Applications · Civil construction
Underground service locating for civil construction — pipes, cables and undocumented utilities investigated before excavation.
Aus-OMI locates underground utilities for civil works, road upgrades, utility renewals, precincts and brownfield sites.
Adelaide · South Australia · Australia-wide
Underground services. Civil works. Before excavation.
Knowing approximately where a service runs is useful.
Knowing what was detected, how it was detected, where it sits in three dimensions, what evidence supports the interpretation, and what uncertainty remains is considerably more useful.
Aus-OMI combines multiarray ground penetrating radar, electromagnetic locating, spatial control and reality capture to investigate underground utilities as a coordinated dataset. A digital record of the subsurface environment. Based in Adelaide. Working Australia-wide.
Underground services
Communications, electrical, water, sewer, gas, drainage, irrigation and abandoned infrastructure that never appeared on the drawing.
Existing plans and records are an important starting point. They are not an image of what is actually underground.
Private services, undocumented alterations, abandoned infrastructure, non-conductive pipework, incorrect alignments and unknown features can all exist outside the available records. Aus-OMI investigates the ground itself.
IDS GeoRadar Stream DP
Aus-OMI deploys the IDS GeoRadar Stream DP as its primary GPR platform for utility locating and underground utility mapping.
Unlike conventional single-channel GPR, Stream DP uses a dense multiarray configuration to capture the ground continuously across the survey area.
Dual-polarisation acquisition means buried features can be interrogated from different orientations rather than relying on a single radar profile crossing a target at the right angle.
IDS GeoRadar’s Equalized scrambled Technology — EsT — is designed to retain both penetration and resolution within the same acquisition. For utility locating, that means considerably more information is captured about the ground in every pass.
The result is not a collection of isolated radar lines. It is a georeferenced subsurface volume.
IQMaps
IQMaps turns dense acquisition into interpretable evidence. Capturing GPR data is only the beginning. Aus-OMI processes Stream DP datasets within IDS GeoRadar IQMaps.
The dataset can be investigated through individual radar profiles, depth information, plan views, 3D visualisation and tomographic slices through the subsurface.
Instead of looking only for a hyperbola on an individual radargram, the interpreter can examine whether a response continues spatially through the captured volume.
Every interpreted utility is built from evidence contained within the dataset.
AiMaps 3.0
AiMaps 3.0 adds another analytical layer. Large multiarray GPR surveys can contain an enormous amount of radar information.
AiMaps 3.0 provides an AI-assisted processing environment integrated with IQMaps and developed specifically for IDS GeoRadar utility-mapping systems including Stream DP.
Deep-learning processing can enhance tomography and assist the interpreter in identifying underground infrastructure within complex radar datasets. Pipe Tracer functionality can support automated tracing and digitisation of continuous underground utilities.
For Aus-OMI, AI is not used to replace interpretation. It is another analytical layer.
Ground penetrating radar and electromagnetic locating
There is no single instrument that finds everything underground.
Extremely effective for tracing conductive utilities — live cables and metallic pipes — when an appropriate signal can be applied or detected. It cannot directly locate every plastic, concrete, abandoned or otherwise non-conductive feature.
Works differently. It images changes within the subsurface and can therefore provide evidence of infrastructure whether the target conducts electricity or not.
Aus-OMI uses both methods because disagreement between them can be important.
The objective is evidence correlation, not dependence on one instrument.
A spatial environment
Every useful underground interpretation ultimately needs to relate back to the real site.
Aus-OMI establishes spatial control and georeferences the investigation so interpreted utilities can be delivered in the same coordinate environment used by surveyors, engineers and civil designers.
The result can be reviewed against kerbs, pits, structures, pavements, buildings and other visible site features instead of floating independently on a sketch.
Evidence
The evidence matters. A utility line on a CAD drawing is an interpretation. Aus-OMI retains the evidence that produced it.
Where appropriate, significant interpreted features can be related back to radar responses, tomography, depth information, electromagnetic evidence and site observations.
That matters when a civil project team asks:
Those questions should have answers.
Handover
A utility locating investigation, issued as a digital record. Depending on scope, an Aus-OMI utility locating package can include:
01
Digital Site Intelligence Report
02
interpreted underground utilities — pipes, cables and undocumented services
03
AS 5488 quality information
04
utility depth information
05
investigation coverage and exclusions
06
residual uncertainty and recommended verification
07
interactive 3D site environment
08
CAD / GIS outputs
09
KML
10
reality-capture point cloud
11
GPR tomography and supporting imagery
12
coordinate reference and survey metadata
The locate is the investigation. The handover is the record the next drawing and the next excavation decision can use.
Where it is used
Limits
We say what the technology cannot prove. Ground penetrating radar is geophysical evidence. Electromagnetic locating is geophysical evidence. Neither is physical exposure.
Ground conditions, material properties, reinforcement, congestion, depth, access and acquisition geometry can all influence detection. Aus-OMI reports those limitations rather than burying them.
Where physical certainty is required, targeted exposure or potholing remains the appropriate next step. The purpose of the utility locating investigation is to make that next step substantially more informed.
The investigation
Then make the decision.
Modern multiarray GPR can capture the subsurface as a dense dataset. IQMaps can interrogate that dataset as a volume. AiMaps can assist with processing and utility extraction. Electromagnetic locating can independently trace conductive infrastructure. Reality capture can document the environment around it. Spatial control can bring everything together.
Aus-OMI turns those technologies into one coordinated utility locating investigation.
Civil work
Next
Corridor, precinct, brownfield or a street with no records. Brief us from Adelaide. We work Australia-wide.
