Monitoring of Slope Stability by Using Global Positioning System (GPS)
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Monitoring of Slope Stability by Using Global Positioning System (GPS) Eric Ma1, Yongqi Chen2, Xiaoli Ding3 Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected] Phone: 27665967 Fax:23302994 Biography : 1. Mr. Ma received a Bachelor degree in Surveying and Geo-informatics from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1997. His research focuses are on GPS theory and application and he is currently studying a part-time MPhil degree specialized in GPS. He now works in the Lands Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as an Assistant Land Surveyor and will be elected as a corporate member of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors in June 2001. 2. Chen Yong-qi, chair professor and head of Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics at the HK polytechnic university. He received his degree education from the Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, China and his PhD from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He was chairman of commission 6, FIG. He published over 200 technical papers and 6 books. 3. Dr. Xiaoli Ding received education in China and Australia. He has lectured in China, Australia and Hong Kong and is currently an Associate Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Abstract : Recently, the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) in slope deformation monitoring has received great attention in various countries. However, in Hong Kong, this application is still in a planning stage. The reasons may be the high expenses of purchasing numerous receivers for various monitored points and the reduction of GPS accuracy due to biases such as multipath effect. This study developed a GPS multi-antenna system for landslide detection in Hong Kong. In this system, a special electronic device called GPS Multi-Antenna Selector (GMAS) was employed to connect various antennas to one receiver and GPS data was taken sequentially from each of these antennas to the receiver. By adopting this design, the expenses spent on purchasing receivers were dramatically reduced. Furthermore, the adaptability of using long cables (longer than 60m) for data communication was evaluated. The development and implementation of the system were discussed in detail. Additionally, we estimated the multipath effect on slope environment by making use of its day-to-day repeatability characteristic. This system can be applied widely in Hong Kong and many parts of the World to identify potential slope failures and also can be used to study the stability of many other objects such as dams, high-rise buildings and structures. 1. Introduction monitoring and its ability to measure ground Since Hong Kong is a small and hilly city with a displacements over an extensive area. dense population, many people live in the areas which have high risk of landslides. Today, many Many scientists from different fields have spent of the over 50,000 existing slopes in Hong Kong much of their time in developing GPS slope are unstable. More than 20,000 of them were monitoring system. For example, Kondo (1995) built decades ago and might collapse under developed a system to continuously determine certain conditions. In order to avoid disasters, it positions in real-time of up to ten locations using is necessary to accurately monitor the movement GPS. Result shown that the order of 2 cm of of slopes. displacements could be detected by statistical tests. Shimizu et al. (1996) also designed a In Hong Kong, two types of techniques have system to measure displacements of many points been used to monitor the deformation of slopes. simultaneously in real-time. They tested the They are the conventional survey techniques and system in a limestone open quarry in Yamaguchi, the geotechnical techniques. The main Japan and the result revealed that the system drawbacks of conventional survey techniques are could measure displacements almost as the low efficiency, sensitivity to atmospheric accurately as total station surveying. conditions and their requiring direct line-of-sight Furthermore, Shimizu (1994) proposed a method between instrument stations and the measured for improving the accuracy of GPS displacement points. In addition, geotechnical techniques can measurements by using adaptive filtering. Other only measure relative deformations within a applications to slope monitoring were also limited area. As a result, an automatic system is conducted by Ananga (1996, 1997) and Sakurai needed to continuous monitor the progressive and Hamada (1996). deformation of slopes with time. However, existing researches have used the GPS (Global positioning System) is a potential standard methods of attaching one GPS antenna tool used to measure ground displacements over to a GPS receiver. To monitor a slope, a large an extensive area in various engineering projects number of points usually need to be