Mobile Mapping Technology Helps Flight Field Safety at Spanish Airports

Since 2017, Proyform Global has worked at Spanish airports, offering topographic surveys with the Trimble SX10 and mobile mapping with the Trimble MX50, to assess the correct state of the flight fields.

Juan Pablo Jiménez, founder of the Madrid-native Proyform Global company, shared his experience with Trimble solutions: “Since 2017, Proyform Global offers its services to practically every airport in Spain, using the Trimble MX50 and Trimble SX10 solutions to perform work that goes from starting survey work to ensuring the work done matches the documentation, as well as mega towers (light towers), three-dimensional models, final construction site documentation and full site reassessments; all the way to topographic surveys and pavement geometric inspection.”

Thanks to these survey tasks generated by Trimble Geospatial accuracy, close to 120 million passengers landed in Spain and were able to do so with the highest safety and efficiency standards.

Efficient surveys for safe landings

Via these surveys and mapping projects, large airports like the ones in Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao  are able to easily detect common problems, like pavement deformation on maintenance roads, airport roadways and taxiways by creating undulation maps, obstacle studies, luminance distribution studies calculating illumination tower pointing, and precisely spotting where the aerial navigation aid is located, etc. Thanks to these surveys —Jimenez commented— we are able to immediately detect any irregularities on the flight field.

“Trimble is here to solve the main two issues when working in airports: precision and performance. To start, it is thanks to its precision and swiftness levels to fulfill workflow that we could improve work quality and reduce the amount of time the team is under the flight paths as much as possible.” — Jimenez pointed. Then he added: “Before Trimble SX10’s arrival, we spent a lot of time surveying. With Trimble, data acquisition on flight fields was reduced to the max, and point density increased enough to obtain two points for every few centimeters.” He concluded: “Thanks to Mobile Mapping technology from the MX50 and control point distribution, it is also possible to have an up-to-date, fast, and effective maintenance for flight fields, since, in a very reduced timeframe, we can update and verify navigation help statuses, for example. Then, from the operational safety perspective, all possible incidences are cut down as much as possible.”

When it comes to software used in the office to process information, Proyform Global highlights Trimble Business Center with its Scan, GIS, and Mobile Mapping modules, since it allows processing point clouds, adjusting trajectories to match plains with reliefs, and also, to create inventories like illumination and navigation help for airport maintenance roads and taxiways.

Guaranteed support

“Trimble Spain’s Customer Support was crucial to succeed in our surveys” — Jimenez expresses— “ Thanks to their help, I  was able to set it up from their suggestions to make full use of these powerful tools and their power.” — He finishes—  “Thanks to their support, we were able to use these solutions with trust and speed.