Made to measure: Constructing modern EDM baseline infrastructure in NSW

The NSW Surveyor General is a Verifying Authority under the National Measurement Act 1960 and responsible for ensuring that surveyors use verified measuring equipment for all boundary definitions and control surveys within the State. This is achieved through both a hierarchy of regulatory requirements and the provision and maintenance of Electronic Distance Measurement (EDM) baselines by Land and Property Information (LPI). The NSW Surveying and Spatial Information Regulation 2012 requires surveyors to verify their measuring equipment in relation to an Australian standard of measurement of length at least once a year. On behalf of the Surveyor General, LPI is the sole organisation responsible for constructing, maintaining, monitoring and verifying these baselines within NSW. Local organisations (e.g. councils and mines) often support this function by hosting the physical baseline infrastructure. LPI is currently rationalising, improving and future-proofing its EDM baseline infrastructure. This involves upgrading existing baselines to include a larger number of pillars, building completely new baselines, expanding some to contribute to GNSS validation networks, evaluating new national calibration software and completing succession training for tomorrow's metrology staff. This article, however, focuses on the issues that need to be considered in the construction of a new state-of-the-art EDM baseline.