The steady progression of technological advancements, and more importantly, the way the surveying community puts these tools to work, continues to reshape the way tasks are performed and projects delivered.
The standardization of UAVs in surveyor toolboxes, a growing reliance on ground-based robots for gathering as-built data and even the ability to capture high quality reality with a smartphone are just a few progressive steps from this past year. These adaptations are essential to the maturity of means and methods if we as an industry are to meet growing demand.
The Trimble Reality Capture platform service enables more effective collaboration and the secure sharing of massive reality capture datasets captured with 3D laser scanning, mobile mapping and UAV systems.
Recent studies1 show that the growth in the surveying and mapping services market is driven by several factors, including rapid urbanization, the expansion of infrastructure projects, and the increased adoption of advanced technologies. From precise land surveys to progress mapping on a job site, the use of technologies such as UAVs, LiDAR, and advanced GIS systems are all key pieces of the evolving capabilities, according to the report, helping ensure compliance, drive productivity and accuracy, deliver more sustainable results and improve safety.
Looking ahead to 2025, artificial intelligence (AI), far-reaching drone capabilities, reality capture and GNSS advances top our list of exciting things to come.
A Precise Point in Time
Surprising to some will be the continued evolution of GNSS, a technology that is already deeply embedded in most survey workflows. These advances allow industry professionals to better gather precise points in deep urban canyons, survey closer to buildings, and push under a more dense canopy without needing to swap between using a GNSS rover or a total station.
In the coming year, we’ll see steady, incremental improvements to core GNSS components, as well as inertial measurement unit (IMU) technology, which will improve receiver positioning accuracy and better handle signal disruptions, whether from solar activity, jamming, spoofing or multipath. These adaptations will have a tangible impact on the surveyors’ ability to operate effectively in challenging environments where GNSS signals may be degraded or obstructed.
The integration of Trimble CenterPoint RTX in the Trimble APX RTX direct georeferencing portfolio for UAV mapping delivers high accuracy, greater efficiency and ease of use.
Tomorrow’s solutions will be better equipped to obtain and maintain precision position and heading in a range of solutions for a wide variety of applications and in ever more complex conditions.
These capabilities will become more essential as we move through the peak of Solar Cycle 25 in the coming year. As documented in the August issue2, the impact of solar storms in the coming year could be significant. The solar storm this past May was the largest in over 20 years, and it directly affected GNSS signals in North America.
To a degree, modern receivers are equipped to handle these events through multi-frequency capabilities. A receiver that can use two or more independent satellite systems (e.g., GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou) reduces the chance of errors from solar disturbances. On that note, the coming year could also see the emergence of commercial GNSS constellations. While these new systems may not be fully operational in 2025, the impact of those constellations in the industry will further drive advances across the board.
Then there’s the advancement of firmware purpose-built to counteract the effects of Solar Cycle 25. Solutions such as Trimble® IonoGuard™ are designed to mitigate ionospheric disruptions in positioning and navigation by minimizing performance impacts caused by scintillation or signal noise. It can optimize GNSS measurement processes, while also improving the signal tracking of disrupted GNSS signals. It’s been tested in some of the most challenging atmospheric conditions.
Along similar lines, the coming year will also see continued advancement in GNSS correction services.
The Reality of Real-Time Data
The increasing availability of real-time correction services via satellite or IP/cellular sources has already made a marked difference in the surveying community, enabling centimeter position accuracy even in inaccessible regions that have no existing CORS.
These solutions leverage absolute positioning techniques to model and correct GNSS error sources. For instance, solutions such as Trimble CenterPoint® RTX have a horizontal root mean square error (RMS) accuracy of less than 2 cm and vertical RMS accuracy of less than 5 cm. Expect to see continued upgrades to these solutions that ensure the integrity of GNSS signals.
Trimble’s IonoGuard technology aims to mitigate ionospheric disruptions in positioning and navigation by minimizing performance impacts caused by scintillation or signal noise. This graph shows the extent to which IonoGuard was able to improve positional accuracy at a site in Sweden. The red line represents horizontal position error with IonoGuard enabled; the blue line represents IonoGuard disabled.
Already, GNSS processing engines such as Trimble ProPoint®, incorporate advanced GNSS signal processing to support RTK positioning, even in harsh tracking environments where unobstructed signals from at least four satellites are not possible.
