Kaifei He, Tianhe Xu, Christoph Förste, Svetozar Petrovic, Zhenjie Wang, Yumiao Tian & Frank Flechtner
Abstract
A gravity sensor onboard an aircraft always measures the sum of all accelerations acting on the sensor. To separate the accelerations caused by the movement of the aircraft from the gravitational accelerations, the movement, including position, velocity and acceleration of the aircraft, must be measured independently. Nowadays, this is possible using GNSS. Obviously, this means that the kinematic acceleration must be measured or derived from GNSS measurements as accurately as the gravity survey. Compared to the traditional airborne gravimetry, the determination of positions and velocities from GNSS is a big challenge for the special HALO aircraft, which is characterized by high-altitude and long-range flying capability. A strategy of integrated GNSS Doppler velocity determination based on a combination of robust estimation and Helmert's Variance Components Estimation (VCE) is proposed in this study to fulfill the requirements for this aircraft. This strategy is tested by processing GNSS Doppler data recorded onboard the HALO aircraft. The velocity obtained have been applied in the data processing of the GEOHALO airborne gravimetry campaign of 2012. The results show that the proposed strategy improves GNSS Doppler velocity determination accuracy and allows the subtraction of the kinematic vertical accelerations from the GEOHALO airborne gravimetry records.
Cite this article
He, K., Xu, T., Förste, C. et al. Integrated GNSS Doppler velocity determination for GEOHALO airborne gravimetry. GPS Solut 25, 146 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01183-2