Realistic Expectations While Monitoring with Networked Robotic Total Station Systems in Live Rail Environments

Everything is in continuous movement, and the more precision with which we need to measure, the more difficult it is to get stable readings. The differences between two reading sessions can come from a number of different sources and events, from human aberrations during the transcription of readings, to minor accidental errors, changes in the atmospheric conditions, devices technical limitations, or even to real movements that are not directly linked to what we are intending to monitor (i.e. A change in the in-ground water layer, or even evolution on the tectonic rifts).

The more precise the movement we intend to measure the bigger the range of movement sources you get (Hope & Chuaqui, 2008). Although in big constructions we always assume that there is a limit to the project ZOI (zone of influence), this is not completely true, as they are under constant influence of several sources of movements and vibrations. Not only should the different monitoring techniques take this in account, the designers should also be aware of this in order to request and obtain quality readings from the different monitoring systems designed.