In the utility industry, accurately locating and mapping underground utilities is crucial to prevent costly damages and ensure safety. With critical infrastructure like water, electric, gas, and oil pipelines hidden underground, any accidental damage can lead to catastrophic outcomes. The need for precision locating tools that can efficiently detect and map underground assets with survey-grade accuracy is paramount.
Serving the global market from its base in the UK, Radiodetection manufactures best-in-class solutions for managing critical buried infrastructure. In this case study, a Radiodetection business development manager, Brent Briley, describes how Polaris was a powerful ally in the US launch of Radiodetection’s new survey-grade precision utility locator – the RD8200SG.
About Radiodetection
Founded in 1977, Radiodetection is world-renowned for helping utility professionals avoid damage to critical utilities through innovative locating solutions, including Precision Locators, Cable Avoidance Tools, Ground Penetrating Radar, and Magnetic Locators. Their suite of solutions represents an end-to-end integration of hardware and software tools meticulously crafted to minimize damages.
Telecom, electricity, water, gas, oil – these buried utilities are largely unnoticed by most people, yet their significance cannot be underestimated. That is why various organizations, including utilities and services dedicated to safeguarding underground infrastructure, rely on Radiodetection products.
Radiodetection recently launched the RD8200SG Survey Grade Precision Locator, an electromagnetic underground utility locator that allows users to locate while they map, and map while they locate.
The RD8200SG offers a critical solution, particularly in industries like oil and gas, where the consequences of hitting a pipe during excavation can be severe. With this latest launch, Radiodetection is fulfilling the need for careful monitoring of these underground assets with precision locating and survey-grade accuracy.
Challenge: Finding a reliable Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) network
The RD8200SG Precision Locator uses Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) networks to pinpoint the location of hidden structures.
An RTK base station transmits satellite data corrected for atmospheric interference or satellite orbiting issues. With the corrected data, and depending on conditions, such as a view of the sky, the RD8200SG can identify underground assets with an accuracy of within an inch.
To launch and demonstrate the RD8200SG across the United States, the Radiodetection sales team needed a reliable, nationwide RTK network that was easy to use, particularly when crossing state borders. While public RTK networks exist, they are generally unreliable and limited to select states. Setting up mobile RTK base stations would also be expensive and impractical.
“The US sales team was going to be covering a lot of ground and crossing state lines,” said Briley, a member of Radiodetection’s sales team. “Some states have free RTK stations, others don’t. We just couldn’t take any chances. We were moving fast and needed a network we could trust.”
Solution: Point One Polaris
After doing some research, Radiodetection signed up for a free Polaris trial and was quickly convinced. Point One operates 800 RTK stations across the contiguous United States. In fact, Polaris has the highest level of overall density of U.S.-based RTK corrections networks. The network has an uptime of 99.99 percent and can be set up on a device within five minutes.
Radiodetection worked with the Point One team to train the US sales force on the Polaris network and support field demonstrations of the new RD8200SG.
For the Radiodetection sales team in the US, Polaris took the stress out of dealing with a hodgepodge of RTK stations or going to the expense of setting up temporary stations, making connection a breeze. They recognized the fit of Polaris for their requirements, and now consistently ask their US distributors to highlight its user-friendly interface to customers, particularly those new to the world of mapping.
