A comparison and analysis of airborne gravimetry results from two strapdown inertial/DGPS systems

In September 1996 the University of Calgary tested a combination of strapdown inertial navigation systems and differential global positioning system (DGPS) receivers for their suitability to determine gravity at aircraft flying altitudes. The purpose of this test was to investigate the long-term accuracy and repeatability of the system, as well as its potential for geoid and vertical gradient of gravity determination. The test took place during a 3-day period in the Canadian Rocky Mountains over a single 100 × 100 km area which was flown with 10-km line spacing. Two flights were done at 4350 m in E–W and N–S profile directions, respectively, and one at 7300 m with E–W profiles. Two strapdown inertial systems, the Honeywell LASEREF III and the Litton-101 Flagship, were flown side by side. Comparison of the system estimates with an upward-continued reference showed root-mean-square (RMS) agreement at the level of 3.5 mGal for 90- and 120-s filter lengths. The LASEREF III, however, performed significantly better than the Litton 101 for shorter filtering periods of 30 and 60 s. A comparison between the two systems results in an RMS agreement of 2.8 and 2.3 mGal for the 90- and 120-s filters. The better agreement between the two systems is mainly due to the fact that the upward-continued reference has not been filtered identically to the system gravity disturbance estimates. Additional low-frequency differences seem to point to an error in the upward-continued reference. Finally, an analysis of crossover points between flight days for the LASEREF III shows a standard deviation of 1.6 mGal, which is near the noise level of the INS and GPS data. Further improvements to the system are possible, and some ideas for future work are briefly presented. Received: 17 March 1998 / Accepted: 1 February 1999     

A comparison of stable platform and strapdown airborne gravity

To date, operational airborne gravity results have been obtained using either a damped two-axis stable platform gravimeter system such as the LaCoste and Romberg (LCR) S-model marine gravimeter or a strapdown inertial navigation system (INS), showing comparable accuracies. In June 1998 three flight tests were undertaken which tested an LCR gravimeter and a strapdown INS gravity system side by side. To the authors' knowledge, this was the first time such a comparison flight was undertaken. The flights occurred in Disko Bay, off the west coast of Greenland. Several of the flight lines were partly flown along existing shipborne gravity profiles to allow for an independent source of comparison of the results. The results and analysis of these flight tests are presented. The measurement method and error models for both the stable platform and strapdown INS gravity systems are presented and contrasted. An intercomparison of gravity estimates from both systems is given, along with a comparison of the individual estimates with existing shipborne gravity profiles. The results of the flight tests show that the gravity estimates from the two systems agree at the 2–3 mGal level, after the removal of a linear bias. This is near the combined noise level of the two systems. It appears that a combination of both systems would provide an ideal airborne gravity survey system, combining the excellent bias stability of the LCR gravimeter with the higher dynamic range and increased spatial resolution of the strapdown INS. Received: 3 June 1999 / Accepted: 30 November 1999     

New results in airborne vector gravimetry using strapdown INS/DGPS

A method for airborne vector gravimetry has been developed. The method is based on developing the error dynamics equations of the INS in the inertial frame where the INS system errors are estimated in a wave estimator using inertial GPS position as update. Then using the error-corrected INS acceleration and the GPS acceleration in the inertial frame, the gravity disturbance vector is extracted. In the paper, the focus is on the improvement of accuracy for the horizontal components of the airborne gravity vector. This is achieved by using a decoupled model in the wave estimator and decorrelating the gravity disturbance from the INS system errors through the estimation process. The results of this method on the real strapdown INS/DGPS data are promising. The internal accuracy of the horizontal components of the estimated gravity disturbance for repeated airborne lines is comparable with the accuracy of the down component and is about 4–8 mGal. Better accuracy (2–4 mGal) is achieved after applying a wave-number correlation filter (WCF) to the parallel lines of the estimated airborne gravity disturbances.     

