Exercise 12 - Navigation with GPS

Introduction

For this exercise we were creating new points for the next semester's class to navigate to like we did this semester in exercise 11. Our study area was the same as the previous assignment, The Priory, which is a property owned by the university on the south side of town. We were to map out our points and then go to those points using GPS and find a tree nearby to mark as the point.

Methods

Here is a map of all five of our points. We named them 5-1, 5-2, etc. because we were group five and each group was to create points. This made it so it wasn't confusing for the students next semester. My group was given the southeastern portion of The Priory as shown by the smaller box inside the larger study area. My group created a map document with the satellite imagery of The Priory with a blank point feature class that we will input the points into once we have collected their locations. To collect these points in the field we will use the Trimble Juno GPS unit shown below (fig. 1).

Trimble Juno unit used in this exercise. (fig. 1)

We first marked five points on our physical map and then used the GPS to walk from point to point in our section of The Priory. When we got to the locations we marked in the beginning and looked for the largest tree in the area and placed a pink ribbon around the tree with the point number written on it with a sharpie. We used the Trimble Juno to collect the coordinates of each point and named them according to the format above. The map below (fig. 2) shows all five points we collected with labels once we imported the ArcPad data back into ArcMap.

Our five points shown in the southeastern portion of The Priory. (fig. 2)

Here are pictures of each of our points with the pink ribbons placed on them (fig. 3-7).

Point 5-1. (fig. 3)

Point 5-2. (fig. 4)

Point 5-3. (fig. 5)

Point 5-4. (fig. 6)

Point 5-5. (fig. 7)

Discussion

We had no problems in the ArcPad application; export and importing went off without any problems. The GPS did however, need a little extra time to connect due to the fact that we were collecting points in areas with dense tree cover. The actual collecting of the points went very fast and gave us very accurate data. Exporting the points to ArcMap gave us the points immediately without any problems and we were able to see their accuracy was very good based on the base map behind the feature class. 

Conclusion

This exercise gave us a great final review of the use of a Trimble Juno mobile GPS and the ArcPad program. The next semester's class should have a very challenging exercise with some of these points being pretty difficult to navigate to especially from point to point. This is technique was far easier than the traditional map and compass method that we used in the last exercise for obvious reasons. The Juno gave us a digital representation of our surroundings and where we were making it very easy to navigate around The Priory and from point to point.