GPS for Geodesy

This monograph contains the revised and edited lecture notes of the International School GPS for Geodesy in Delft, The Netherlands, March 26 through April 1, 1995. The objective of the school was to provide the necessary information to understand the potential and the limitations of the Global Positioning System for applications in the field of Geodesy. The school was held in the excellent facilities of the DISH Hotel, and attracted 60 geodesists and geophysicists from America, Asia, Australia and Europe. The school was organized into lectures and discussion sessions. There were two lecture periods in the morning and two lecture periods in the afternoon, followed by a discussion session in the early morning. A welcome interruption to this regular schedule was a visit to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk in the afternoon of March 29. A tour of the Noordwijk Space Expo and the ESA satellite test facilities, and presentations by ESTEC personnel of GPSand GNSS related activities at ESTEC, provided a different perspective to space geodesy. The school had the support of the International Association of Geodesy, the Netherlands Geodetic Commission, the Department of Geodetic Engineering of the Delft University of Technology, the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering of the University of New Brunswick, and the Survey Department of Rijkswaterstaat. This support is gratefully acknowledged. The organization of the International School began in early 1994, with the knowledgeable help of Frans Schroder of the Netherlands Geodetic Commission.

"GPS for Geodesy" describes the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements for geodetic applications. It covers the modelling and data processing strategies needed for the determination of precise coordinates for position and the monitoring of temporal changes of these coordinates in well-defined reference systems. Starting from the GPS observables, the GPS orbits, the reference frames and the GPS signal propagation characteristics, complete observation equations are presented and discussed for the spectrum of geodetic applications. Models for single-receiver applications are followed by models for multi-receiver applications for which the network scale is used as the criterion. It includes the theory of GPS ambiguity resolution, the contribution of GPS to atmospheric modelling and the use of GPS for geodynamic applications.