National Geodetic Survey Seeks Participants for Kinematic GPS Challenge

August 17, 2010

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) is conducting a 12-year project to redefine the vertical datum of the United States. This project, referred to as GRAV-D (Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum), is accomplished by flying airborne gravity missions over the continental and coastal U.S. Gravity solutions require accurate sensor positioning and accelerations, which in turn requires precise and accurate GPS solutions for the aircraft.

To help the NGS facilitate its software and method development, the agency is inviting interested researchers and practitioners to compute and submit solutions from samples of actual GRAV-D data. "A number of kinematic techniques and methods suited for long-distance flights have emerged over the past few years. Given the challenging nature of these flights (long distances, high altitudes, varying tropospheric regimes) and the importance to GRAV-D, we believe applying these techniques to such a common data set would also be of great interest to the kinematic
community," said Gerry Mader and Vicki Childers of the NGS in a post to the CANSPACE listserv.

"This is a strictly voluntary exercise for those interested in such a comparison and we will share our results with the participants. We are also interested in possibly co-authoring a publication with the participants on the topic if results are significant."

Additional information, including a description of the test as well as the test data set, is available at this FTP site.

Mader asks those interested to read through the test description and e-mail him with intent to participate or with questions.