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Real-time deformation measurements using time

series of GPS coordinates processed by Kalman
filter with shaping filter

L Li & H Kuhlmann

To cite this article: L Li & H Kuhlmann (2012) Real-time deformation measurements using time
series of GPS coordinates processed by Kalman filter with shaping filter, Survey Review, 44:326,
189-197, DOI: 10.1179/1752270611Y.0000000022

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1179/1752270611Y.0000000022

Published online: 12 Nov 2013.

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Real-time deformation measurements using
time series of GPS coordinates processed by
Kalman filter with shaping filter
L. Li*1 and H. Kuhlmann2
Global positioning system (GPS) has been widely used for real-time deformation monitoring. The
Kalman filter is one of the optimal methods to process time series of GPS coordinates for a
deformation analysis in real-time, but it requires white noise. However, the time series of GPS
coordinates obtained from a GPS receiver with a high sampling rate contain coloured noise. A
shaping filter can be used to model the long-term movement of coloured noise based on the
estimation of the stochastic model of the time series of GPS height coordinates. Thus, a Kalman
filter with a shaping filter is proposed to process the different types of deformation time series of
GPS height components in real-time. The results show that not only the time series of stepwise
deformations but also the time series of continuous deformations can be processed by the
Kalman filter with a shaping filter. The coloured noise can be extracted from the GPS time series
and the accuracy of the processed coordinate time series has been improved.
Keywords: Kalman filter, Shaping filter, GPS coordinate time series, Coloured noise

Introduction
With technological developments, global positioning
system (GPS) has been widely used for the real-time
deformation monitoring of natural hazards and struc-
tures such as landslides and bridges. The real-time
monitoring helps us better understand the tendency of
deformations and prevent disasters (e.g. [2], [5], [12],
[15], [18]). In order to obtain the precise behaviour of
monitoring points in real-time, a Kalman filter is chosen
to process the time series of GPS coordinates (e.g. [1],
[7], [21]). The Kalman filter calculates the optimal value
of the state vector in the manner of recursive least
squares. The Kalman filter is composed of the system
equations and the measurement equations. In the two
equations, the system noise and the measurement noise
are assumed to be white noises which are independent
Gaussian random vector sequences with means of zero
and known covariances [3]. However, real-time GPS
coordinate series include coloured noise, which is
correlated in time due to the multipath effects, signal
propagation, etc. [17]. When a real-time GPS coordinate
series is processed by the Kalman filter, its noise
properties cannot satisfy the Kalman filter’s assumption.
Usually there are two approaches to reduce the coloured
noise: one uses differencing of measurements to remove
the coloured noise (e.g. [13], [14]); the other approach
1
School of Land science and technology, China University of Geosciences
(Beijing), Xueyuanlu 29, Haidian District, Beijing, China
2
Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn, Nussallee
17, Bonn, Germany
*Corresponding author, email lihua.li@cugb.edu.cn
augments the state vector with correlated noise (e.g. [3],
[4], [7], [10]). A shaping filter can be used to describe the
GPS coloured noise distribution based on the determi-
nation of the stochastic model of the GPS coordinate
time series. The state vector component of the Kalman
filter can be augmented by a shaping filter. Thus, the
Kalman filter with a shaping filter can be applied to
process the real-time GPS coordinate series with
coloured noise.
As we know, deformations can have various tenden-
cies. Deformations may suddenly occur. Such stepwise
changes are usually caused by earthquakes or landslides.
A Kalman filter with a shaping filter has been
investigated for this application [9]. However generally,
the deformation tendency is continuous. The movement
is random and irregular. The Kalman filter with a
shaping filter is then mainly used to process the
continuous deformation time series to assess its effi-
ciency. The deformation models can be classified into
the identity model, the static deformation model, the
kinematic deformation model and the dynamic defor-
mation model. In the dynamic deformation model, the
deformations as the output signal are a function of time
and (varying) loads; in the static model, the deforma-
tions are a function of (varying) loads only; in the
kinematic deformation model, the deformations can
be described as a function of time; in the identity
deformation model, the motion is random and a
function of time cannot be established [8]. During the
processing of GPS real-time deformation series, the
identity model with a shaping filter can be chosen. If
the position and the variation of the position are needed,
then the kinematic model with a shaping filter can be

ß 2012 Survey Review Ltd.

