114 - Geodesy-enabled applications

114 - Geodesy-enabled applications

DESCRIPTION

Positioning and Navigation applications depend very heavily on the definition of a reference frame where the products are defined. In particular, GPS uses WGS-84 and Galileo the Galileo Terrestrial Reference Frame (GTRF), which are both "steered" to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF).

The steering is performed by comparing suitable products and making the reference frames overlap as much as possible, in terms of origin and alignment. This is the way GPS and Galileo, and other navigation systems, can be interoperable. The national reference coordinate systems, used for example for cadastral data, are formally different and aligned as well to ITRF in some way.

Other digital models, like Digital Elevation Models and Building Information Systems are defined in, possibly different, arbitrary reference frames.

Despite the alignment of the references is good (cm level), a further improvement would allow to push existing applications (mainly in the scientific domain) to their limits and would enable new applications, for the benefit of the economy, the society and its citizens.

The objective of this activity is to study the benefits for the non-scientific applications originated by improving the ITRF and the accuracy of Precise Orbit Determination (POD), stemming from GENESIS (and other geodetic techniques). 

The current reference frames are aligned relatively well, but a further improvement of the alignment would help existing scientific applications and would probably create new applications. Whereas the benefit for the scientific applications has been described in the motivations behind the creation of the ESA Genesis program and other similar initiative, the benefit for industrial, professional and possibly commercial applications is less direct and more subtle. Straightforward benefits (e.g. increase of ultimate product accuracy) are expected directly from better alignment, but other benefits can be more indirect (like increase of accuracy of augmentation products caused by the increase of accuracy of satellites POD). A dedicated study is considered necessary to understand better the impact, with the objective to focus on the most promising applications

The tasks to be performed shall include:

  • Review of the state of the art in reference frames used in Positioning and Navigation (definition, mutual relationship and maintenance)
  • Analysis of the trends and identification of the gaps that are considered important to fill in the industrial and professional applications
  • Identification of the industrial actors and possible activities outlines

 

The main outputs of the activity will consist of:
 

  • Final report demonstrating and justifying the potential applications benefitting from improvements in reference frames performance, identification of industrial players, and description of potential activities.