Swept Path Analysis In The Renewable Energy Sector: Leveraging Mobile Mapping And 3D Laser Scanning With Castle Surveys Ltd

Manoeuvring vehicles and equipment through complex environments is a challenging yet necessary task that businesses in many industries face every day. Failing to understand these challenges and assess them before attempting to transport large vehicles and abnormal loads can have serious consequences. This is why an accurate swept path analysis is invaluable.

Swept path analysis plays a crucial role in ensuring the safe manoeuvring of vehicles and equipment. A swept path analysis calculates the swept path of vehicles, i.e. the space it requires when manoeuvring, to ensure that it can safely move through a specific route.

Industries such as logistics and renewable energy industries are particularly reliant on swept path analysis. This is due to the size and scale of the vehicles and equipment used in these sectors.

Within these industries, swept path analysis plays a crucial role in planning the safest and most efficient routes for the transportation of vehicles and equipment, ensuring compliance with regulations while also mitigating the risks involved in transporting and manoeuvring equipment to complex sites.

Challenges in Traditional Route Planning Methods

Achieving high levels of accuracy is essential when manoeuvring large vehicles and abnormal loads through complex environments. Traditional methods of route planning, such as the manual checking of 2D drawings, are often time-consuming, inefficient, and unable to provide the degree of accuracy required to streamline route planning. These inaccuracies can potentially lead to transportation delays, damage to equipment, damage to the surrounding infrastructure and environment, and potential safety risks.

At Castle Surveys Ltd, we utilise the latest mobile mapping and 3D laser scanning technology. This technology provides a far more accurate, efficient, and cost-effective method of data collection and route planning.

Role of 3D Laser Scanning and Leica TRK Technology

Utilising the latest 3D laser scanning and mobile mapping technology ensures that a swept path analysis can be carried out to the highest possible level of accuracy. The highly detailed data that is collected using these cutting-edge methods ensures that routes can be meticulously planned, taking into account the vehicle’s dimensions, its movement characteristics, the dimensions of the load, and the surrounding environment.

3D Laser Scanning

3D laser scanning performs a crucial role in generating accurate data for swept path analysis across a range of industries that face the challenges of transporting abnormal loads to complex environments. 3D laser scanning captures high-resolution data, which is then used to generate detailed 3D models of potential routes, obstacles that will be encountered along the route, and current infrastructure that will all need to be taken into account when planning the final route.

Leica TRK Mobile Mapping

Having a detailed understanding of the terrain and surrounding infrastructure is essential when conducting a swept path analysis. Traditionally, gathering this information would require weeks or even months of painstaking work in the field to gather the necessary data. Now, thanks to mobile mapping technology, this process can now be carried out in days while maintaining a high level of accuracy.
Leica TRK mobile mapping technology combines LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors and GPS (global positioning systems) receivers for rapid and precise georeferenced spatial data collection.
This fast and accurate data collection enables the generation of accurate simulations and route optimisation.

Data Collection Workflow

By combining these technologies, we are able to provide clients with 3D models representing their transport route. This enables stakeholders to clearly assess the challenges they may face based on accurate data collection that details the environment the vehicle must navigate and the safest and most efficient route for the vehicle to take based on real-time data.

Here is how the swept path analysis process works:

Firstly, the vehicle’s swept path (the space the vehicle requires to turn and manoeuvre) is measured and calculated.
Next, surveys of the proposed route of the vehicle are carried out. At Castle Surveys Ltd, we use the latest 3D laser scanning technology and mobile mapping to collect highly accurate point cloud data along the route.
This data can then be used to generate a 3D visualisation of the journey in the vehicle that will be used. This visualisation simulates the journey to identify potential hazards, such as reduced height clearance, and narrow roads along the route.
The data collected by the 3D visualisation can then be utilised for optimum route planning.

These are just some of the reasons that advanced technology is such a valuable tool when conducting a swept path analysis:

Enhances speed and efficiency: Laser scanning and mobile mapping allow for rapid data collection and processing. High density point cloud data can be collected quickly and efficiently by the 3D laser scanner, which can measure billions of points with just a day’s worth of use.

Improves privacy and compliance: Ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations and being mindful of privacy is a must when collecting data. Using mobile mapping technology helps to protect the privacy of members of the public when gathering data. As the data can be captured at a distance, it is less intrusive than traditional methods. This technology also enables passersby and vehicles to be blurred to ensure increased privacy.

Increases accuracy: Utilising a 3D laser scanner enables fast and efficient data collection without compromising on accuracy. As 3D laser scanners can measure millions of points per second, equating to billions of points each day, highly detailed, accurate drawings can be produced using the high volumes of data collected.