Received 30 November 2011; accepted 30 November 2011
DOI 10.1179/1752270611Y.0000000022 Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326 189
Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

Distribution of the autocorrelation coefficients

1 Global positioning system experiment
selected. Both are used to process the GPS real-time
deformation series and the results are compared with
those obtained by the standard Kalman filters without
of GPS real-time series
Owing to multipath effects and some other error
sources, GPS measurements with a high sampling rate
are influenced in a similar way and, thus, are auto-
correlated [17]. Therefore, GPS measurements contain
coloured noise (Fig. 3). The distribution of the GPS
coloured noise can be analysed by an autocorrelation
analysis. The autocorrelation function [19] is introduced
as follows.
The observation time series is described as (l1, l2, l3,
…, li, …, lN), and is taken at a sampling rate Dt. N is the
total number of the observations. First, we compute the
mean value x - of all observations; second, we compute
the autocorrelation coefficient C^ ðkÞ of the observation
time series according to the definition below
X
N

shaping filters (the identity model and the kinematic C^ ð0Þ~ ½ðli {x
- Þðli {x
- Þ=ðN{1Þ (1)
1
model).
This paper begins with an analysis of the noise in GPS
X
N
coordinate time series and the determination of the C^ ð1Þ~ ½ðli {x
- Þðli{1 {x
- Þ=ðN{2Þ (2)
stochastic model of GPS coordinates. This is followed 2
by the principle of the proposed Kalman filter with a
shaping filter. The results from a GPS experiment are X
N
shown and analysed. C^ ðkÞ~ ½ðli {x
- Þðli{k {x
- Þ=ðN{k{1Þ (3)
kz1

Analysis of the GPS measurement noise
The noise properties of the real-time GPS coordinate
series must be taken into account for the high-precision
real-time positioning applications. Wrong assumptions
of the noise in the GPS time series will negatively affect
the deformation analysis. In order to analyse the GPS
measurement noise, one GPS static experiment was
carried out.
Global positioning system experiment
The sites were selected on the roofs of the Institute of
Geodesy and Geoinformation and the Max-Planck
Institute in Bonn, Germany (Fig. 1). The baseline was
~1?2 km. The GPS equipment consisted of Trimble 5700
receivers and zephyr geodetic antennas. A cutoff angle
of 10u was chosen and the sampling rate was Dt51 s.
The experiment lasted 17 h with both antennas fixed.
The obtained static observations of the height com-
ponent (Fig. 2) are used for the noise analysis of the
GPS time series and the parameter estimation of the
stochastic model for the GPS noise.
The normalised autocorrelation coefficient Rk is defined
by the following formula
^
C(k)
Rk ~ (4)
^
C(0)
where k is the index of the normalised autocorrelation
coefficient, and the time lag between li and li2k is kDt. The
plot of normalised autocorrelation coefficients Rk for
varying k is called the correlogram of the random series l.
The correlogram is used to check whether there is evidence
of any dependence in the time series. The autocorrelation
coefficients of the GPS static observations were obtained
from equations (1)–(4). The correlogram for the GPS
static height observations is shown in Fig. 4.
In order to get a better understanding of the
autocorrelation function, the autocorrelation coeffi-
cients of all the GPS static observations (Fig. 4) were
zoomed into the first 600 GPS height observations
(Fig. 5). It is known that the autocorrelation of a
continuous-time white noise signal will have a strong

