Determination of the deflection of vertical components via GPS and leveling measurement: A case study of a GPS test network in Konya, Turkey

Deflection of the vertical is used in reducing geodetic measurements related to geoid networks (vertical and horizontal directions observations and length measurement, etc.) to ellipsoid plane and in geoid modeling processes. Generally, it is obtained by Astro-Geodetic and gravimetric techniques. These techniques are very complex and time-consuming. Ellipsoidal coordinates of points are easily obtained thanks to the widespread use of Satellite Positioning Techniques (GNNS) such as GPS in geodesy. When the orthometric heights of points are determined via geometric leveling, geoid height differences and deflection of the vertical components can be measured faster and much more easily by using GPS and leveling measurements than the other techniques. This study discusses the calculation of the deflection of vertical components via GPS and leveling measurements. The deflection of the vertical components obtained from GPS and leveling measurements were compared with global (EGM96 and CG03C) and local (TG03) geoid models. Deflection of the vertical components ξ (north-south) and η (east-west) were calculated as ξ = -4.15” ± 0.61”, η = 8.75” ± 0.69” via a GPS and leveling model; as ξ = -5.64”, η = 1.95” via the EGM96  geoid model; as ξ = -4.85”, η = 1.82” via the CG03C geoid model; as ξ = -7.47”, η = -0.51” via the TG03 model; and as ξ = -3.9”, η = 4.6” via Astro-Geodetic deflection of a vertical map of Turkey produced by Ayan (1976). When the values obtained from GPS and leveling measurements were compared with the values produced by the other techniques, the north-south component was found to be approximately consistent, while east-west component differed to same extent. Since very little data on the terrestrial gravity of Turkey was present in the EGM96 and CG03C global geoid models, it was not anticipated that the results obtained via these models would be comparable with other methods.   Key words: Deflection of the vertical, deflection of the vertical components, GPS/Leveling, EGM96, CG03C.