Jānis Balodis

Development of the One Centimeter Accuracy Geoid Model of Latvia for GNSS Measurements

There is an urgent necessity for a highly accurate and reliable geoid model to enable prompt determination of normal height with the use of GNSS coordinate determination due to the high precision requirements in geodesy, building and high precision road construction development. Additionally, the Latvian height system is in the process of transition from BAS- 77 (Baltic Height System) to EVRS2007 system. The accuracy of the geoid model must approach the precision of about ~1 cm looking forward to the Baltic Rail and other big projects. The use of all the available and verified data sources is planned, including the use of enlarged set of GNSS/levelling data, gravimetric measurement data and, additionally, the vertical deflection measurements over the territory of Latvia. The work is going ahead stepwise. Just the issue of GNSS reference network stability is discussed. In order to achieve the ~1 cm precision geoid, it is required to have a homogeneous high precision GNSS network as a basis for ellipsoidal height determination for GNSS/levelling points. Both the LatPos and EUPOS® - Riga network have been examined in this article.

Parameters for automated star identification

The determination of parameters for identifying stars sensed by charge-coupled device (CCD) is discussed. Numerical experiments are summarized which support the parameter space bound estimation practicality of the proposed star pattern recognition and identification by matching with coordinate list in star catalogue. The parameter analysis performed to apply them for proper identification algorithm which is developed and used at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics. This algorithm is applied for identification of large volume star sets.

Application of metal coatings for functionalization of technical fibers and fabrics

The metal coatings in combination with sonochemical and leaching processes are used for nanostructuring and functionalization of glass, flax and hemp fabrics. The leaching is used for nanostructuring sodium alumosilicate K-glass fabrics to obtained silica like fibre with nanoporous structure on surface and in volume. The natural fibres as well as fabrics themselves are porous media. The porous media adsorbs water and content of moisture in fabrics have to be controlled. The metal-coated fabric characterization is an actual problem. Application of metal coatings for the functionalization of technical fibres and fabrics faced with influence of moisture on functional properties, e.g., the impedance of the metal coated K-glass and flax and hemp fabrics have strong dependence of content absorbed water or moisture. Presented studies are on the moisture content determination methodology based on fhermogravimetric analyses and impedance spectroscopy. The leached K-glass fibres have three absorption sites with different kinetic and desorption heat. The flax has more complicated distribution of sorption/desorption sites. The water desorption heatl,3 kJ/g for both type of fabrics in temperature range 30–150 0C is comparable to the water evaporation heat 2,3 kJ/g at 100 0C. For leached K-glass fibre from the isothermal nitrogen sorption/desorption plot the pore volume is up to 7.5 cm3/g. and pore sizes are in range 2-100 nm.

Software development and its description for Geoid determination based on Spherical-Cap-Harmonics Modelling using digital-zenith camera and gravimetric measurements hybrid data

Over several years the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics (GGI) was engaged in the design and development of a digital zenith camera. At the moment the camera developments are finished and tests by field measurements are done. In order to check these data and to use them for geoid model determination DFHRS (Digital Finite element Height reference surface (HRS)) v4.3. software is used. It is based on parametric modelling of the HRS as a continous polynomial surface. The HRS, providing the local Geoid height N, is a necessary geodetic infrastructure for a GNSS-based determination of physcial heights H from ellipsoidal GNSS heights h, by H=h-N. The research and this publication is dealing with the inclusion of the data of observed vertical deflections from digital zenith camera into the mathematical model of the DFHRS approach and software v4.3. A first target was to test out and validate the mathematical model and software, using additionally real data of the above mentioned zenith camera observations of deflections of the vertical. A second concern of the research was to analyze the results and the improvement of the Latvian quasi-geoid computation compared to the previous version HRS computed without zenith camera based deflections of the vertical. The further development of the mathematical model and software concerns the use of spherical-cap-harmonics as the designed carrier function for the DFHRS v.5. It enables - in the sense of the strict integrated geodesy approach, holding also for geodetic network adjustment - both a full gravity field and a geoid and quasi-geoid determination. In addition, it allows the inclusion of gravimetric measurements, together with deflections of the vertical from digital-zenith cameras, and all other types of observations. The theoretical description of the updated version of DFHRS software and methods are discussed in this publication.