RFI on Property Corners?

[CBarrett]

In addition to standard durable monuments that we are used to, is there anything prohibiting us from using RFI's for property or control monuments?

[Ian Wilson]

Nope. I expect this will be standard one day...long after I'm retired and even perhaps after my ashes are spread across the oceans.

This could be as simple as "Over here!" or as complex as "This monument was set by John Surveyor - LS 1234 - on February 30, 2045 and is meant to be the southwest corner or the parcel described in Doc # 44-125633 and shown the RS 1245".

The biggest draw back is the equipment to pick up the RFI signal, the standardization for what information is encoded, and the proliferating of the equipment to read the signals.

[Mike Mueller]

I agree with Ian, the RFI chip seems inevitable, I have been wanting to see it for years, but now I think they will never really have a large impact or benefit to monument recovery for a couple reasons:

1. The range is the biggest issue, IE it seems small without having some sort of power source for the chip, or elaborate antenna arrays. The benefit of the chip seems not worth the effort until we have a system that is as easy to use as the metal detectors we currently have.

2. Any monument that has a RFID will be shown on a newer map/record. These means that there will be a search area within feet ready to be calculated and searched. The last couple feet are never really the hard part on monument recovery. Its the 5-20 foot range that seems to cause me the most trouble. If you know your within a couple feet, just dig a hole 2x a couple feet wide :) Mileage may vary in cities though :)

3. Before the hardware gets that big of an change due to some folks "that's above minimum standards" inertia I am expecting the detector side of the problem to get a boost through apps that utilize multiple sensors to build a digital magnetic field models(DMFM). Computer created DMFMs will remove any benefit for the RFID chip since any monument that has a RFID will almost certainly be magnetic since it will be a monument set/reset post 2020, and the DMFMs will only require a couple special wands to be used with a smart phone. The barrier to this working is prolly the ability of the 2-3 wands to know where they are in relation to each other precisely enough to build a model with enough resolution to be meaningful. There is tremendous efforts being put into AI read CAT scans and MRIs, which is essentially the same thing. Our market is just not big enough to focus on yet, so I expect it will occur when someone can use the off-the-shelf AI copies from the medical field with a few tweaks coupled with the cool stuff coming out with the rods that don't need to be plumbed.

Or not. The world is always full of surprise and wonder :)

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County

[Peter Ehlert]

Good thoughts.

FYI: the RFI chip in my passport card gets detected by DHS at about ten meters. It's a credit card size and shape about five years old.
It's kept in a RFI proof sleeve per instructions, for security. I take it out of the sleeve and put it in my shirt pocket when I drive to the border, and the data is detected before I get close to the DHS station.

That tech is here now

[CBarrett]

Thank you for your thoughts!

We're contemplating starting to use RFI's on some of our internal work, For example, company specific control points on in-progress project sites are potential candidates.
I have been pondering this on and of for few years now. I made a suggestion to use them on boundary corners, and I want to get a 'read on the audience' to see what others think of this or what their experiences are to date.

[hellsangle]

Kewl thoughts!

I wonder how they'd stand up to the elements . . .

Fascinating!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-fre ... tification

[CBarrett]

There's a place that started making RFID's for infrastructure inventory, to be linked to GIS.

[Mike Mueller]

Just me or are those two posts by "Davidvilium" and "tumbleargent" the work of bots? If either of you are human, please accept my apology, but the posts are sorta non-sensical rehashes of others posts.

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County

[Mike Mueller]

I spoke with a gentleman at the Berntsen both at the CLSA/NALS/et al conference a few days ago about this topic. They have a variety of RFID chips in monuments, but the general sense I got was that the size needed to have a useful range was impractical. The only setup they had on display that would work farther than 10 feet, or through two inches of dirt was approximately 6"X3"X1". If I understood the explanation correctly there are two components that will have a large impact on range: 1) the size of the antenna and 2) the size of the backplate. The backplate was the part that I hadn't heard of before. He explained that the backplate acted to block any background signals, and sort of "amplify" the bounced back signal that way.

When I chatted with him about how to get an iron pipe monument chipped in a way that would aid in finding covered monuments his idea was to place one of the larger RFIDs as a sort of accessory a foot or so away. Silly me forgot to ask about prices, so I have no idea how much it would cost....

They also had RFIDs that contained actual information, like name, lat long etc. rather than just a number that is linked to a database that actually contains the info. Mostly their RFID products seemed to be aimed at BIM or inventory tagging efforts.

It was also interesting to me to learn that most smart phones can be RFID readers with the right app.

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County

[CBarrett]

I am seriously contemplating placing RFID chips into our next survey control project. I have several projects where I have to set substantial monuments for topo control (large agency work). I may be able to throw in RFID chips and see how they perform. We already have gis with monumentation database.

Maybe we can get Trimble to build an RFID reader into the TSC 7, or some sort of an attachment so the data collector can tell you that you are getting close... and eventually hook it up to AR.

Chips and marker solutions start at $3 and go up to about $100 pe rmarker

This magnetic one caught my eye, but I have not had the time to read through the specs:
https://www.berntsen.com/Utilities/RFID ... temID/1560

[hellsangle]

May not have RFID . . . but cheap and a strong magnet

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.htm ... 2212692195

[CBarrett]

May not have RFID . . . but cheap and .....

Nice, so we can drop this inside a pipe before jamming cement into it.
Boom, strong signal!

[Mike Mueller]

Ifones can also read a RFID. I assume the other brands can as well, so in theory everyone has easy access to a reader already.

Mikey

[CBarrett]

RFID is the generic term for Radio Frequency Identification technology.
InfraMarker is a brand name of product using RFID technology to do what they do... Judging by their logo, Inframarker is Bernstein subsidiary.