Error Analysis for Marine Geodetic Control Using the Global Positioning System

摘要

The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides a new capability for establishing marine control for moored ocean bottom transponders that support precise navigation of ships, instrument packages, and submersibles. Autonomous remotely deployed marine platforms ranging to GPS satellites, which can simultaneously be triggered to measure acoustical ranges to a transponder network, can be used to establish geodetic control for the transponder array. The technique takes advantage of a dynamically changing double pyramid which is formed between GPS satellites and the transponder array linked observationally by the remote platform. An error analysis is presented for an operational scenario where marine control is established in a deep ocean area. Several designs for this experiment are considered including the effect of constraint conditions. The results indicate that the establishment of precise ocean bottom control is obtainable using the GPS system with this approach.