On the determination of a locally optimized Ellipsoidal model of the Geoid surface in sea areas

Deriving a local geoid model has drawn much research interest in the last decade, in an endeavour to minimize the errors in orthometric heights calculations, inherited by the use of global geoid reference models. In most parts of the earth, the local geoid surface may be tens of meters away from the Global Reference biaxial Ellipsoid (WGS84), which create numerus problems in topographic, environmental and navigational applications. Several methods have been developed for optimizing the precision of the calculation of the geoid heights undulations and the accuracy of the corresponding orthometric heights calculations. The optimization refers either to the method used for data acquisition, or to the geometrical method used for the determination of the best fit local geoid model. In the present work, we focus on the reference ellipsoid used for the geometric and geoid heights determination and develop a method to provide the one that fits best to the local geoid surface. Moreover, we consider relatively small sea regions and near to coast areas, where the usual methods for data acquisition fail more or less, and we pay attention in two directions: To obtain accurate measured data and to have the best possible reference ellipsoid for the area at hand. In this due, we use the “GNSS-on-boat” methodology to obtain direct sea level data, which we induce in a Moore Penrose pseudoinverse procedure to calculate the best fit triaxial ellipsoid. This locally optimized reference ellipsoid minimizes the geometric heights in the region at hand. The method is applied in two closed sea areas in Greece, namely Corinthian and Patra’s gulf and also in four regions in the Ionian Sea, which exhibit significant geoid alterations. Taking into account all factors of uncertainty, the precision of the mean sea level surface, produced by the “GNSS on boat” methodology, had been estimated at 5.43 cm for the gulf of Patras, at 3.76 cm for the Corinthian gulf and at 3.31 for the Ionian and Adriatic Sea areas. The average difference of this surface and the local triaxial reference ellipsoid, calculated in this work, is found to be less than 15 cm, whereas the corresponding difference with respect to WGS84 is of the order of 30m.

Studys on the laws of Gauss projection for area distortion

In the regions which has high altitude and is far from central meridian, Gauss projection has bigger area distortion and becomes main factors which influences the accuracy of area measurement. Through researching in detail the area distortion in the three respects that from ground to reference ellipsoid surface from reference ellipsoid surface to Gauss plane and from Gauss plane to compensating level surface, this paper finds the laws of Gauss projection for area distortion, and draws one computation model on 2000 coordinates system. This has contributed to restrict the influence of Gauss projection and choose suitable central meridian and compensating level surface.

Fast and accurate evaluation of geomagnetic field elements at arbitrary points in space

SUMMARY An algorithm and software are developed for fast and accurate evaluation of the elements of the geomagnetic field represented in high-degree (>720) solid spherical harmonics at many scattered points in the space above the surface of the Earth. The algorithm is based on representation of the geomagnetic field elements in solid ellipsoidal harmonics and application of tensor product needlets. Open source FORTRAN and MATLAB realizations of this algorithm that rely on data from the Enhanced Magnetic Models 2015, 2017 (EMM2015, EMM2017) have been developed and extensively tested. The capabilities of the software are demonstrated on the example of the north, east and down components of the geomagnetic field as well as the derived horizontal intensity, total intensity, inclination and declination. For the range from −417 m under the Earth reference ellipsoid up to 1000 km above it the FORTRAN and MATLAB versions of the software run 465 and 189 times faster than the respective FORTRAN and MATLAB versions of the software using the standard spherical harmonic series method, while the accuracy is less than 1 nT and the memory (RAM) usage is 9 GB.

THE CHANGE OF COORDINATE SYSTEM VERSUS THE AREA OF PARCELS

The transition from one coordinate system to another creates many problems, one of which is the change in the area of land parcels. There are at least three reasons causing a change in the area of the parcels after transition from one coordinate system to another. 1. The change in area associated with the transition from one reference ellipsoid to another; 2. The change in area due to deformations caused by random and systematic errors of one of the coordinate systems; 3. The change in the area of the parcel associated with the properties of the projection of Gauss-Krüger. It is shown that the greatest change in the area of the parcel during the transition from CS-63 to UCS-2000 (the coordinate systems of Ukraine) is associated with the properties of the Gauss-Krüger projection. For the parcel of 1 hectare, extreme changes in the area at the borders between the zones of the coordinate systems, can reach the size of 1.95 sq. m. When using local coordinate systems based on UCS-2000, extreme area changes can reach 7.02 sq. m per 1 hectare. It is concluded that the difference in the areas of parcels caused by the properties of the Gauss-Krüger projection could have been avoided if the prime meridians of the zones in the UCS-2000 and CS-63 systems coincided.