Downward continuation and geoid determination based on band-limited airborne gravity data

 The downward continuation of the harmonic disturbing gravity potential, derived at flight level from discrete observations of airborne gravity by the spherical Hotine integral, to the geoid is discussed. The initial-boundary-value approach, based on both the direct and inverse solution to Dirichlet's problem of potential theory, is used. Evaluation of the discretized Fredholm integral equation of the first kind and its inverse is numerically tested using synthetic airborne gravity data. Characteristics of the synthetic gravity data correspond to typical airborne data used for geoid determination today and in the foreseeable future: discrete gravity observations at a mean flight height of 2 to 6 km above mean sea level with minimum spatial resolution of 2.5 arcmin and a noise level of 1.5 mGal. Numerical results for both approaches are presented and discussed. The direct approach can successfully be used for the downward continuation of airborne potential without any numerical instabilities associated with the inverse approach. In addition to these two-step approaches, a one-step procedure is also discussed. This procedure is based on a direct relationship between gravity disturbances at flight level and the disturbing gravity potential at sea level. This procedure provided the best results in terms of accuracy, stability and numerical efficiency. As a general result, numerically stable downward continuation of airborne gravity data can be seen as another advantage of airborne gravimetry in the field of geoid determination. Received: 6 June 2001 / Accepted: 3 January 2002     

测线稳定距离对航空重力测量的影响

航空重力测量中测线的长度的往往要长于测量区域,测线长出测量区域的长度就是留给航空重力仪必要的稳定距离。以2011年某地区的实际测量数据为例介绍了稳定距离对航空重力测量的精度的影响,数据处理结果表明,在平稳的气象条件下稳定距离不够则其交叉点重力异常不符值抗差后可以达到±12.0648mGal,交叉点重力异常不符值均值可以达到±16.9091mGal。     

国产零长弹簧原理动态重力仪首次飞行试验及精度评估

CHZ-Ⅱ重力仪是首套完全国产零长弹簧原理航空重力仪,2018年4月在陕西渭南地区进行了首次飞行试验,共完成4个架次24条测线的有效飞行,标志着我国航空重力仪在自主研发的道路上又取得了长足的进步。利用飞行地区地面重力数据对CHZ-Ⅱ重力仪的测线扰动重力和格网扰动重力数据进行精度评估,其中空中测线在10 km分辨率条件下,精度达到1 mGal。采用地形辅助法对测量形成的5'测格网重力数据进行向下延拓,经延拓至地面后精度优于5 mGal,基本满足平原地区的测量需求。     

利用空中平均重力异常确定区域大地水准面

提出了直接利用空中平均重力异常计算区域大地水准面的方法。模拟计算的结果表明, 该方法与传统的利用地面平均空间重力异常确定的大地水准面精度相当, 但其显著优点是勿需空中重力异常的向下解析延拓, 从而可以避免延拓误差对大地水准面精化的影响。     

A new approach for airborne vector gravimetry using GPS/INS

A new method for airborne vector gravimetry using GPS/INS has been developed and the results are presented. The new algorithm uses kinematic accelerations as updates instead of positions or velocities, and all calculations are performed in the inertial frame. Therefore, it is conceptually simpler, easier, more straightforward and computationally less expensive compared to the traditional approach in which the complex navigation equations should be integrated. Moreover, it is a unified approach for determining all three vector components, and no stochastic gravity modeling is required. This approach is based on analyzing the residuals from the Kalman filter of sensor errors, and further processing with wavenumber coefficient filterings is applied in case closely parallel tracks of data are available. An application to actual test-flight data is performed to test the validity of the new algorithm. The results yield an accuracy in the down component of about 3–4 mGal. Also, comparable results are obtained for the horizontal components with accuracies of about 6 mGal. The gravity modeling issue is discussed and alternative methods are presented, none of which improves on the original approach. Received: 18 April 2000 / Accepted: 14 August 2000     

