In the study of deformations of man-made constructions or in geodynamics one usually needs to carefully monitor fixed objects attached to the deformable body. The purpose is to use precise observations to build up an accurate, reliable and possibly low-cost network around the objects to study their motion in short- or long-time intervals and to estimate the possible displacements or deformations among those objects. Frequently, such studies are performed to prevent unwanted disasters (e.g. due to earthquakes and landslides as well as the progressive or abrupt destruction of large-scale structures). This study is concerned with designing an optimal GNSS network to monitor possible deformations of a geodetic network.
By considering GNSS observations one can perform the optimization according to some pre-defined criteria and come up with the best location of receivers and optimum number of baselines. In practice, it is quite common to neglect the effect of correlations between baselines, and instead use single-baseline adjusted data in the optimisation procedure. However, in each session of observation usually more than two receivers are simultaneously taking data from a number of common GNSS satellites. This procedure inevitably leads to between-baseline correlations. Our study designs an optimal observation plan for a GNSS monitoring network with the aim of determining possible displacements and deformations. The developed methodology will be tested on a simulated network with five points, where three receivers simultaneously take data from four satellites.
QC 20180611