Future Directions of the National CORS System

Richard A. Snay and Neil D. Weston

Abstract:	The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) continues to enhance the National CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Station) system, thereby improving people's ability to apply Global Positioning System (GPS) data for positioning points with cm-level accuracy throughout the United States and its territories. People also use CORS data to develop geographic information systems, to monitor crustal deformation, to determine the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere, to support remote sensing operations, and to determine the distribution of free electrons in the ionosphere. NGS is steadily increasing the spatial coverage of the National CORS system by adding an average of 3 new sites per month. In June 1999, the system contained 156 sites. In addition, NGS plans to regularly upgrade its user-friendly CORS information server, making CORS data and related information (descriptive text, site positions and velocities, GPS orbits, selected meteorological data, etc.) more readily available via the Internet. Also our agency is: * generating digital models of antenna-phase-center variation, crustal motion, total electron content in the ionosphere, and geoid heights; * supporting research to develop reduced multipath GPS sites; and * investigating the possibility of providing nationwide digital maps of pertinent meteorological data for enabling more rigorous GPS processing. Moreover, NGS will continue to study how enhancements to the CORS system impact positioning accuracy and its relationship with the distance to the nearest CORS and the duration of an observing session.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1999) June 27 - 30, 1999 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	301 - 305
Cite this article:	Snay, Richard A., Weston, Neil D., "Future Directions of the National CORS System," Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1999), Cambridge, MA, June 1999, pp. 301-305.
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