Geotechnical sensors for soil monitoring

Geotechnical Monitoring for Safer Earthworks and Subsurface Operations

Earthworks, excavations, specialist foundations, tunnels and underground works inevitably induce ground movements that can affect safety and structural performance. In dense urban and complex geological environments across the Middle East, continuous geotechnical monitoring is essential to control these risks.

By deploying dedicated geotechnical instrumentation, project teams can closely track ground behaviour, support safer construction operations and contribute to the optimization of subsurface design. Sensors installed during construction can also be retained for long‑term monitoring of slopes, cuttings and embankments.

Geotechnical monitoring data helps engineers and consultants identify and understand soil movements such as settlement, heave or landslides. These insights support accurate diagnosis and the design of effective mitigation or remedial measures to manage future ground behaviour.

Installed at the surface or below ground, our geotechnical sensors are used to measure:

Groundwater and pore water levels
Ground deformations, including settlement, uplift and lateral movement
Stress and load variations within soils and structures

Installing geotechnical sensors allows you to:

Control the geotechnical risks associated with your special foundation works and subsurface structures
Understand soil behaviour as the basis for:
- Checking actual deformations versus theoretical sizing
- Optimising the sizing of underground structures
- Managing geotechnical risks (e.g. landslips)
- Monitoring changes in the structural soil state over the long term (in embankments and cuttings, etc.)

Deformation and strain measurements

Ground deformation sensors

Borehole extensometers provide millimetric measurements of relative displacement between anchor positions along the axis of the instrument’s installation. They can be installed vertically, horizontally, inclined and in some cases, inverted. Borehole settlement gauges provide a less accurate, but also less expensive, version for use with larger scales of deformation
Inclinometers measure the lateral deformation of the ground with millimetric accuracy when installed vertically. They can be installed directly in the soil or in foundations (diaphragm walls, piles, etc.). They can also be installed horizontally to record settlement profiles.
A number of instruments are available for measuring settlement in embankments, and are often referred to collectively as embankment settlement meters

Sensors that can be sued to determine soil stress state include Earth Pressure Cells.

Measurement of sub-surface water levels and pore pressures

Sensors to measure sub-surface water levels (piezometric sensors) and interstitial pressure (Interstitial Pressure Cells or IPCs)

Inexpensive and easy to manufacture, piezometers can be read manually or automatically using a variety of datalogging solutions
Interstitial Pressure Cells (IPCs) provide crucial information on soil behaviour at predefined depths

Cyclops

Automated 3D topographic monitoring of structures and surfaces

Cyclops™ is Sixense’s world leading automated topographic measurement solution and provides:

remote, automatic, 3D movement measurement with sub-millimetric accuracy
the possibility to group theodolites within globally unstable areas to deliver improved reading stability and repeatability

Find out more about our Cyclops solution

4DBloc

GNSS-based deformation sensor

4DBloc is a GNSS sensor for real-time monitoring of ground or structure deformations.

The 4DBloc system provides:

an accurate and robust monitoring solution that can be deployed in a variety of scenarios to record the movement of soil and structures
real-time movement monitoring (with improved resolution using aggregated data)

Find out more about our 4DBloc sensor

4DSkin

Synthetic aperture radar

Our 4DSkin solution enables non-contact deformation measurements to be made over large areas of up to several kilometres, at high frequency (typically every 2 minutes) and to a very high level of accuracy (typically 0.2 mm).

Find out more about our 4DSkin sensor

4DShape

3D continuous linear inclinometer

4DShape is an all-in-one solution that uses a flexible chain of 3D inclinometers to monitor the relative movement of vertical, horizontal or converging profiles in soils and on structures.

Find our more about our 4DShape solution