The Northeastern Rural Electric Membership Corp. (Northeastern REMC, Columbia City, Indiana, U.S.) has completed the mapping of some 60,000 points in the utility's 600-sq-mile (1554-sq-km) service territory in less than a year using global satellite positioning (GPS) technology from Thales Navigation Inc. (Santa Clara, California, U.S.).

The consumer-owned electric cooperative supplies electric power to 20,000 customers in the northeastern part of Indiana, including high-growth areas in Ft. Wayne. The project resulted from rapid residential and commercial development that meant the addition of service facilities and equipment, rendering old maps obsolete.

Northeastern REMC collected data with an Ashtech Reliance Decimeter System from Thales. The GPS receiver was mounted either in a vehicle, on a bicycle or carried in a backpack. Biking technicians alone were able to collect 120 points each day with the device. Technicians received data, then entered those measurements, as well as attribute data, into the Reliance system while collecting the point with the GPS receiver. They then downloaded the data into the home base geographic information system (GIS).

Technicians brought the points into the map daily. AutoCAD Map, enhanced with GenMap software by Gentry Systems, provided an interface between AutoCAD Map and the company database.

From the Reliance GPS, technicians downloaded ASCII text files into AutoCAD Map, a task supported by GenMap's import function. The system then combined coordinate and attribute information into an AutoCAD block. Each point was designated by a symbol that gave access to point attributes: customer name and address, meter information, even data about the transformer serving that customer.

The company said the Reliance system offered superior accuracy. Standing with the receiver at a point for 90 seconds produced mapping accuracy with 2 ft (0.6 m).

The system also provided good satellite coverage by enabling technicians to collect data faster by occupying points when the most satellites were overhead. Since that happens at different times of the day, depending on the satellite schedule, the company used the Thales Mission Planning module, a feature of the Reliance processor, to help plan each day for the best coverage.
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