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Satellite emission radio interferometric earth surveying series—GPS geodetic system

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Abstract

The satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) offer an important new geodetic resource making possible a highly accurate portable radio geodetic system. A concept called SERIES (Satellite Emission Radio Interferometric Earth Surveying) makes use of GPS radio transmissions without any satellite modifications. By employing the technique of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) and its calibration methods, 0.5 to 3 cm three dimensional baseline accuracy can be achieved over distances of 2 to 200 km respectively, with only 2 hours of on-site data acquisition. The use of quasar referenced ARIES Mobile VLBI to establish a sparse fundamental control grid will provide a basis for making SERIES GPS measurements traceable to the time-invariant quasar directions. Using four SERIES stations deployed at previously established ARIES sites, allows the GPS satellite apparent positions to be determined. These apparent positions then serve as calibrations for other SERIES stations at unknown locations to determine their positions in a manner traceable to the quasars. Because this proposed radio interferometric configuration accomplishes its signal detection by cross-correlation, there is no dependence upon knowledge of the GPS transmitted waveforms which might be encrypted. Since GPS radio signal strengths are 105 stronger than quasar signals, a great reduction in telecommunications sophistication is possible which will result in an order of magnitude less cost for a SERIES GPS station compared to a quasar based mobile VLBI system. The virtually all-weather capability of SERIES offers cost-effective geodetic monitoring with applications to crustal dynamics and earthquake research.

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  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 91103, Pasadena, California, USA

    Peter F. MacDoran

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MacDoran, P.F. Satellite emission radio interferometric earth surveying series—GPS geodetic system. Bull. Geodesique 53, 117–138 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02521085

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