单站GPS确定航空重力测量载体运动加速度的方法与结果分析

飞机运动加速度的测量精度是制约航空重力测量技术发展的主要障碍之一。相较于传统动态差分GPS（differential GPS,DGPS）技术,所提方法采用单站测量模式,无需布设地面基准站。首先通过相位历元间差分解得高精度历元间位移序列,然后结合泰勒一阶中心差分获得载体加速度,重点分析了卫星轨道和卫星钟差对加速度估计的影响,结果表明,不同卫星轨道产品对加速度估计影响较小,而卫星钟差采样率对加速度估计的影响很大。结合中国陕西省境内的GT-2A航空重力测量系统飞行实测数据,利用单站法解算的加速度联合重力和姿态数据解算重力扰动结果与DGPS解算的重力扰动符合较好,当滤波长度为100 s时,两者互差优于1.0 mGal。重力扰动交叉点不符值网平差后,均方根（root mean square,RMS）为1.13 mGal。与地面重力实测值比较的结果表明,所提方法与DGPS方法在精度上基本一致,说明单站法标量航空重力测量是可行的。     

航空重力测量的滤波处理及最佳波长分辨率的探讨

根据航空重力测量的数据性质，对其滤波处理中最佳滤长分辨率的确定，提出了一种采用静态飞行数据进行检测的方法－即利用静态飞行数据处理后的重力异常误差平方和最小的原则。并对其在航空重力测量中的必要性做了检验和说明。     

Space-Wise approach for airborne gravity data modelling

Regional gravity field modelling by means of remove-compute-restore procedure is nowadays widely applied in different contexts: it is the most used technique for regional gravimetric geoid determination, and it is also used in exploration geophysics to predict grids of gravity anomalies (Bouguer, free-air, isostatic, etc.), which are useful to understand and map geological structures in a specific region. Considering this last application, due to the required accuracy and resolution, airborne gravity observations are usually adopted. However, due to the relatively high acquisition velocity, presence of atmospheric turbulence, aircraft vibration, instrumental drift, etc., airborne data are usually contaminated by a very high observation error. For this reason, a proper procedure to filter the raw observations in both the low and high frequencies should be applied to recover valuable information. In this work, a software to filter and grid raw airborne observations is presented: the proposed solution consists in a combination of an along-track Wiener filter and a classical Least Squares Collocation technique. Basically, the proposed procedure is an adaptation to airborne gravimetry of the Space-Wise approach, developed by Politecnico di Milano to process data coming from the ESA satellite mission GOCE. Among the main differences with respect to the satellite application of this approach, there is the fact that, while in processing GOCE data the stochastic characteristics of the observation error can be considered a-priori well known, in airborne gravimetry, due to the complex environment in which the observations are acquired, these characteristics are unknown and should be retrieved from the dataset itself. The presented solution is suited for airborne data analysis in order to be able to quickly filter and grid gravity observations in an easy way. Some innovative theoretical aspects focusing in particular on the theoretical covariance modelling are presented too. In the end, the goodness of the procedure is evaluated by means of a test on real data retrieving the gravitational signal with a predicted accuracy of about 0.4 mGal.     

Strapdown INS/DGPS airborne gravimetry tests in the Gulf of Mexico

Combining data from a Strapdown Inertial Navigation System and a Differential Global Positioning System (SINS/DGPS) has shown great promise in estimating gravity on moving platforms. Previous studies on a ground-vehicle system obtained 1–3 mGal precision with 2 km spatial resolution. High-accuracy Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) and cm-level positioning solutions are very important in obtaining mGal-level gravity disturbance estimates. However, these ideal configurations are not always available or achievable. Because the noise level in the SINS/DGPS gravimetric system generally decreases with an increase of speed and altitude of the platform, the stringent constraints on the IMU and GPS may be relieved in the airborne scenario. This paper presents an investigation of one navigation-grade and one tactical-grade IMU for the possibility of low-cost INS/GPS airborne gravimetry. We use the data collected during the Gravity-Lidar Study of 2006 (GLS06), which contains aerogravity, GPS, and INS along the northern coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The gravity disturbance estimates from the navigation-grade IMU show 0.5–3.2 mGal precision compared with the onboard gravimeter’s measurements and better than 3 mGal precision compared with the upward continued surface control data. Due to relatively large (240 s) smoothing window, the results have about 34 km along-track resolution. But the gravity estimates from the tactical-grade IMU have much poorer precisions. Nonetheless, useful contributions from the tactical-grade IMU could be extracted for longer wavelengths.     

