Real-time GPS Station Goes Live.

Lagos

Lagos Gtate Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN, has declared that the state Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) which has been successfully completed will soon come up live.
GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system, which allows users to determine their location anywhere in the world at any time of the day.
On the other hand, the CORS operates continuously from a permanent and stable location to track down dozens of GPS and Global Navigation Satellites (GNSS), receives and stores the data, removes any errors and transmits the enhanced satellite data to users in real time.
Fashola who was at a stakeholders meeting Thursday, at Alausa to ascertain the progress of the project, expressed satisfaction and confirmed the successful completion of the project.
The Managing Director of GeoQinetiq limited, the firm that handled the project, Mrs Juliet Ezechie, in an interview shortly after the meeting, said the CORS data will soon be made available to MDAs, contractors, construction companies, engineers and surveyors to enable them fix and validating exact position information in the field through out the state to an accuracy of under 1cm.
Ezechie had explained that when formally commissioned the state will blaze the trail in establishing world class, ultra modern technologies to provide a solid basis for the transformation of the state and provide the technological foundation for successful implementation of the Lagos Mega City.
The initiative, according to her, will help build a new Lagos and get the traffic moving again by tracking road congestion, road safety and improving public transportation.
She had earlier explained that the entire project started when the state governor in 2007, set up a five man advisory committee of experts headed by the former Surveyor-General of the state, who is now the Special Adviser to the Governor, Mr M.A.O Durowoju, to deliver a fully digital mapping and enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) for the state.
The report of the advisory committee, according to Ezechie was presented to the state executive council meeting by September of same year and a technical committee under the chairmanship of Dr Femi Hamzat, the state Commissioner for Science and Technology was constituted to examine and recommend the best sustainable mapping and GIS solution for the state.

GeoQinetiq limited, a leading geophysical geospatial and logistic solution provider in the country was contracted to design, install, commissioned and train GIS and geomatics professionals from the office of the state Surveyor-General in the operation of the state's first public Continuously operating Station with a view to later creating a network of such CORS stations across the State.
The newly completed CORS system is based on Leica Geosystems (Switzerland) ultra-modern 'future proof' GRX1200GG GNSS reference station receivers along with Leica spider GPS network control software which will be incorporated into an integrated network of CORS stations deployed at strategic location across the state providing very high accuracy real time and post processed data for wide range surveying and construction applications.
The CORS network accordingly has the peculiar advantage of eliminating the need for surveyors to establish local controls or set up temporary
field reference stations at specific job sites which is both time consuming, expensive, leads to surveying errors and exposes them surveyors' equipment to risks of theft and accidental damage.