Hexagon technology wins Australian Engineering Excellence Award

(Heerbrugg, Switzerland – 11 October 2018) – Hexagon’s Geosystems Division, the smart digital realities provider, announced today the Leica GS18 T GNSS RTK rover won an Australian Engineering Excellence Award during the Australian Engineering Conference 19 September in Sydney.

Under the category of Products and Manufacturing, the GS18 T took top honours for innovative fusion of GNSS and inertial micros unit (IMU) sensors. The event is hosted annually by the professional association Engineers Australia (EA), the largest and most diverse organisation serving around 100,000 engineers in the country.

The EA’s Australian Engineering Excellence Awards judging panel issued the following statement for selecting the GS18 T: “Leica Geosystems developed unique and innovative software, prototypes, electronic designs for this speedy and accurate field data acquisition system - leading to significant economic benefits worldwide for the design and construction industry.”

Developed from global R&D for worldwide value

Immune to magnetic disturbances and calibration-free, the GS18 T is the first true tilt compensation solution. Developed by a renowned global R&D team, the GNSS RTK rover has been implemented around the world to realise 20 per cent time savings in the field over conventional surveying practices. Inspired by the aerospace industry, the team performed sophisticated sensor fusion to ensure users no longer needed to hold the pole vertical to level the bubble.

“To be recognised for the entire team’s hard work and dedication in creating the innovative GS18 T with the Australian Engineering Excellence Award is a great honour,” said Bernhard Richter, Geosystems GNSS business director. “We created the GS18 T to solve the issues of pole levelling and time-consuming point capture we witnessed our customers around the globe experiencing in the field. With true tilt compensation, we strive to give our customers back at least one hour per every working day with this innovation.“

In Australia, the GS18 T has proved valuable for large topographic surveys where mass amounts of points and data are needed. According to Dylan Gathercole of Veris, a market-leading Australian survey firm, the speed of the GS18 T has enabled the firm to better support its customers.

“The ability to turn the tilt function on and get rid of the time it takes to level up the pole means we can be getting more points and get it done quicker,” said Gathercole. “We can then pass those savings on to our client. We’re also able to measure points directly that we were never able to before with traditional methods.”