To achieve even greater accuracy for UAV and land vehicle-based LiDAR mapping, Trimble’s Applanix POSPac post-processing software pulls the RTX corrections in and combines them with GNSS observables and inertial data using Applanix IN-Fusion+ technology. This process results in a highly accurate and robust solution for creating 3D point clouds.
High Flying Opportunities
Drones equipped with LiDAR and other sensors are expected to continue their upward trajectory, with greater emphasis on smaller, lighter, large area, higher performing solutions. UAV workflows can be tedious and time-consuming requiring a detailed plan, the setup of base stations, the download/upload/post-processing of data, datum adjustments, etc.
This past year, DroneDeploy integrated the Trimble Applanix post-processed RTX PPK solution directly into its cloud-based mapping solution. This configuration allows users to upload their drone imagery into the DroneDeploy cloud, push a button, and receive a high accuracy map product georeferenced in a consistent datum.
It’s these types of advancements that will drive the advantages of drone-based surveying to new levels. Expect to see much greater progress in this type of aerial surveying in 2025.
Emerging software licensing methods will also continue to evolve. The industry will begin to move away from post-processing through a desktop application with desktop licensing to real-time subscriptions directly within the hardware. For instance, as part of the new Trimble APX RTX product for georeferencing LiDAR and camera data collected on UAVs, Trimble recently introduced the CenterPoint RTX Complete subscription, which includes both the real-time CenterPoint RTX subscription and post-processing in POSPac UAV, eliminating the need for a separate POSPac UAV license, fee, or internet connection.
The AI Advantage
In a recent Trimble survey, 59% of respondents said AI and machine learning (AI/ML) will be one of the industry’s hottest topics in 2025.
That high expectation likely doesn’t surprise anyone, as this technology has the potential to drive productivity by better using data and delivering real-time insights. We saw a number of features and functionalities emerge this past year focused on better using AI.
For instance, Trimble Business Center uses an AI algorithm to generate pavement condition reports from mobile mapping data, conduct quick stockpile volume calculations using drone data, and train datasets for tailored AI-optimized results. These kinds of AI capabilities will be foundational to future solutions.
Embedded AI algorithms will also extend the value of emerging augmented reality (AR) and reality capture tools and techniques.
Reality capture technology such as laser scanning will continue to expand in the coming year, largely due to emerging services that effectively democratize data. Recent advancements enable faster and easier collaboration, and the secure sharing of massive reality capture datasets captured with 3D laser scanning, mobile mapping, and UAVs. These datasets are foundational to the emergence of interactive digital twins.
An Interoperable Tech Stack
In the Trimble survey mentioned above, 59% of respondents said technology integration will be one of the main themes of 2025. Rightfully so. Studies3 over the years have found that more than 95% of data gathered during engineering and construction of a project goes unused due to disconnected teams across project phases.
That stat points to one of the biggest challenges in today’s ever evolving digital ecosystem: interoperability, or the ability to access, exchange, integrate and use data from multiple solutions.
While contractors are continuing to rapidly adopt new technology, the solutions they choose often don’t speak to one another. That’s begun to change with the adoption of more connected data environments and open API standards, which allow data from multiple systems to be visible and actionable in one place. Even office-to-field solutions are better able to combine data from multiple sensors (survey data, drone data, scanning data), and streamline processing, storage, sharing, and analysis to reduce costs and enhance reliability.
These data-centric advancements will make it increasingly easier to exchange data automatically between systems, in the office and in the field, enabling teams to spend less time bringing data together and more time resolving problems.
Trimble and other construction technology vendors have made many advancements in this area due to the value it provides for today’s contractors. More seamless data accessibility can be seen in solutions such as Trimble Access v2024.10 field software. The introduction of total station data output over Bluetooth and GNSS National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) support over Bluetooth for Android devices broadens the scope of connectivity, ensuring seamless data transfer from Trimble Access to a range of third-party devices, such as ground penetrating radar. This year, Trimble included KML (formerly known as Keyhole Markup Language) support and Bentley LandXML export compatibility to further drive a more integrated workflow. Continued advances like these are essential in 2025.
Technology is certainly integral to the construction space, from planning through estimating, project management, and handover. Today’s analytic tools provide data access in formats specific to the needs of all end users—from comprehensive reports and simple data comparisons, to visualized graphics and dashboards. In the coming year, we’re going to see a greater emphasis on not just capturing more and better data at the source but aggregating that data from multiple sources and then converting it into actionable intelligence—all with immediacy at or near real-time and with minimal manual effort.
Dr. Stuart Riley is the Vice President, Technology—GNSS at Trimble.