Abstract
Personal digital assistant (PDA) applications to improve the effectiveness and reliability in geotechnical investigations have been developed. Because of PDA's legerity and mobility, it is an excellent choice for use with a simple global position system (GPS) in geotechnical field work, such as site reconnaissance, subsurface investigation, surface investigation, safety evaluation, testing, and instrumentation. Using PDAs in geotechnical engineering can save traditional field paper forms, avoid repeated record input, reduce the risk of wrong data interpretation, and shorten the time and space “barrier” between the office and the field. After the field data are collected on the PDA, they can be transferred to a desktop personal computer (PC) for further processing and reporting. The desktop PC is designated to handle more complicated analyses and visual presentations. Specialized functions of applications to operate PDA and GPS, as well as for the desktop PC, were developed according to the characteristics of the geotechnical tasks. The concept and framework were applied for three geotechnical assistant systems: drilling investigation assistant system, surface geologic investigation assistant system, and slope safety evaluation assistant system. In addition, an example illustrates the application of GPS, PDA, and geographic information systems for debris flow reconnaissance. Using PDAs improves the effectiveness and reliability of geotechnical investigations and is promising for further development.
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