Anyone who works in the fields like mapping, surveying, and construction knows that there are limits to conventional data capture systems. For example, Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) have long been used to collect high-precision 3D data capture, but these systems can take a long time to set up and cause costly delays. What’s more, using ground control points and working through complex and confusing post-processing workflows can lead to gaps in data and troubling inaccuracies.
To address these problems, Exyn Technologies developed Nexys. Introduced in early 2024, Nexys is a modular 3D mapping solution that can be used as a handheld device as well as an attachment to a drone, ground robot, vehicle, or backpack. A mobile SLAM-based system, Nexys was created to deliver survey-grade point clouds faster and with less friction. Nexys includes a lidar scanner and proprietary SLAM algorithms to enable quick capture speeds (up to 1.9 million scan points per second) and real-time point cloud colorization. In addition, Nexys can navigate autonomously through GPS-denied environments, making it an ideal tool for underground projects and work in complex outdoor environments.
During a recent Geo Week News webinar title “Rethinking Precision: How RTK Elevates LiDAR Scanning with Nexys,” James Sui, Product Management Lead at Exyn Technologies detailed the features and using of the Nexys system. He explained that Nexys is the continuation of work that Exyn has been doing since its founding nearly ten years ago. “We learned that autonomous robots by themselves are not super useful for our users, but it’s the 3D data that comes out of them,” Sui stated. With this knowledge, he said, the Exyn team has been “honing a craft of lidar SLAM to deliver survey teams around the world with high quality SLAM mapping.” This work led to the development of Nexys.
Throughout his presentation, Sui explained how Nexys brings greater speed, accuracy, and efficiency to the production of survey-grade point clouds. He discussed the ways the integration of SLAM and RTK GNSS improves accuracy and geospatial alignment, and he used case studies to demonstrate the power of this new tool.
For example, he discussed issues around scanning in outdoor environments to show how Nexys’ features can bring optimized “speed, repeatability, and compatibility.” For field teams and survey managers, the challenges of working outdoors don’t involve “just capturing the date—it’s capturing it quickly and accurately with minimal set up time and without introducing unnecessary complexity into your workflow.” To “make the outdoor workflows more efficient and accurate,” he said, the Nexys team decided “to take advantage of what we already know to be available, which is GNSS and specifically RTK.” For outdoor projects, he stated, “you have access to satellite-based positioning, which means you could tap into RTK correction networks to drastically improve accuracy without relying on traditional ground controller.” Nexys, he said, enables these efficiencies in ways that are simple and repeatable.
Overall, Sui reported that Nexys is being used to bring greater value to projects such as as-built documentation, progress monitoring, and quality assurance. But, beyond those the three categories, Sui said that customers are finding new uses for Nexys. “Anything they already did with terrestrial they’re doing the SLAM scanners and more,” he stated. “Anything from stockpile volumetrics to cut/fill analysis for dirt moving operations or using the 3D point cloud as inputs into a BIM generation are all great use cases that we find our customers undertaking.”
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