What is a Total Station?
Total station is a surveying equipment combination of Electromagnetic Distance Measuring Instrument and electronic theodolite. It is also integrated with microprocessor, electronic data collector and storage system. The instrument can be used to measure horizontal and vertical angles as well as sloping distance of object to the instrument.
Capability of a Total Station
Microprocessor unit in total station processes the data collected to compute:
- Average of multiple angles measured.
- Average of multiple distance measured.
- Horizontal distance.
- Distance between any two points.
- Elevation of objects and
- All the three coordinates of the observed points.
Data collected and processed in a Total Station can be downloaded to computers for further processing.
Total station is a compact instrument and weighs 50 to 55 N. A person can easily carry it to the field. Total stations with different accuracy, in angle measurement and different range of measurements are available in the market. Figure below shows one such instrument manufactured by SOKKIA Co. Ltd. Tokyo, Japan.
Total Station Definition 