Error Sources in GPS-Determined Acceleration for Airborne Gravimetry

Keith J. Van Dierendonck, M. Elizabeth Cannon, Ming Wei, Klaus-Peter Schwarz

Abstract:	The development of an airborne gravity-recovery system for oil and mineral exploration uses differential GPS to provide precise aircraft positioning and acceleration as one component of the system. To assess the achievable accuracy of the GPS acceleration, a series of flight tests was performed in the Lake Ontario region. The tests made use of redundant GPS receivers to provide internal checks on the accuracy and an attitudecorrected laser range finder as an independent vertical reference. Within the spectraI range of interest, atmospheric and orbital errors, as well as multipath and noise, affect acceleration accuracy. This paper focuses on the quantification of the errors through processing such as single versus dual frequency carrier phase, and broadcast versus precise orbits. A description of the flight tests is included and acceleration accuracies are presented for various processing modes. Methods for minimization of these errors are also recommended.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 1994 Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	811 - 820
Cite this article:	Van Dierendonck, Keith J., Cannon, M. Elizabeth, Wei, Ming, Schwarz, Klaus-Peter, "Error Sources in GPS-Determined Acceleration for Airborne Gravimetry," Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 1994, pp. 811-820.
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