The
UNSW
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...
School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering (SAGE), part of the
UNSW Faculty of Engineering, was founded in 1970 and disestablished in 2013.
The School has undergraduate and postgraduate programs in
Surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...
and in
GeoInformation Systems (GIS). The Bachelor of Engineering (Surveying) is recognised by the
Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) as a pathway to becoming a registered surveyor, and both undergraduate degrees are accredited by Engineers Australia.
The School has strong research activity in wireless, ground-based and satellite-based positioning technology, being Australia's largest academic research concentration in these areas. While the main research focus is
Global Navigation Satellite Systems
A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...
(GNSS) such as
GPS, the School also conducts research under the broad banner of ‘
Navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation ...
and
Earth Observation
Earth observation (EO) is the gathering of information about the physical, chemical, and biological systems of the planet Earth. It can be performed via remote-sensing technologies (Earth observation satellites) or through direct-contact sensors ...
’ including in
surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...
,
geodesy
Geodesy ( ) is the Earth science of accurately measuring and understanding Earth's figure (geometric shape and size), orientation in space, and gravity. The field also incorporates studies of how these properties change over time and equival ...
,
inertial navigation systems,
pseudolites, mobilephone positioning, integrated navigation and imaging systems, and
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Ear ...
.
The School has research and teaching links with institutions in North America, Europe and Asia, and School staff hold (or have held) leadership positions in international and national scientific and professional bodies such as the International Association of Geodesy, the International Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing, the International GNSS Service, Multi-GNSS Asia, Surveying & Spatial Science Institute, the NSW Institution of Surveyors, and others.
History
The first independent undergraduate degree in surveying was established in 1957 in the UNSW School of Civil Engineering. Significant growth in the field led in 1970 to the establishment of an independent School of Surveying under founding Professor Peter Angus-Leppan.
In 1975, the School was divided into three departments, Geodesy,
Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...
, and Surveying, to take account of emerging technologies deriving from developments in electronics and space science, including satellite technology for geopositioning and remote sensing. A major Image Analysis Laboratory was installed in 1977 and the Centre for Remote Sensing (later known as the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)) was established in 1982, jointly with the UNSW Schools of Geography and Electrical Engineering.
From 1983 to 1992, a number of the School's academics were engaged in the Thailand Land Titling Project. Funded by the Australian and Royal Thai Governments and the World Bank, this project worked to entirely remap Thailand and reform its land titling system in order to reduce poverty, overcome regional income disparities and promote economic growth. This project won The World Bank Group's Excellence Award in 1997.
In 1978, the launch of the first GPS satellite saw a revolution in the way position is measured. GPS research commenced at the School in 1984 and in the early 1990s, under Professor Chris Rizos, all GPS-related research was organised under the Satellite Navigation and Positioning (SNAP) group and was expanded to encompass other navigation technologies and applications.
In 1994 the School changed its name to the School of Geomatic Engineering to reflect its expansion of education and research beyond those of traditional surveying, to include remote sensing, geographic information analysis, image processing and satellite positioning. The name was never fully accepted within the NSW surveying profession, however, and there was a second name change in 2001 to Surveying and Spatial Information Systems.
In 2010, two separate undergraduate degrees were launched, a Bachelor of Engineering (GeoInformation Systems) and a Bachelor of Engineering (Surveying).
In 2012 the School was renamed the School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering.
Research
Since the 1960s, the School has focused on geodesy research. Other past research areas have included photogrammetry, remote sensing, network adjustments,
industrial metrology
Dimensional metrology is the science of using physical measurement equipment to quantify the physical size, form, characteristics, and relational distance from any given feature.
History of metrology
Standardized measurements are essential to t ...
and
cadastral systems.
From 1984, the School made important contributions to the development of high accuracy (centimetre-level) positioning algorithms suitable for surveying and geodesy applications. In the early 1990s, all GPS-related research was organised under the Satellite Navigation and Positioning (SNAP) group. From 2004, this also included other wireless and inertial positioning technologies, and space techniques such as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (
InSAR Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, abbreviated InSAR (or deprecated IfSAR), is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to generate maps of surface defo ...
). The School's research areas have extended to GNSS research, aspects of
signal processing
Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...
for the design of GNSS receivers, integrated navigation systems, new designs for terrestrial-based navigation systems and a variety of positioning/navigation applications.
