Projects Portfolio

Orbital Africa has been in fore-front in providing most stable and easy to use geospatial consultancy services that meet the clients' needs at minimal cost.

Project: GIS and GPS Resources Mapping in Arid/Semi-Arid Parts of Kenya


The Rural Electrification Authority (REA) contracted Orbital Africa from the year 2014 to 2017 to carry out powerline route survey and mapping for low voltage lines i.e. 11Kv in various counties in Kenya e.g. Machakos, Meru, Kisumu, Siaya, Homa Bay among others. Additionally, other project activities conducted include signing of consents by affected people, wayleave acquisition, pegging, mapping of customer premises e.g buildings amongst others.

Activities and Methods

  1. Purchase and acquisition of Registry Index Maps (RIMs), PIDs and Survey Plans;
  2. Fieldwork Powerline route surveys and mapping using Garmin eTrex 20x handheld GPS;
  3. Scanning of Registry Index Maps (RIMs), PIDs and Survey Plans;
  4. Georeferencing and Digitizing of the RIMs/PIDs and overlaying them on topographical maps;
  5. Powerline route survey drawing and design in AutoCAD and ArcGIS Software;
  6. The consents signing by PAPs, route wayleave acquisition as well as pegging;
  7. Precise mapping of location of customer premises such as building structures etc;
  8. The eTrex 20x handheld GPS was used to determine the location of powerline posts, Transformers hence pegging;
  9. The submission of CAD Design Drawings in softcopy (e-mail and CDs) and the list of all PAPs.

Software and Equipment

  1. Garmin eTrex 20x handheld GPS;
  2. Smartphones with android v. 6.0 and above;
  3. Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D version 2017;
  4. Esri ArcGIS for Desktop version 10.4;
  5. Quantum GIS version 2.18;
  6. EpiCollect5 and GIS Cloud Apps;
  7. Microsoft Access and Word; IBM SPSS.

Datasets

  1. Registry Index Maps (RIMs);
  2. Topographical maps (Scale of 1:50,000);
  3. Preliminary Index Maps (PIDs);
  4. Georeferenced Survey Plans;
  5. The Excel List of Project Affected People (PAPs).

Deliverables

  1. Powerline Route Drawings in AutoCAD;
  2. Completed List of PAPs with their IDs;
  3. Completed and Signed Consent Forms;
  4. Completed List of Customer premises coordinates (e.g buildings);
  5. Drawings superimposed on RIMs, PIDs and Survey Plans.