Reduces health and safety risks: Manually planning routes using traditional methods can be a high-risk process. Collecting data and measurements from busy highways and the surrounding infrastructure can sometimes require the surveyor to put themselves in danger. For example, if they need to work at height or alongside heavy traffic. Using 3D laser scanning mitigates this risk and eliminates the health and safety concerns associated with collecting data in dangerous environments. Instead, the 3D laser scanner can collect accurate data from ground level, meaning less risk and no need for the specialist equipment often required for working at height.

Applications Across Industries

Swept path analysis is a trusted method that is widely used to calculate the spatial and movement requirements of vehicles and equipment across a wide range of industries. When used in combination with mobile mapping and 3D laser scanning technologies, it offers a comprehensive method of precision data collection and route planning.

Renewable Energy

Transporting abnormal loads to remote sites can prove to be a major logistical issue for renewable energy companies, but one that they need to face on a regular basis. Wind turbine components are often exceptionally large, with the turbine blades especially causing transportation issues due to their significant size. The transportation of solar panels raises additional logistical problems, due to the delicate nature of the panels. Moving these items of renewable energy equipment to their destination requires great care to ensure that they arrive in perfect condition, ready for assembly and installation. As wind turbines are usually installed in remote locations, this can represent additional challenges when it comes to transporting them. A swept path analysis is crucial for the transport of renewable energy equipment. Transporting large components for renewable energy equipment often involves manoeuvring trucks through country roads and uneven rural terrains. Using mobile mapping and 3D laser scanning is essential to gather the necessary data needed to plan the best route, avoiding potential issues such as narrow roads that are inaccessible for an HGV and overhanging tree branches.

Construction

Streamlining the logistics involved in construction projects is absolutely essential to ensure that projects are completed on time. When building supplies and machinery fail to arrive on site on time, this can lead to costly delays and missed deadlines. However, transporting items to a construction site is often challenging. Transporting heavy machinery is especially complex when you are navigating potentially unfinished roads and uneven terrains. Using a swept path analysis to understand the specific swept paths of the vehicles that will be transporting the machinery is vital. However, it is also crucial to assess the challenges that it may encounter along the way. Using 3D laser scanning and mobile mapping will enable the best route to be planned for the vehicle. This will ensure the safest route, which avoids potential hazards, provides ample clearance from existing objects, and allows the machinery to arrive safely on site ready to be used.

Urban Planning

In today’s increasingly congested towns and cities, effective urban planning is more crucial than ever before. Designing efficient road networks is a must to accommodate the demands of modern traffic. Using swept path analysis along with mobile mapping and 3D laser scanning technology, planners can ensure that new road networks are designed to ensure that highways can accommodate vehicles in a range of sizes conveniently, plot the configuration of roads to meet traffic designs, while preventing vehicles from encroaching on pedestrian areas, and protecting existing infrastructure.

Logistics

The logistics industry is dependent on the fast, efficient and safe transportation of goods to meet the demands of clients. When this involves the movement of oversized loads, ensuring safe delivery while meeting deadlines can be particularly challenging. Navigating oversized loads to their destination through busy streets, challenging terrain, overhanging trees, and other obstacles presents many risks. To ensure the safety of the driver, fellow road users, pedestrians, and the surrounding infrastructure, conducting a swept path analysis is absolutely essential. Accuracy of the swept path analysis is vital when you’re navigating these challenging conditions with an oversized load. With help from the latest swept path analysis technology, it’s possible for complete, precise data to be collected from the route using mobile mapping and 3D laser scanning. This data can then be used to simulate the vehicle’s exact movements while carrying the oversized load to determine any potential pain points it may encounter along the route. Based on this visualisation, potential delays and incidents can be avoided and the safest, fastest route can be planned.

Airports and Ports

Airports and ports are extremely busy spaces, with vehicles continually manoeuvring through the restricted space available. To avoid collisions between vehicles, pedestrians, and surrounding infrastructure, the movements of vehicles needs to be carefully orchestrated. Carrying out a swept path analysis for each type of vehicle used at the airport or port ensures that despite the restricted space, vehicles are enabled to navigate a safe path through the available space. A swept path analysis that uses technology to plan the most efficient route for each vehicle, so that it can manoeuvre while ensuring that health and safety is not compromised is vital when operating so many different types of vehicles within a small area.

Contact Castle Surveys Ltd

If you’re looking for precise and efficient swept path analysis solutions for your organisation, Castle Surveys Ltd is here to help. Our highly experienced team is forward-thinking and committed to sustainability. Using our specialist knowledge, we will provide swept path analysis solutions that are tailored to the exact needs of your industry.

Combining our expertise with advanced technology enables us to deliver highly specialised and reliable survey data, even for the most complex projects.

Contact us today to find out more about our swept path analysis solutions and discover how we can help you.

This post was written by Paul Jackson