CONTINUOUSL Y MONITORING GPS NETWORKS

FOR DEFORMATION MEASUREMENTS

Yehuda Bock 1
IGPP A-025
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
La Jolla, CA 92093 USA
Seiichi Shimada
National Research Center for Disaster Prevention
3-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba
Ibaraki, 305 JAPAN

INTRODUCTION
A powerful rationale for monitoring the deformations of the earth's ernst and of man-made
structures is to understand the underlying physics of phenomena that have historicaHy
caused major loss of life and destruction of property, most notably earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, and collapse of structures such as dams. We are entering the International
Decade of Natural Hazard Reduction. Space geodetic techniques, in particular the Global
Positioning System (GPS), will contribute valuable data to the alleviation of natural
hazards.
Crustal deformation, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are driven by complex
interactions between the crust and upper mantle. The transmission of stress in the
lithosphere is fundamental to understanding how earthquakes occur and how volcanic
eruptions evolve, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Continuous
monitoring with GPS will enable us to characterize and understand the spatial distribution
and time dependence of deformation within tectonic regions, from which constraints on the
physics of the deformation process can be inferred (Mueller and Zerbini, 1989).
Particularly valuable are continuous records of deformation associated with seismic and
volcanic activity before and after these events occur. In addition, continuous monitoring
networks will provide reference grids for detailed GPS static and kinematic surveys of the
earth's crust at regional and 10cal scales. At this stage in GPS development, continuous
monitoring will also provide invaluable data for understanding and modeling the GPS error
spectrum over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
Large engineering structures have failed in the past, sometimes catastrophically, and
will continue to do so particularly in a climate of an aging infrastructure. Hydro-electric
dams have collapsed causing 10ss of life in Rempen (1924), Glenau (1932), Stava (1985)
in Europe and Saint Francis (1928) and Teton (1976) in the U.S.A. (Krakiwsky, 1986).
Traditional geodetic monitoring techniques are too labor intensive and expensive to justify
continuous monitoring of critical facilities. Continuous measurements using GPS should
prove to be a cost effective method to monitor the integrity of large structures.
We describe the concept and theory of continuous monitoring and present three
examples of continuous monitoring systems, two for seismotectonic studies of crustal
deformation and one for monitoring the structural deformation of dams.

1Also at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Califomia.

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Y. Bock et al. (eds.), Global Positioning System: An Overview
© Springer-Verlag New York Inc. 1990
CONCEPT OF CONTINUOUS MONITORING

The concept of continuous monitoring with GPS is straightforward. A fixed network of

receivers continuously tracks the GPS constellation (whenever visible) for an indefinite
period of time, searching for deformation at temporal scales ranging from as short as
several minutes to as long as several years. A central facility monitors the performance of
the network remotely, automatically and periodically and collects data from all the sites via
a high-speed communications link. The data are continuously analyzed at the central facility
to obtain accurate "snapshots" of the relative positions of the network stations. Significant
variations in these positions indicate deformation within the network. The data are archived
for subsequent more refined analysis and disseminated to interested users. The basic
building blocks of a continuous monitoring system are depicted in Figure 1. We distinguish
continuous monitoring from global tracking for GPS orbit determination which is also
performed "continuously." Eventually, this distinction will become obsolete.
The implementation of continuous monitoring with GPS is less than straightforward, at
least at this stage of GPS technology development. The challenge is to collect, process,
comprehend, archive and disseminate large volumes of data, and to accomplish these tasks
efficiently and rapidly. A backlog of data is generally unacceptable because the goal of
continuous monitoring is near real-time monitoring of deformation. Of course, there are
applications where the data need not be analyzed immediately, for example, in detailed
studies of pre-seismic deformation. The most fundamental challenge is to rapidly analyze
and correct1y interpret the data collected so as to be able to distinguish between deformation
signal and measurement noise.

Field System

Field GPS Units Fiducial Units

f t
~
+ Communieations Link
+~
Central Control System

J Automatie Data I
I Retrieval System I
GPS Data .. Deformation

, Analysis Unit

r
Analysis Unit

~
Database
Manager

Archiving Data
Media Dissemination
I
...
I Communieations Link I
C
+
Users

Fig. 1. Components of a continuous monitoring system

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