Can GPS-Guided Earthworks Construction Reduce or Eliminate Golf Course Shaper Costs - Dissertation Example

Can GPS (Global Positioning Systems) guided earthworks construction reduce or eliminate golf shaper costs? Golf Shapers Construction companies that offer golf shaping exist like Greens and Tees Construction Limited. The company had been offering shaping services for several years already, which makes it a skilled and highly respected company. It serves high-standard services to its customers. All throughout Europe, it has been able to finish shaping golf courses successfully. The company uses machineries that aid in the endeavor of shaping golf courses. Also, it employs architects for efficient construction, which fuels the industry. Certain equipments are also required in shaping golf courses like leveling equipments and tractors of wide varieties. It can be seen that golf shaping involves a selection of activities that need to be done dutifully for the golf course to be shaped perfectly. Such activities require manpower and fueling funds, not to mention time resources. Each step in shaping a golf course will need a certain period of time, which makes the completion of the golf course harder. Before the golf course construction can be done, much planning is needed to ensure that all constraints are covered properly and that all constraints can we worked upon. The plan includes the structure of the golf course, the layout, and the facilities involved in it. The actual shaping of golf courses are done after the plan has been approved. Then, the real work begins. Shaping a golf course needs a couple of days to finish. The golf course, which is mostly covered by plants and trees, would be cultivated and landscaped to the desired shape. Hence, much manpower is needed in this step. A contemporary alternative to golf course shaping can be used. This is the use of Global Positioning Systems, also known as GPS. Global Positioning System Global Positioning System (GPS), a satellite navigation system funded by the US Department of Defense (DoD), is being used for various fields today. It has been designed for the use of the US military to track coded signals that contain the location, velocity and time detected. The GPS system consists of 24 satellites in a 12-hour orbit around the earth. Obsolete nodes are replaced by new one to ensure concise and accurate readings. Each orbit repeats the same track. According to Dana (2000): The satellite orbits repeat almost the same ground track (as the earth turns beneath them) once each day. The orbit altitude is such that the satellites repeat the same track and configuration over any point approximately each 24 hours (4 minutes earlier each day). There are six orbital planes (with nominally four SVs in each), equally spaced (60 degrees apart), and inclined at about fifty-five degrees with respect to the equatorial plane. This constellation provides the user with between five and eight SVs visible from any point on the earth. The assigned received to a GPs node replicates the noise-like code sequence of C/A and/or P(Y)-Code. The receiver then produces the code directed at a SV C/A code generator to be stored in memory chips, hardware and registers. The GPs tracking system measures the location and velocity at a given time of a vessel or container it is attached to. GPS can be attached to cargos, people, machineries, and others. Likewise, GPS monitors can also be adapted to cars and houses. Similarly, GPS can be used to track the course that an infrastructure in development undergoes by comparing the radio signals the system receives. In consideration, we take for example earthwork constructions. Massive constructions can be aided by the use of GPS tracking for efficient monitoring and fielding. For instance, a golf course construction can be shaped using GPS signals determined by the server. For more efficient shaping, the GPS tracks the offset and the accuracy of the position. GPS can be used for massive projects, one of which is golf course development systems. A golf course encompasses much greeneries and plain lands that scaling it will be obscured by the presence of trees and ponds. The extremities of the course can be advised through the server. Construction can be done without the aid of systems like the GPS. In fact, before GPs had been developed, infrastructures had been manually overseen. The results had been near, if not exactly what was on the plan. This being said, the use of GPS can only be seen as a supplemental tool for the development of earthworks. Golf courses had existed without the use of GPS before. For its framework, shapers were used. The aim of creating a business infrastructure is to finish construction with an efficient construction; the lesser the cost, the better. Herein is the issue of using GPS instead of golf course shapers. Price issues need to be compared before planning on whether to use shapers or GPS. There had been many arguments regarding the use of GPS. First, GPS travels in the form of signals, which means that it can be intercepted easily. Signals can be intercepted and altered by non-receiver systems. Alteration of the signal could lead to faulty reading by the receiving system, and would lead to inconsistency with the data needed. Such has been the case when GPS signals used in the military defense reported faulty locations. In relation to the first problem, the second is that more defensive and highly encrypted GPS systems are only allowed for military and government use. The GPS tracking system available to the public are easily decrypted, thus revealing the message. Encryption is the key protection that GPS uses. The signals are encrypted using various coding methods before transmission and is encrypted via decryption tools once it reached the receiving node. Interception can happen while the signal is transferred from the sender to the receiver, and none of the two nodes will have the slightest idea that the readings are faulty. GPS automatically uses UTC time update to synchronize its time reading, as discrepancies with time intervals, even to its littlest differentials, would cause faulty readings. GPS satellites are monitored constantly within 789-second duration. Calculations of the location are computed using at least three satellite points. “Common-view is the use of specially arranged, simultaneous view measurements, that maximize satellite elevation angles between pairs of stations (USNO GPS Time Transfer, n.d).” almost 50 laboratories participate in synchronizing the time transfer. It is notable that strict compliance to the time measure is rigorously observed. Particularly, USNO GPS Time Transfer (n.d) mentioned that: Since the common-view requires a strict adherence, we use a smoothing method of all satellite observations for the operational transfer of time to our PTRS. A filtered linear solution, based on all 13-minute satellite observations, allows an estimate of the available precision and is much less sensitive to the slow bias changes in the observation of individual satellites. This procedure has become known as the "melting-pot". The melting-pot method is probably slightly less accurate than the common-view, but is more robust and allows a definitive measure of uncertainty derived from all observations. Since the implementation of SA and a full constellation, approximately 90 satellite observations over a two day period, averaging over all satellite observations for the two day period with a stable clock still allows a very good precision of the filtered mean with great reliability. Through the use of the GPS, the time that it takes for an entire golf course to be finished can be decreased significantly. This is due to the fact that using GPS needs lesser time to complete the shape of the golf course than using actual golf shapers. In the business industry, where companies are expected to work in par with the changing needs of the customers at a real time pace, the innovative use of GPS can be seen as a step towards greater works in less time. Reference: Dana, P.H. (2001). Global Positioning System Overview. University of Texas, Austin. The Geographers Craft Project, Department of Geography, The University of Colorado at Boulder. Greens and Tees Construction Ltd. (n.d). http://www.greensandtees.co.uk/ USNO GPS Time Transfer. (n.d). The US Naval Observatory. Global Positioning System, Serving the World. (n.d). National Space-Based Positioning, Nativation, and Timing Coordination Office. US Coast Guard Navigation Center. General Information on GPS. (n.d). Navigation Center. US Department of Homeland Security. What is GPS. (n.d). Garmin Ltd. Read More