Problem of the Vertical Deflection in High-Precision Inertial Navigation

The paper addresses the systematic error of an inertial navigation system, caused by the discrepancy between the plumb line and the normal to the reference ellipsoid surface. The methods of this discrepancy estimation, and their use for correcting the output data of inertial navigation systems are studied.

On the advantage of normal heights

The author analyzes the arguments in the report by Robert Kingdon, Petr Vanicek and Marcelo Santos “The shape of the quasigeoid” (IX Hotin-Marussi Symposium on Theoretical Geodesy, Italy, Rome, June 18 June 22, 2018), which presents the criticisms for the basic concepts of Molodensky’s theory, the normal height and height anomaly of the point on the earth’s surface, plotted on the reference ellipsoid surface and forming the surface of a quasigeoid. The main advantages of the system of normal heights, closely related to the theory of determining the external gravitational field and the Earth’s surface, are presented. Despite the fact that the main advantage of Molodensky’s theory is the rigorous determining the anomalous potential on the Earth’s surface, the use of the system of normal heights can be shown and proved separately. To do this, a simple example is given, where the change of marks along the floor of a strictly horizontal tunnel in the mountain massif is a criterion for the convenience of the system. In this example, the orthometric heights show a change of 3 cm per 1.5 km, which will require corrections to the measured elevations due the transition to a system of orthometric heights. The knowledge of the inner structure of the rock mass is also necessary. It should be noted that the normal heights are constant along the tunnel and behave as dynamic ones and there is no need to introduce corrections. Neither the ellipsoid nor the quasi-geoid is a reference for normal heights, because so far the heights are referenced to initial tide gauge. The points of the earth’s surface are assigned a height value; this is similar to the ideas of prof. L. V. Ogorodova about the excessive emphasis on the concept of quasigeoid. A more general term is the height anomaly that exists both for points on the Earth’s surface and at a distance from it and decreases together with an attenuation of the anomalous field.

The combined geodetic network adjusted on the reference ellipsoid – a comparison of three functional models for GNSS observations

The adjustment problem of the so-called combined (hybrid, integrated) network created with GNSS vectors and terrestrial observations has been the subject of many theoretical and applied works. The network adjustment in various mathematical spaces was considered: in the Cartesian geocentric system on a reference ellipsoid and on a mapping plane. For practical reasons, it often takes a geodetic coordinate system associated with the reference ellipsoid. In this case, the Cartesian GNSS vectors are converted, for example, into geodesic parameters (azimuth and length) on the ellipsoid, but the simple form of converted pseudo-observations are the direct differences of the geodetic coordinates. Unfortunately, such an approach may be essentially distorted by a systematic error resulting from the position error of the GNSS vector, before its projection on the ellipsoid surface. In this paper, an analysis of the impact of this error on the determined measures of geometric ellipsoid elements, including the differences of geodetic coordinates or geodesic parameters is presented. Assuming that the adjustment of a combined network on the ellipsoid shows that the optimal functional approach in relation to the satellite observation, is to create the observational equations directly for the original GNSS Cartesian vector components, writing them directly as a function of the geodetic coordinates (in numerical applications, we use the linearized forms of observational equations with explicitly specified coefficients). While retaining the original character of the Cartesian vector, one avoids any systematic errors that may occur in the conversion of the original GNSS vectors to ellipsoid elements, for example the vector of the geodesic parameters. The problem is theoretically developed and numerically tested. An example of the adjustment of a subnet loaded from the database of reference stations of the ASG-EUPOS system was considered for the preferred functional model of the GNSS observations.