Introduction to Gravity Field

Newtonian attractive field. Earth gravity field and its components. Local and geocentric reference system. Gravity anomalies and reduction. Height systems. Spherical harmonics and geopotential models. The geoid. Geoid approximations with terrestrial and satellite data. Levelling with geoid heights and GPS heights.

Objectives

Introduction to the fundamental parameters of Earth’s gravity field, gravitational potential and anomalous parameters. Basic methodologies to approximate and estimate parameters related to the Earth’s gravity field and the geoid with applications of stochastic and spectral techniques. Applications to everyday surveying engineering practice through the combination of geoid heights with leveling and GPS heights.

Prerequisites

Βασικός λογισμός, άλγεβρα και φυσική.

Syllabus

1. Course 1 – Introduction to the course. Satellite geodesy and gravity field modelling 2. Course 2 – Measurement devices (gravity-meters), units, Newtonian gravitation field and gravity reference systems 3. Course 3 – Height systems in gravity field 4. Course 4 – Disturbing functionals of the Earth’s gravity field. Covariance functions and Least Squares Collocation 5. Course 5 – Gravity reductions and digital terrain models 6. Course 6 – Boundary value problems in physical geodesy & spherical harmonics expansion of the Earth’s potential 7. Course 7 – Spherical harmonic functions and global geopotential models 8. Course 8 – Geoid and its approximation 9. Course 9 - Stochastic and spectral methods in gravity field modeling 10. Course 10 – Practical implementation and applications of least squares collocation and FFT in geoid modeling