit for field service, this is a basic requirement for surveying", says Martin Kirst of the central technical office of the DLR Rheinhessen-Nahe-Hunsrück in Mainz. "This affects the work in all weathers with reference to the case and the display. The display of the new colibri has virtually the optimum design for dealing with the compromise between the size of the device and the view on the display". And also the ergonomics plays a very important role with reference to dimensions, weight and handling (shoulder belts, operation). "The requirements for the power supply must not be set so high, but are a part of the overall ergonomics", says Kirst. "The replaceable battery system used in the colibri series is virtually perfect, because two batteries generally meet our requirements. "Fewer major requirements are placed on the performance by the DLR, because the 400 MHz computer has been more than sufficient for field service. The hard disk size is virtually negligible, but this is likely to change over the next few years with the introduction of ALKIS, because this will greatly increase the volume of data collected in the field.

The high technical standard set by the DLR for the field service has meant a very high acceptance of this new and innovative technology. Above all the acceptance has increased with every new model of the colibri series. The three ground control point instruments are ideally suited for the new colibri. Overall the sum of features included with the colibri means that the field computers have become an integral part of the system and are permanently in use.

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