Total Station

A total station is an electronic instrument equipped with theodolite and integrated with an electronic optical distance meter (EDM) to measure both vertical and horizontal angles and the slope distance from the instrument to a particular point, with a built-in processor performing triangulation calculations. The laser beam strikes the object as a small point. The receiver of the sensor (photodiode line) detects the position of this point. The angle of incidence changes according to the distance and, thereby, the position of the laser point on the receiver.

Common applications of a total station include:
– to measure horizontal and vertical angles
– to obtain the horizontal distance, inclined distance and vertical distance between these points
– to get the three-dimensional co-ordinates, i.e., [x,y, z], of a point in space
– to find the length of a missing the line
– to find the elevation of the remote object
– to locate the points at a predetermined distance along gridlines