VUGTK
The Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography (VÚGTK) is a public research institution of the
Czech Office of Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (ČÚZK) in the Czech Republic. The Institute was founded in 1954.
It consists of four research departments:
• Department of GIS and Cadastre of Real Estates;
• Department of Metrology and Engineering Surveying with Accredited Calibration Laboratory;
• Department of Geodesy and Geodynamics with Geodetic Observatory Pecný (GOP);
• Department of Surveying Library® and Information Centre (ODIS).
In the area of GIS and Cadastre the institute is solving problems of renewal of cadastral documentations by new mapping and creation of digital cadastral maps. This is done by MicroGEOS software system developed by VÚGTK and used by state mapping agencies (ČÚZK).
The Institute is involved in fundamental and applied scientific activities in different branches of geodesy, namely Earth’s gravity field, mathematical physics (potential theory), satellite altimetry, gravimetry, precise GNSS and DORIS analyses. In long-term, GOP contributes to several international scientific services and projects of the IAG – IGS (International GNSS Service), EUREF/EPN (European Reference Frame), ICET (International Centre for Earth Tides), BGI (International Gravimetric Bureau), IDS (International DORIS Service), IGFS (International Gravity Field Service).
In GNSS domain, GOP maintains the operational centre for GNSS reference stations of the EUREF (European Reference Frame) and IGS (International GNSS Service) networks and EUREF local data centre and NTRIP broadcaster for disseminating GNSS data files and real-time observation streams, respectively. The GOP operates several GNSS analysis centres for routine estimations of various parameters – receiver coordinates and velocities, delays due to the troposphere, satellite orbits and clocks, Earth Rotation Parameters etc. These all provides a variety of precise products that have been used in scientific communities through many international projects and services: EUREF (since 1997, contribution to reference frame maintenance), IGS (since 2004, provision of precise ultra-rapid orbits), CEGRN (since 1998, contribution to geodynamics studies) and COST 716, TOUGH and E-GVAP (since 2001, troposphere monitoring in support of numerical weather forecasting). The GOP has also been contributing to several projects and working groups of EUREF (reprocessing, multi-GNSS and troposphere) and IGS (real-time, multi-GNSS and troposphere). The GOP is responsible for the official monitoring of the Czech Positioning Service (CZEPOS) and several other commercial permanent GNSS networks on the territory of the Czech Republic and prepares the official Czech GNSS contribution to the EUREF Densification project in support of reference frame realization and European dense velocity field.
The GOP has a long-term experience in high accurate GPS/GNSS analyses in re-processing, ultra-fast and real-time processing modes. Analyses for precise global products (orbit and clock determination), near real- time tropospheric estimates and re-processing analyses were originally performed using the Bernese GNSS software V5.2. In 2011, GOP started to develop its own software package (G-Nut library) aimed at precise multi-GNSS analyses in offline and real-time modes, but still extending to other analyses. This library and several user applications will be exploited in the project such as post- processing, real-time or simulated real-time precise positioning in a static or kinematic mode (G-Nut/Geb), real-time tropospheric and ionospheric delay estimation (G-Nut/Tefnut) and modelling (G-Nut/Shu), precise satellite clock estimation (G-Nut/Sothis), multi-GNSS observation data quality checking (G-Nut/Anubis), assessment of navigation data and precise products (G-Nut/Aset).
The long-term GNSS analysis expertise in high-accuracy applications, the software development and operating GNSS services will be exploited during the scientific analysis in the project WP5.5.
Experience with cadastral work will be used to solve pilot projects and operative procedures in the project WP2, WP4 and WP6.