Processing kinematic geodetic measurements using Kalman filtering

Contemporary geodetic measurement systems offer possibilities to measure movements and deformations of objects in all details. As such they give the opportunity to fulfil the trends in engineering surveying which intend to determine not only the geometrical changes of an object but above all to describe the kinematic and dynamic of the changes in space and time as subject of influencing forces. On the assumption that the kinematic process is observed with only one measurement system there is no redundancy of the measurements. For evaluation of the unknown system state and its statistics in real time, other methods such as filters have to be used instead of classical geodetic adjustment.The objective of the article is to introduce the Kalman filter as an alternative method for estimation of kinematic geodetic measurements. On the basis of kinematic process simulation the discretized continuous white noise acceleration model is given in detail. The kinematic process is captured with motorized electronic tachymeter, which enables automatic tracking of reflector and measuring. In the numerical example the importance of initial filter parameters definition, with the emphasis on defining the process noise, is given. In future work appropriate calibration system with known trajectory and velocity of the motion should be used for the evaluation of the mathematical model. Such system would assure independent measure of certainty. It will also be possible to test the instrument’s efficiency for kinematic measurements in dependence of measured values and velocity.