航空重力向上延拓的外部精度评估

分别采用基于梯度、基于泊松积分和基于快速傅里叶变换（FFT）的地面重力向上延拓方案,并提出交叉检验方法估计地面重力数据误差及其空中误差传播,对毛乌素测区GT-2A航空重力测量系统采集的空中测线数据进行外符合精度评价。对比结果表明：地面重力格网插值误差和代表性误差对空中点的影响达到0.66~0.92 mGal（1 Gal=1×10^-2 m/s²）,航空重力数据误差估计必须扣除这一影响;基于泊松积分和基于FFT的地面重力向上延拓方法能够客观评价航空重力观测值的外符合精度,二者表现相当;扣除地面重力误差影响后,在包含残余边界效应的情况下,毛乌素测区GT-2A航空重力空中测线重力扰动的外符合精度优于1.42 mGal。     

Deriving Acceleration from DGPS: Toward Higher Resolution Applications of Airborne Gravimetry

Although airborne gravimetry is now considered a fully operational technique, errors due to motion compensation using differential GPS (DGPS) continue to influence both its accuracy and the range of applications in which it can be used. In typical medium-resolution applications such as airborne geoid mapping, errors due to DGPS contribute considerably to the error budget of an airborne gravity system. At the same time, efforts to increase the resolution of such systems for demanding applications such as resource exploration remain impedded by errors in DGPS. This article has three objectives. The first one is to compare eight industrially relevant DGPS software packages for the determination of aircraft acceleration. The second objective is to analyze and quantify the effect that each relevant portion of the DGPS error budget has on the determination of acceleration. Using data sets that represent a wide range of operational conditions, this is done in the frequency domain over a range of frequencies corresponding to spatial resolution as high as 450 m. The third objective is to use that information to recommend and demonstrate approaches that optimize the estimation of aircraft acceleration for determining the geoid and for resource exploration. It is shown, for example, that the time of day in which the survey is carried out and the dynamic characteristics of the aircraft being used are two of the most crucial parameters for very high-resolution gravity field estimation. It is demonstrated that when following the above-mentioned recommendations, agreements with ground daa of better than 1.5 and 2.5 mGal can be achieved for spatial resolutions (half-wavelengths) of 2.0 and 1.4 km, respectively. ? 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Calculation and Spectra Analysis of Horizontal Acceleration Correction （HACC） for Airborne Gravimetry

On the basis of a sinusoidal model of the disturbed horizontal acceleration, the spectrum characteristics of misaligned angle and horizontal acceleration correction are analyzed. In an airborne gravimetry test,the misaligned angle of platform and horizontal acceleration correction are calculated. They are 5‘ and 3 mGal,respectively, when the flight is stable.     

Calculation and spectra analysis of horizontal acceleration correction (HACC) for airborne gravimetry

On the basis of a sinusoidal model of the disturbed horizontal acceleration, the spectrum characteristics of misaligned angle and horizontal acceleration correction are analyzed. In an airborne gravimetry test, the misaligned angle of platform and horizontal acceleration correction are calculated. They are 5′ and 3 mGal, respectively, when the flight is stable.     

航空重力测量数据向下延拓的改进Poisson积分迭代法

目前,航空重力测量是快速获取陆地和近海区域高精度、高分辨率重力场信息的非常有效的技术手段,向下延拓则是其数据处理中的关键环节,直接影响到测量结果的进一步应用。本文在对传统最小二乘法、改进最小二乘法、Tikhonov正则化法等延拓模型进行数值分析的基础上,根据调和函数的基本特性,提出并建立了Poisson积分迭代法和改进Poisson积分迭代法延拓模型。实测航空和地面重力测量数据的试验结果表明,本文新建的Poisson积分迭代法和改进Poisson积分迭代法延拓模型精度相当,比传统最小二乘法延拓模型精度提高了15.26 mGal,比改进最小二乘法延拓模型精度提高了0.21 mGal,比Tikhonov正则化法延拓模型精度略低0.13 mGal,从而证明了本文所建模型的正确性和有效性。     

