landplan.io - GPS Workflows

This article will cover GPS Options if you do not already use GPS sensor technology:

1. Continue to not integrate GPS (obviously an option!)

2. Pay for or use a free CORS (Continually Operating Reference Station) network. If you have to pay, they should give you 90 day access free to try it out

From here the solutions get a little more technical

3. Purchase a second GPS sensor to act as a base station. This will require that you place the second GPS receiver over top of a known coordinate and enter in the coordinate into the base station.

You can collect a known coordinate in a few ways:

You can collect a known coordinate in a few ways:

1. From a surveyor's data collection on the site (sometimes getting this data is easy on new sites, but probably not available for old sites)
2. From the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) data sheets (would require a data point to be within an acceptable range (~10 km --- but you would have to secure this or leave it to chance that someone didn't steal your expensive GPS sensor) https://geodesy.noaa.gov/NGSDataExplorer/
3. Going out to the site and collecting data over top of your base station location, and using free post processing NOAA OPUS online software to get the coordinate of this location to within 3 cm accuracy https://docs.emlid.com/reachrs2/tutorials/post-processing-workflow/opus-workflow/https://geodesy.noaa.gov/OPUS/

By having 2 GPS sensors working onsite, you can achieve centimeter level accuracy for horizontal measurements. Vertical measurements should be fairly same accuracy too. This accuracy would require the base station to be placed over a known coordinate and requires extra work to get this.

4. Use only one GPS sensor, and run all your collected point data through a Precise Point Positioning (PPP) software.
   Basically, you upload a file of your points to the software, and it corrects the GPS coordinates for accuracy. There are a number of free and pay software on the market: https://gisresources.com/free-gps-online-post-processing-services/

5. Purchase a single GPS Sensor that achieves the accuracy you need. If you don't need accurate measurements, there are many sensors that claim sub-meter accuracy. You can see a good example of a sub-meter unit collecting data showing real-time comparing the post processed data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs49W5CQyHg

Sorry if this is all a lot of info...it's not exactly easy or else everyone would be doing it. There are pros and cons to each of these methods.

If I was in your position, I'd weigh the costs of employees time and resources to figure out and implement one of the above methods versus the cost of the Washington State Reference network with what the goal is for GPS.

Some goals for using GPS would be:

1. collecting onsite points for importing into landplan.io mapping Go to the Docs
2. drawing components in landplan.io mapping and exporting the coordinates for field staking Go to the Docs
3. taking measurements onsite between components and site features (buildings etc.)

You can achieve goal 1 with one receiver and a post processing (PPP) software (solution #4 or 5). Goals 2-3 would require a second base station/known coordinate or connection to a CORS network (solutions #2 or 3).

I hope this helps you understand the solutions on the market.