Interpolating Surface Gravity Data for Assessing the Accuracy of a Ground Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System Gravimetric System
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 3
Abstract
High-resolution gravity data are efficiently collected by using a ground-vehicle-based inertial navigation system/global positioning system (INS/GPS) gravimetric system due to its closeness to the terrain and relatively speedy process. Previous studies have shown that this system has better than 1 mGal repeatability. However, the validation of the absolute precision is limited by the availability of ground control data and the selected interpolation method. Careful comparisons of the gravity estimates with independent ground control are necessary to arrive at a better knowledge of the system’s precision. First, several interpolation schemes are designed to interpolate the control data to known values along the ground tracks. The computation results show that the least square collocation method provides the most accurate interpolates of the surface data set, while the three-dimensional multi-quadrics method works well after applying the terrain correction. The best-estimated control data used have better than 3 mGal precision agreement with the wave-correlated gravity estimates obtained at the tracks of the INS/GPS gravimetric system.
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Acknowledgments
The writer would like to thank NGA and the Center for Mapping at The Ohio State University for providing the data sets. Many thanks are also given to Mr. Jeff Olsen at NGS for his comments and proof reading. Finally, particular appreciation is given to the reviewers and the editor for their valuable suggestions and comments.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 3 • August 2010
Pages: 139 - 146
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 3, 2009
Accepted: Dec 23, 2009
Published online: Dec 29, 2009
Published in print: Aug 2010
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