航空重力测量在近海区域的精度评估与分析

利用泊松积分法和点质量法对澳大利亚West Arnhem Land区域的航空重力测量数据进行了精度评估,两种方法得到精度结果基本一致,评估结果表明GT-1A测量系统2′分辨率数据的测量精度优于3×10-5 m/s2,5′分辨率数据的测量精度优于2×10-5 m/s2。利用交叉点平差和泊松积分法、点质量法对渤海区域的航空重力测量进行了内部交叉点平差和外部精度评估,结果表明,内部评估精度与外部评估精度存在一定的差异,以外部评估为准则,CHAGS测量系统在渤海区域5′分辨率的航空重力数据精度优于3.5×10-5 m/s2。综合国内外试验情况分析得到,在近海区域,航空重力数据的分辨率和精度受测量仪器的性能而不同,整体上对于5′分辨率数据而言,可以达到或优于3×10-5 m/s2的精度。     

Local geoid determination from airborne vector gravimetry

Methods are illustrated to compute the local geoid using the vertical and horizontal components of the gravity disturbance vector derived from an airborne GPS/inertial navigation system. The data were collected by the University of Calgary in a test area of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and consist of multiple parallel tracks and two crossing tracks of accelerometer and gyro measurements, as well as precise GPS positions. Both the boundary-value problem approach (Hotines integral) and the profiling approach (line integral) were applied to compute the disturbing potential at flight altitude. Cross-over adjustments with minimal control were investigated and utilized to remove error biases and trends in the estimated gravity disturbance components. Final estimation of the geoid from the vertical gravity disturbance included downward continuation of the disturbing potential with correction for intervening terrain masses. A comparison of geoid estimates to the Canadian Geoid 2000 (CGG2000) yielded an average standard deviation per track of 14 cm if they were derived from the vertical gravity disturbance (minimally controlled with a cross-over adjustment), and 10 cm if derived from the horizontal components (minimally controlled in part with a simulated cross-over adjustment). Downward continuation improved the estimates slightly by decreasing the average standard deviation by about 0.5 cm. The application of a wave correlation filter to both types of geoid estimates yielded significant improvement by decreasing the average standard deviation per track to 7.6 cm.     

Confirming regional 1 cm differential geoid accuracy from airborne gravimetry: the Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2011

A terrestrial survey, called the Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2011 (GSVS11), encompassing leveling, GPS, astrogeodetic deflections of the vertical (DOV) and surface gravity was performed in the United States. The general purpose of that survey was to evaluate the current accuracy of gravimetric geoid models, and also to determine the impact of introducing new airborne gravity data from the ‘Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum’ (GRAV-D) project. More specifically, the GSVS11 survey was performed to determine whether or not the GRAV-D airborne gravimetry, flown at 11 km altitude, can reduce differential geoid error to below 1 cm in a low, flat gravimetrically uncomplicated region. GSVS11 comprises a 325 km traverse from Austin to Rockport in Southern Texas, and includes 218 GPS stations ( $\sigma _{\Delta h }= 0.4$ cm over any distance from 0.4 to 325 km) co-located with first-order spirit leveled orthometric heights ( $\sigma _{\Delta H }= 1.3$ cm end-to-end), including new surface gravimetry, and 216 astronomically determined vertical deflections $(\sigma _{\mathrm{DOV}}= 0.1^{\prime \prime })$ . The terrestrial survey data were compared in various ways to specific geoid models, including analysis of RMS residuals between all pairs of points on the line, direct comparison of DOVs to geoid slopes, and a harmonic analysis of the differences between the terrestrial data and various geoid models. These comparisons of the terrestrial survey data with specific geoid models showed conclusively that, in this type of region (low, flat) the geoid models computed using existing terrestrial gravity, combined with digital elevation models (DEMs) and GRACE and GOCE data, differential geoid accuracy of 1 to 3 cm (1 $\sigma )$ over distances from 0.4 to 325 km were currently being achieved. However, the addition of a contemporaneous airborne gravity data set, flown at 11 km altitude, brought the estimated differential geoid accuracy down to 1 cm over nearly all distances from 0.4 to 325 km.