The School has Australia's strongest academic research group working in the areas of positioning/navigation and satellite radar remote sensing, with research strengths in Navigation and Earth Observation. This combines all the technologies and applications dealing with GNSS, inertial and wireless positioning systems, with ‘metric’ (involving precise geometry-based measurements) remote sensing techniques such as InSAR, aerial and satellite digital imagery,
LiDAR
Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...
and terrestrial laser scanning, and modern geodesy.
Navigation research includes GPS/GNSS receiver design, data and signal processing algorithms, inertial navigation technologies and data fusion algorithms, other wireless positioning systems including those based on telecommunications (mobile telephony, WiFi, BlueTooth, RFID, vehicle-to-vehicle) as well as dedicated systems such as
Locata Corporation
Locata Corporation is a privately held technology company headquartered in Canberra, Australia, with a fully owned subsidiary in Las Vegas, Nevada. Locata has invented a local positioning system that can either replace or augment Global Positio ...
, and their optimal integration to support a range of applications from farm and mining machinery automation and robotics, to precise navigation, georeferencing mapping and imaging systems (terrestrial, airborne, or spaceborne), and personal navigation.
The School's Earth Observation research refers to a subset of remote sensing technologies traditionally linked to geodesy, photogrammetry and surveying. These include InSAR satellite radar remote sensing; digital photogrammetry using terrestrial, aerial or satellite cameras; airborne and terrestrial laser scanning; and geodesy.
This Navigation and Earth Observation research is organised across broad research themes
* CORS Network Operations & High-Accuracy GNSS Algorithms
* Radar Remote Sensing & Engineering Deformation Monitoring
* Multi-Sensor Integration Algorithms & Applications
* New Positioning Technologies & Applications
* GNSS Receiver Design & Signal Processing
Research activities and unique strengths include:
* GPS algorithms for precise positioning over long baselines, real-time carrier phase-based positioning, and network-based CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Station) designs (e.g. initiating the establishment of SydNet, from which today's
CORSnet-NSW has evolved).
* Development of the ‘
Namuru’, a fully functional GNSS receiver that is the basis of research into future GNSS both within Australia and overseas. In 2010 the Namuru was flown on a sounding rocket by the German Space Agency.
* Signal processing expertise for multipath analysis, RF interference detection and self-interference mitigation, signal strength measurement, and structural deformation monitoring.
* Largest number of student prize winners at the annual US Institute of Navigation's GNSS symposium – second only to the Dept of Geomatics, University of Calgary (Canada),
* Operating Australia's only permanent Galileo tracking receiver as part of a global network, as well as a GNSS station in the CORSnet-NSW.
* Assisting Australian company Locata with research on their groundbreaking alternative technologies to replicate GNSS performance indoors and in situations where GNSS signals fail.
* Expertise in SAR-
DEM generation, emergency flood mapping, and ground deformation monitoring using differential InSAR.
* Research into LiDAR wave form analysis, DEM generation, and biomass estimation.
* Addressing the requirements for indoor,
UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
and vehicle-to-vehicle positioning, by conducting research into the use of a variety of technologies, on their own or in multi-sensor integrated systems – including mobile phone signals,
WiFi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...
,
assisted-GNSS,
vision
Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to:
Perception Optical perception
* Visual perception, the sense of sight
* Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight
* Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...
and
inertial sensors
An inertial measurement unit (IMU) is an electronic device that measures and reports a body's specific force, angular rate, and sometimes the orientation of the body, using a combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and sometimes magnetometer ...
.
In July 2010, the Australian Government's Australian Space Research Program granted $4.6M for the SAR Formation Flying project – led by the School in a consortium of university and private sector partners and worth more than $9.6M with in-kind contributions. And in November 2010 UNSW opened the Australian Centre for Space Engineering, in which the School is a major contributor.
Rankings
* Australia's largest Engineering Faculty.
* Top performing Engineering discipline among Australian universities.
* Top score in Engineering, Computing, Science and Architecture. UNSW also achieved the top score for excellence in Business, Law and Economics and the top overall scores for both excellence and improvement.
* Most cited Australian university in Engineering and Computer Science, as well as Maths, and Psychology.
* UNSW received Australia's highest ranking in ‘Geomatic Engineering’ (the research code under which most of the School's research is published) in the 2010 ERA assessment.
[The Excellence in Research for Australia Initiative ]
References
{{University of New South Wales
Schools of the University of New South Wales
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...
Surveying organizations
Geodesy organizations