LZER0-MOB: cost-effective GNSS for temporary monitoring

OGS has been developing and producing cost-effective GNSS technology devices and systems in collaboration with the private sector since 2015. These systems, called LZER0, have been efficiently applied to landslide monitoring, also in collaboration with local administrations and the Regional Civil Protection. In recent years, the development of LZER0 has received new impetus from the PNRR Geoscience IR project.

We have developed a new adaptation of the LZER0 device for temporary monitoring, called LZER0-MOB. It addresses the specific needs of temporary monitoring, which may be carried out in emergency conditions, such as user-friendliness and reduced consumption and weight.

We have implemented a mobile infrastructure ready to be activated in case of emergencies due to geological hazards, consisting of a pool of LZER0-MOB stations. This infrastructure, which benefits from the low cost of these devices, will expand monitoring capabilities during emergencies to support civil protection activities and will be integrated into existing infrastructures. It will also enable continuous monitoring of areas of specific interest after the emergency phases.

In the first prototypes, the usability of LZER0 was limited by configuration management and data distribution, which were based on command line interaction. In addition, each station had to be managed individually. For this reason, we have improved the user interface for managing the cost-effective devices (as single stations or as station networks) and for querying and viewing data in real time. We have also developed an automatic system to manage the initial installation of software and its remote updating. These software improvements will enhance the usability of these systems for end users.

The technical diagrams of the instruments and the developed software are released under the CC BY 4.0 license through the repository of LZER0 on github (https://github.com/OGS-GNSS/LZER0) and the Geosciences IR research infrastructure portal (https://geosciences-ir.it/infrastruttura/).

Acknowledgements

Funded by European Union - NextGenerationEU - Mission 4 “Education and Research” - Component 2 “From Research to Business” - Investment 3.1 “Fund for the realization of an integrated system of research and innovation infrastructures” - Project IR0000037 - GeoSciences IR - CUP I53C22000800006. We thank Lunitek SRL for the collaboration provided in the creation of the instrumentation.