NATIONAL REPORT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF ... - IAG Office

Permanent GNSS Networks, including SAPOS
Contributions to Global and Regional Networks
During the past four years the German research institutes
mainly consolidated their contributions to the network of
continuously recording permanent stations. The Geo-
ForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) extended its High-
Rate/Low-Latency (HR/LL) GPS ground tracking network
established jointly by GFZ and JPL to ensure adequate
ground data availability for CHAMP and GRACE satellite
missions to 15 stations. New real time stations are planned
and partly installed within the South East Asia-Indian
Ocean region as part of the Tsunami Warning System
GITEWS. The large-scale network SAGA for geodynamics
in the Southern and Central Andes was extended and
densified with new continuous sites and epoch stations with
an anticipated resolution of 50 km in seismic gap regions.
The Federal Agency of Cartography and Geodesy (BKG)
upgraded part of its IGS and EUREF sites and installed a
continuous local monitoring network for the TIGO fundamental
station in Conception, Chile.
Several Universities participated in international research
and programmes which included the installation of new
permanent GPS stations. Technical University (TU)
Dresden was active in the Arctic Peninsula region. TU
Karlsruhe focussed on Brazil, the Vranca deformation zone
in Romania and the Upper Rhine Graben in Germany. TU
Darmstadt installed one permanent site in cooperation with
the University of Bucharest in Oradea, Romania as part of
the Central European Geodynamic Reference Network
CEGRN.
GNSS Data Centre
GNSS Data Centres are mandatory today in order to
exchange all kinds of observations, meta-data and analysis
results between analysis centres and product users. BKG
operates for this purpose a GPS/GLONASS data centre for
the European region and holds data from IGS, EUREF and
national permanent GNSS projects. The data base system
has been completely renewed in 2005 by replacement of
the hard- and software. The new system provides now disk
capability to hold all data online since the beginning of the
IGS in 1992. For this purpose a comprehensive “reloading
campaign“ was started in December 2005 in order to make
files available in a uniform manner that were stored on the
most different archiving media. The old data will be needed
G. WEBER 1 , M. BECKER 2 , J. IHDE 1
1 Georg Weber / Johannes Ihde: Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG), Richard Strauss Allee 11, D - 60598 Frankfurt
a.M., Germany, Tel. +49 - 69 - 6333 -391/ -206, Fax +49 - 69 - 6333 -425, e-mail georg.weber@bkg.bund.de / johannes.ihde@bkg.bund.de
2 Matthias Becker, TU Darmstadt, Institut für Physikalische Geodäsie, Petersenstrasse 13, D - 64287 Darmstadt, Germany, Tel. +49 -
6151 - 163109, Fax +49 - 6151 - 164512, e-mail becker@ipg.tu-darmstadt.de
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for projected “re-processings“ through IGS and other
projects.
The new software design applies now an SQL data base to
hold all meta-data. That enables to built dynamic websites
as requested by the users. Extended browse and search
functionality allow comfortable inquiries to fulfil user
requests. This new system had been launched and switched
online in July 2005.
NTRIP
The transmission format NTRIP was standardized in
September 2004 at international level by the "Special
Committee 104" of the "Radio Technical Commission for
Maritime Services" (RTCM SC-104)”. An extension of the
format to Version 2.0 is presently under development. For
the aim of providing GNSS real-time data at the widestpossible
global range, it is essential to support a broad
palette of different approaches to communication and data
transfer based on the flexible internet protocol. For precise
assessment of detailed requirements, several components
were implemented for testing purposes.
From 6 to 8 February 2006 an NTRIP Symposium took
place at the “Literaturhaus Frankfurt“. This event was
attended by 130 participants from 30 nations. More than
20 talks informed about the fundamentals of communications
technology, real-time GNSS networks, current and
future application of NTRIP data as well as the up-to-date
development status of NTRIP in the 2.0 Version. The
presentation concluded with a workshop on the operating
mode and application of the NTRIP software developed by
BKG.
Since 2006 the additional NTRIP Broadcaster www.igsip.net.
as a supplement to the previous Broadcaster www.
euref-ip.net is under operation. Real-time data streams from
IGS stations are offered on the newly established Broadcaster
as well as from other stations outside Europe.
Capacities on the previous NTRIP-Caster are released
through this measure, which can be used for the provision
of real-time data of new EPN stations. Through both casters
about 150 real-time data streams are presently available in
different data formats.