GNSS Applications in Airborne and Seaborne Sea Surface Height Measurements

Philippe Limpach, Alain Geiger, and Hans-Gert Kahle

Abstract:	Enhanced ground-based methods for precise sea surface height (SSH) measurements have been developed, in order to contribute to the improvement of sea level monitoring and provide local-scale information on the short-wave structure of the marine gravity field. These methods include airborne laser altimetry, seaborne ultrasound altimetry, seaborne multi-antenna GPS measurements and GPS-buoys. For accurate SSH determination, high-precise knowledge of position and attitude of the survey-aircraft or ship are needed. In this paper, the approach for attitude determination using multi-antenna GPS measurements is presented. The excellent performance of GPS-only attitude determination is demonstrated by comparing the solutions to the data of a coupled GPS/INS platform operated simultaneously aboard the aircraft. SSH results from airborne laser altimetry and seaborne measurements in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea are presented. Furthermore, the application of GPS-buoys to measure ocean-tide effects produced very promising results, as is shown by comparing them to onshore pressure tide-gauge data.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007) September 25 - 28, 2007 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	2163 - 2168
Cite this article:	Limpach, Philippe, Geiger, Alain, Kahle, Hans-Gert, "GNSS Applications in Airborne and Seaborne Sea Surface Height Measurements," Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007), Fort Worth, TX, September 2007, pp. 2163-2168.
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