Rhumb Line On A Spheroidal Surface

David Y. Hsu

Abstract:	Analytical results about rhumb line (i.e. constant heading trajectory) on a spherical surface x2 + y2 + z2 = c2 are well known to the navigation community. In fact rhumb lines are typical mission segments for many ma- rine applications. The earth geoid is, however, better approximated by a spheroid where the equatorial radius (a) and the polar radius (b) differ, x2 + y2 22 1 a2 +F= with a > b. Rhumb lines on such surface have not been studied extensively. The purpose of this paper is to show how to obtain the analytical closed form expression of a rhumb line on a spheroidal surface, using a special relationship among the geodetic latitude, geocentric latitude and the lesser known eccentric latitude.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1997) June 30 - 2, 1997 Albuquerque, NM
Pages:	245 - 251
Cite this article:	Hsu, David Y., "Rhumb Line On A Spheroidal Surface," Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1997), Albuquerque, NM, June 1997, pp. 245-251.
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