Positioning With GPS: 1985

Abstract

The First International Symposium on Precise Positioning With the Global Positioning System (GPS) was held in Rockville, Maryland from April 15 to April 19, 1985; 600 participants from 31 countries attended. Sponsors included the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the International Association of Geodesy, the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in cooperation with the American Society of Civil Engineers. GPS uses the NAVSTAR (an acronym for Navigation and Satellite Timing and Ranging) satellite system developed by the Department of Defense (DOD).Although this symposium was limited to precise positioning with GPS, the scope of precise positioning was left open. Without a doubt, precise relative positioning with L band carrier phase measurements was the most important topic. Also included were certain high‐accuracy applications of pseudorange measurements, such as orbit determination, time transfer, and navigation. Administration, policy, hardware, software, processing, and applications in these areas were also covered. Intentionally left out were areas in which high positional accuracy was not important (e.g., commercial aviation). Attendees presented 89 papers, which were organized into 15 sessions covering nine subject areas: overview, status, and policy; GPS time and orbits; user equipment; user equipment testing; modeling and processing; applications; survey positioning results; practical aspects of geodesy; and dynamic positioning.