Orthometric Height Improvement in Tainan City using RTK GPS and Local Geoid Corrector Surface Models
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 1
Abstract
Various corrector surface models are proposed to mitigate systematic height errors to fit the orthometric heights determined by combining the Tainan City real-time kinematic (RTK) global positioning system (GPS) network and the local geoid model data to the published orthometric heights. Several data sets for Tainan City were tested and analyzed. Two geometric geoid models and one gravimetric-geometric geoid model were generated using the GPS and leveling data. Consequently, three types of orthometric heights were determined (Models I, II, and III). The selection of the optimal corrector surface model for different models was based on a series of statistical tests. The test results show that (1) the selection of the optimal corrector surface model is highly related to the geoid model generating method, hence the optimal corrector surface models are a fifth-degree polynomial for Models I and II and a seven-parameter similarity transformation for Model III; and (2) the determined orthometric height is accurate to 2–4 cm after applying an optimal corrector surface model.
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Acknowledgments
Data sets of Tainan City’s 145 first-order benchmarks were provided by the Satellite Surveying Center of the Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan, R.O.C.; the data set of 118 first-order benchmarks from the RTK GPS network was provided by the Tainan City government. Also, the writer would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very constructive criticism and suggestions for the improvement of this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 1 • February 2014
Pages: 35 - 43
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 9, 2012
Accepted: Jun 17, 2013
Published online: Jun 19, 2013
Published in print: Feb 1, 2014
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