The past few months have been busy for our engineering survey teams with numerous MRWA bridge survey requests rolling in. The maintenance and upgrading of critical infrastructure such as bridges is a continuous process for MRWA and working in partnership with AECOM we have been able to provide construction grade survey solutions on schedule and on budget. As usual this round of surveys gave our teams a variety of challenges with the locations spanning from Albany in the south to Derby in the north and many in between. Our teams had to pack essential equipment for must-make flights at short notice, don the waders to capture some critical survey points and even implemented a remote control survey vessel for data capture.
One of the highlights was most definitely the opportunity to pack our bags and leave the cold, wet weather of the south west and base ourselves at Willare Bridge Roadhouse for a week situated approximately 60km south of Derby. The locals assisted our visit greatly and immediately instilled confidence in our team by bringing up the subject of crocodiles in the nearby Fitzroy River. Needless to say the team were much relieved to arrive on site to find a rather dry creek bed making the survey task a whole lot safer! With random cattle grazing outside your accommodation to the surprise of having helicopters bring a mob of cattle through your worksite on the first day this was certainly one for the Harley Dykstra history books.
After our visit to Willare it was a project closer to home that had us creating dynamic solutions in order to get the job done all while maintaining a safe working environment for our teams. The challenge on this occasion was to complement our topographic survey of a bridge in North Yunderup with additional waterway survey for design purposes. Unfortunately the limited flow of Wilgie Creek and past history of health concerns effectively ruled out all past methods of capturing this information.
After some research Harley Dykstra decided to implement a drone solution of the water based variety in order to achieve a high level of data acquisition previously unachievable in past capture methods and avoid team exposure to any possible health risks from the waterway. In consultation with Haefeli-Lysnar Geospatial Solutions we sourced a suitable solution in the form of the HyDrone-RCV which was chosen due to the vessels simple integration with our existing survey equipment and minimal staff training required.
Once launched the vessel achieved the full waterway survey within a 3 hour timeframe proving itself as a major game changer in the way we undertake this type of project. The survey resulted in approximately 9000 points being logged which far exceeded our expectations allowing us the freedom to filter the dataset for underwater anomalies while still providing a thorough snapshot of the project area.
Harley Dykstra prides itself on providing a high level of survey deliverable on all projects and we are constantly looking for new ways to improve on past performances as we engage with our next survey challenge. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge.