monitored. involving high cut slopes, large open pit mines, As a result, numerous receivers must be required subsidence and landslide. Several researchers to monitor a group of points. This approach is so have already studied the applications of GPS in expensive that it can only been used on a very ground displacements (Chrzanowski, 1988; limited scale. In addition, there have been few Murria and Saab, 1988; Strange, 1989; Blodgett, studies in consideration of the special conditions 1990; Ding, 1996;Stewart et al., 1996b and of slopes. GPS satellite signals are often Tsakiri, 1996). Several factors make GPS an obstructed by tall vegetation and high-rise attractive tool for ground displacements: less buildings nearby. The slope surface can also labour intensive, the decrease in the price of cause GPS signal multipath errors. More GPS hardware, it measure three dimensional importantly, there is little information available vector of displacements of the ground, real time on the application of GPS in slope monitoring in Hong Kong. Therefore, this paper sets out to develop a new GPS slope monitoring system, which employs a single GPS receiver and multiple antennas for monitoring slope deformations in Hong Kong. This research project includes tests of different hardware configuration and software development. The project also aims to study the methods to reduce GPS signal multipath effect. Experimental results from some preliminary tests of the system will also be given. The accuracy, advantages and limitations of GPS in deformation monitoring of slope will also be evaluated. Figure 1 The basic element of the GPS 2. System Overview The GPS Multi-Antenna System is developed to reduce the expenses of hardware in slope monitoring survey (see figure 1). Some early work on the system can be found from Chen et al. (2000) and Ding et al. (2000). A GPS Multi-Antenna Selector (GMAS) is used to connect a number of antennas to one receiver so the expenses spend on purchasing receivers are dramatically reduced (see figure 2). The GMAS does not change the structure of the GPS signal Figure 2 GMAS - Antenna Connector and it scans the antennas sequentially so that each antenna is connecting to the receiver for a fixed time interval. User can set the interval in advance according to their applications. The GPS multi-antenna system has the following elements (Fig. 3): GPS antenna Signal amplifier GPS antenna Long cable Long cable GPS Multi- … Antenna Selector Radio transmitters or Mobile phones Rover GPS receiver Base GPS receiver Fig. 3 2.1 GPS Multi-Antenna Selector (GMAS) Pair cable is often considered a low-frequency It is a special electronic device containing two transmission medium Its main benefits are hardware. One is the antenna connector and the relatively inexpensive and easy to install. other is the timing controller. The antenna Coaxial Cable consists of a single wire in the connector contains multi-input and one-output center surrounded by a core of insulating terminals. Different antennas are connected to material, with an outer conductive wrapping these multi-input terminals and a receiver is which is usually a copper cylinder. This copper connected to the one-output terminal. GPS cylinder is capable of absorbing any noise or signals received from different antennas, which interference from the surroundings and then passing through these multi-input terminals, are sending them to the ground. This type of cable measured in the same receiver. On the other transmits high frequencies like several hundred hand, the timing controller is used to control Mbps. Compared with the above two types of measuring period of each antenna. With the help cable, Fiber Optical cable offers the widest of the GMAS, only one receiver is used to bandwidth, the lowest attenuation and is also the monitor a number of points. most expensive one. It is especially suitable for long distance data transmission up to 10 km. 2.1.2 GPS antenna and receiver To achieve high accuracy result, using dual In this project, Coaxial cable is selected. It is frequency receivers are recommended in slope because for twisted cable it is relatively too deformation monitoring. In view of which model sensitive to noise and providing the lowest of receiver should be chosen, this depends on the bandwidth. In addition, for transmitting GPS purposes of the survey and location of the site. signal through Fiber Optical cable, it is necessary to convert the GPS signal, which is an 2.1.3 Data transmission analog signal to optical signal using a GPS fiber Data communication is a vital part in this optic network. However, the cost of such a research. We need to deal with two critical issues. network is about ten times higher than the cost The first one is how the data is transferred from of using a coaxial cable linked with a signal the antennas to the rover receiver. The second amplifier. This is not practical for most small one is how the data is transferred from the rover scale slope monitoring surveys.