Development of an Operational RTK GPS-Equipped Buoy for Water Level Recovery

S. Bisnath, D. Wells, S. Howden, D. Dodd, D. Wiesenburg, G. Stone

Abstract:	In recent years, GPS receivers have been placed on buoys to determine sea surface height. The development over the past decade of commercial, carrier phase, differential, kinematic GPS, specifically RTK GPS, has meant that near-shore buoys equipped with RTK GPS can potentially be used to accurately measure water level height above the GPS WGS84 reference ellipsoid at the few centimeter-level. A number of experiments have been successfully carried out to test this idea. These demonstrations are briefly reviewed in this paper. The ultimate goals of the experiments and other potential purposes can be divided into either determination of instantaneous water level or determination of mean water level. The U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) has become interested in this application for tides work and has sponsored a series of GPS buoy experiments in Mississippi coastal waters. The primary goal of the experiments was the determination of mean water level with GPS using the WGS84 reference ellipsoid as a tidal benchmark. The University of Southern Mississippi Hydrographic Science Research Center (USM HSRC) has been involved in these projects and has provided buoy operation design support and data analysis services. Analysis of the RTK GPS data, the bulk of this paper, indicates that the filtered GPS heights agree with local tide gauge measurements at the sub-10 cm level (95%) - exceeding published requirements. Also of importance to NAVOCEANO is the determination of the minimum buoy sensor configuration (aside from GPS) using commercial off-the--shelf (COTS) components required to accomplish this measurement, and to evaluate RTK GPS performance over time and distance to support the design of an operation GPS buoy.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS/GNSS 2003) September 9 - 12, 2003 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR
Pages:	59 - 66
Cite this article:	Bisnath, S., Wells, D., Howden, S., Dodd, D., Wiesenburg, D., Stone, G., "Development of an Operational RTK GPS-Equipped Buoy for Water Level Recovery," Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS/GNSS 2003), Portland, OR, September 2003, pp. 59-66.
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