Astrium Satellites to Aid Challenging Hong Kong Project

by | Aug 8, 2011

Visitors to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center will experience less traffic congestion once the Wan Chai Bypass Project is finished.

A 3.5-km tunnel under construction on Hong Kong Island will benefit from satellite-based surface movement monitoring information provided by Astrium. The tunnel forms part of the Wan Chai Bypass Project, a 4.5-km section of highway running along the northern part of Hong Kong Island that will improve transport links in the region and reduce traffic congestion.

The GEO-Information Services division of Astrium Services will use data from the Astrium-built TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X radar satellites to provide surface movement information before and during the tunnelling process. This data are essential to ensure that the risks of tunnelling are reduced in what is a highly populated area, enabling project teams to understand the impact of the underground construction work on the site's surface, surrounding buildings and infrastructure.

Using a radar interferometric approach that combines several Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) datasets from the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites, The GEO-Information Services division of Astrium Services will provide surface motion information with an accuracy of a few millimeters, keeping project teams continually informed of surface subsidence and/or uplift resulting from the underground construction work. This will cover not only in the tunnel area but also the wider construction site”a major advantage compared to terrestrial monitoring.

Said Ralf Duering of the GEO-Information Services division of Astrium Services in China, The Wan Chai Bypass Project represents a significant technical challenge. Precision engineering is crucial when tunneling in areas that are highly populated, so the information provided by Astrium will play a key role in the effective management of the construction process.

We are very delighted to work with Astrium in integrating their surface motion data into our Site Data Management System to be deployed in this project, enabling our customer to enjoy reliable and accurate data monitoring with maximum area coverage and time/cost efficiency, remarked Andy Cheung, the general manager of Spatial Technology Ltd.

Source: Astrium news release

Image: Google Earth

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