Preserving our cultural heritage: Aiding legislative requirements for accuracy

The Challenge

Australian Cultural Heritage Management (ACHM) assist their clients in understanding the stakeholder engagement and regulatory processes necessary to successfully manage complex cultural heritage issues. Cultural heritage management is considered essential for connecting humankind with their history in ever-changing landscapes. ACHM delivers professional services throughout Australia, using handheld and wearable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) kits to identify, record and protect cultural heritage sites. To achieve this, sites are identified and recorded. However, some sites are found in remote locations with difficult terrain and limited access to mobile phone coverage.

In Australia, cultural and natural heritage is protected by state and federal laws and international conventions. Heritage survey data must be collected with sub-metre accuracy, as required by some legislation, matching the detail in development plans for industry, urban areas, and mining. Until recently, the GNSS kits available to ACHM were limited in accuracy, and unable to achieve the sub-metre precision necessary for high-quality mapping without sacrificing portability or being reliant on post-processing data.

To address these challenges, ACHM investigated ways to reliably achieve precise real-time positioning for their operations in challenging terrain and remote locations. Launched in late 2022, the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), has transformed their operational capability by enabling ACHM to work in real-time with sub-metre accuracy through open access to GNSS augmentation anywhere in Australia.

The Solution

The Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) is a joint initiative of the Australian and New Zealand Governments that provides Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) services for Australia and New Zealand. Geoscience Australia is working in partnership with Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand on the development, deployment, and operation of SouthPAN, the first SBAS in the Southern Hemisphere. SouthPAN offers positioning accuracy with an uncertainty down to as little as 10 centimetres: a significant improvement on the accuracy of 5-10 metres from standard GNSS. SouthPAN broadcasts augmented and corrected navigation signals directly from satellite.

These maps and data sets are used for a range of complex heritage assessments which improve our understanding of ancient land use and settlement patterns across Australia, in turn shaping industry management plans and informing future requirements for preservation.

ACHM regularly deploys a large number of teams to sites across Australia. Each team travels to remote areas from the Grampians to the Pilbara to locate and map heritage survey data. These field teams use SouthPAN on an easy-to-use, standardised Eos Arrow 100 GNSS Receiver, achieving reliable sub-metre positioning anywhere in Australia. The Arrow Series receivers support SouthPAN out-of-the-box allowing users to enable the SouthPAN L1 SBAS satellite signal using in-built configuration tools.