Publications

In March 2008, a helicopter-borne survey was performed over the Dead Sea Rift area between Aqaba and Jericho. Survey flights were flown using a Sikorsky S76B helicopter operated by the German Federal Agency for Geosciences and Natural Resources. On-board the helicopter four geodetic GPS receivers, two inertial motion systems and a laser scanner system were installed. The main instrument was a GT-1A gravity meter rented from Canadian MicroGravity. On ground two to three geodetic GPS receivers were employed at the airfield and in the survey area. First gravity results were processed from the GT-1A meter using GPS data from an Ashtech Z-Extreme airborne receiver combined with a Thales ground station. Much enhanced GPS data processing was performed using a combination of additional Novatel OEM 4 receivers on ground and on-board the helicopter, inertial navigation system data and IGS stations. The software used for the first processing sequence was a commercial package (Waypoint / Inertial Explorer). A second processing software from GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam is used for comparisons and error estimations. All survey flights were performed in terrain following mode. The topographic gradients in the survey area were often steep, e.g. from 1200 m height over the Jordanian plateau down to 400 m below sea level over the Rift valley. Therefore, special consideration is given to the highly dynamic acceleration data in the gravity, GPS and INS systems.

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Köhler, C.; Heyde, I.; Meyer, U.; Götze, H.-J.; Choi, S.; Xu, G. (2008): DESIRE – Dead Sea Rift Integrated Research Project: Technical approaches and GPS processing results of a helicopter-borne gravity survey over the Dead Sea Rift. IAG International Symposium on Gravity, Geoid and Earth Observation (Chania, Greece 2008).