Satellite Augmentation Systems for Acceleration Determination in Airborne Gravimetry : A Comparative Study

摘要

In this paper, we investigate the computation of the kinematic acceleration for airborn gravimetry applications using three different GPS-based technologies. We present a comparison study of some experimental measurements recorded using the wide-area differential GPS OmniSTAR service, the global satellite-based augmentation system (GSBAS) StarFire, and the post-processing of the carrier-based DGPS measurements. This later is performed using a high-precision real-time kinematic (RTK) platform developed by authors. We analyze the performance of these technologies using real data collected in both static and dynamic mode (in the fly). The measurements are based on a series of flight tests conducted in the area of Toronto, Canada, by the industrial project partner, during a period between 2006 and 2007. The results are analyzed in time and frequency domains. Since the gravity sensors operate in low frequencies (below 0.05 Hz), we focus the analysis of the GPS-based acceleration computation in this frequency range. As a preliminary result, we show that in some particular cases, differential GPS can offer almost the same accuracy as RTK GPS, a commonly used approach for acceleration determination in airborne gravity survey.