3 Long-term movement of the coloured noise in the

2 Time series of static height observations time series of Fig. 2

190 Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326

 Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

5 Correlogram of the first 600 GPS static height observations

4 Correlogram of all the GPS static height observations

peak at kDt50 and will be absolutely 0 for all other time Before calculating the three parameters sd, sD and a in
lags kDt. In Fig. 5, we see that the autocorrelation equation (6), the basic idea of the parameter estimation
coefficient of the noise has its maximum value 1 when the of the stochastic model [7] is briefly introduced. The
time lag kDt50. However, the autocorrelation coeffi- mean value of n observations is given by
cients of all other time lags kDt in Fig. 5 decrease 1 T  T
exponentially. These neighbouring values are correlated. - n e l~Fl
x~ with e 1|n ~½1 1  1,
Thus, coloured noise exists in GPS coordinate time series. (7)
1
Therefore, the GPS measurement deviations are com- F ~ eT
posed of white noise and coloured noise. The coloured n
noise follows an exponential distribution, resulting in a According to the propagation law of covariances
correlated coefficient of 0?6 for i51. When the time lag X
kDt is larger, for example 400 s, the autocorrelation of s2x ~F ll
FT (8)
the observations is no longer obvious. In this case, only the corresponding variance is derived as
white noise can be considered when processing the GPS
observations. When the time lag is smaller, for exam- X 1 TX
s2x ~F F T~ e e (9)
ple 1 s, the autocorrelation coefficient between the two ll n2 ll

observations becomes larger. The coloured noise must be ThePnumerator in equation (9) is the sum of the elements
taken into account when the time lag is small. of ll . Supposing a Gaussian white noise process with
variance s2, the covariance matrix of the observations is
Determination of the stochastic model P 2
ll ~s I.
The GPS observations are contaminated by multipath P
effects, atmospheric propagation errors, inaccurate orbits 2 1 TX n ll ns2 s2
sx ~ 2 e e~ ~ ~
information, etc. In the case of short baselines, these error n ll n2 n2 n
sources are changing slowly with time, which leads to In the case of coloured noise in equation (6), this leads
time correlations. Thus, correlated errors exist in the GPS to [11]
measurement time series besides non-correlated errors.
The GPS measurement errors can be divided into 1 1 2Xn{1
correlating errors and non-correlating errors [17]. The s2x ~ s2d z s2D z 2 (n{1)s2D e{ak (10)
n n n k~1
non-correlating errors follow a Gaussian distribution
with mean m and variance s2d . As shown in Fig. 5, the Taking the ~60 000 observations of the time series in
correlating errors follow a Gauss–Markov process with Fig. 2, new samples can be generated by calculating mean
an exponentially decreasing autocorrelation function values of different numbers m of observations. For
m510, this leads to a sample with 6000 mean values.
C(t)~e{at (5)
From this new sample of mean values, an empirical
where a is the real number, which is the variable of the standard deviation sx can be calculated. Forty different
exponential function, and t is the time lag. The magnitude numbers m have been chosen; the corresponding empiri-
of the non-correlating and correlating errors can be cal standard deviations are shown in Fig. 6. As shown in
described by the standard deviations sd and sD. equation (10), the empirical standard deviation sx is a
Thus, the stochastic model of the GPS coordinate function of the elements of sd, sD and a. Therefore, these
time series l5[l1, l2, …, ln]T is given by three unknown parameters can be estimated by a least
X  square adjustment from the empirical variances s2x .
ll
~ Based on the parameter estimation of the stochastic
n|n
2 : : : 3 model, the three parameters sd, sD and a in equa-
s2d zs2D e{a 0 s2D e{a 1  s2D e{a (n{1)
6 7 tion (10) of the time series of GPS coordinates and their
6 2 {a:1 : .. 7 standard deviations are obtained (Table 1).
6s e s2d zs2D e{a 0 P . 7
6 D 7 (6) To show the quality of the adjustment, the adjusted
6 7
6 . 7 ^ x are shown in the right column of
6 .. :
s2D e{a 1 7 standard deviations s
4 P P 5
: : : Table 2. This is done for 40 different m values. Table 2
s2D e{a (n{1)  s2D e{a 1 s2d zs2D e{a 0 shows that the decrease in the empirical standard

Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326 191

Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

is composed of the system equation and the measure-

6 Empirical standard deviations of the newly generated
samples with different numbers m of observations
deviation is less than it should be for white noise. This
also demonstrates that coloured noise exists in GPS
observations.
In order to have an in-depth understanding of the
coloured noise, the correlation coefficients of the
coloured noise of GPS observations at different time
intervals are shown in Table 3. Table 3 demonstrates
that there is a high autocorrelation of the coloured
noise. However, when the time interval is .5 min, the
correlation coefficient of the coloured noise is close to
zero and the white noise assumption is fulfilled in
practice. In our case, the sampling rate Dt51 s is a high
sampling rate, so the coloured noise of the measurement
deviations should be taken into account.
Principle of Kalman filter with a shaping
filter
When GPS is used to monitor the deformations of
natural phenomena and structures in real-time, GPS
receivers provide the coordinate time series with a high
sampling rate, which contain coloured noise. To reduce
the effect of the coloured noise and to perform the
deformation analysis in real-time, a Kalman filter with a
shaping filter is proposed. The principle of the Kalman
filter with a shaping filter is described as follows.
ment equation.
The system equation is described by
xk ~Wk,k{1 xk{1 zvk (11)
where xk and xk21 denote the state vectors at epochs k
and k21 and are parameter vectors of the system,
Wk,k21 is the system transition matrix which describes
the relationship in time between the state vectors of
different epochs and vk is the system noise. The
measurement equation is given by
lk ~Hk xk zek (12)
where lk denotes the measurement vector at epoch k, Hk
denotes the observation transition matrix defining the
relationship between the state vector of the system and
the measurements and ek is the measurement noise.
The Kalman filter estimation algorithm is composed
of two groups of equations, namely the time update
equations and the measurement update equations.
The time update equations can also be thought of
as predictor equations, while the measurement update
equations can be thought of as corrector equations. The
time update equations are expressed as
^ k{1
xk ~Wk,k{1 x (13)
Pxk ~Wk,k{1 Px^k{1 WTk,k{1 zQk (14)
^ k{1 is
where xk is the predicted value of the state vector, x
the optimal estimator of the state vector at the previous
epoch k21, Pxk is the covariance matrix of xk , Px^k{1 is the
covariance matrix of x ^ k{1 and Qk is the variance of the
system noise vk. The measurement update equations are
dk ~lk {Hk xk (15)
Gk ~Pxk HTk (Hk Pxk HTk zR){1 (16)
^ k ~xk{1 zGk dk
x (17)

Principle of Kalman filter Qdk ~Hk Pxk HTk zR (18)

The Kalman filter is a recursive solution to the problem
of linear filters that was developed by Kalman [6] and, P ^xk ~(I{Gk Hk )Pxk (19)
today, is a widely applied method in deformation
analysis applications. The Kalman filter (e.g. [6], [20]) where dk is the prediction error between the measurement
vector and the predicted measurement which is called the
Table 1 Results of parameters in the stochastic model innovation, Qdk is the covariance matrix of dk, Gk is the
gain matrix which is the weight of the innovation and R is
Unknown parameters Results Standard deviations the covariance matrix of the observation noise ek.
a 0.0063 s 21
0.0004 s21
sd 4.6 mm 0.18 mm
Principle of shaping filter
sD 5.7 mm 0.12 mm In the standard Kalman filter, the noises in the system
model and measurement model are white Gaussian
Table 2 Empirical standard deviations and adjusted
noises which are not correlated with any other random
standard deviations for the means of different variables. In many real cases, it is not justified to assume
numbers m of observations that all noises are white Gaussian noise processes. It is

m sx/mm ^
sx /mm Table 3 Correlation coefficient of the coloured noise of
GPS observations at different time intervals
1 7.42 7.32
10 5.97 5.87 Time interval 1 s 5s 10 s 1 min 2 min 5 min 10 min
30 5.75 5.64
… … … Correlation 0.99 0.97 0.94 0.68 0.47 0.15 0.02
600 3.69 3.62 coefficient

192 Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326

 Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

7 a results of a real-time coordinate series and b time delay of the detected deformation epoch by Kalman filter with a
shaping filter

useful to generate an autocorrelation function from real- process with an exponentially correlated distribution. The
time series and then develop an appropriate noise model discrete equation is given as [16]
using differential or difference equations. These models
are called shaping filters [4]. If non-white noise exists in xsf (k)~e{aDt xsf (k{1)ze{aDt v2 (k) (24)
the system or measurement models, the state vector can Equation (24) can be the second part of the system
be augmented by appending the shaping filter to the equation. The new system equation and the new measure-
state vector components of the Kalman filter. ment equation of the identity model are described as follows
If a GPS receiver provides the real-time measurements " # " #" #
with a high sampling rate, time-correlated measurement x1 (k) 1 0 x1 (k{1)
noises exist in the measurements. The measurement ~ z
xsf (k) 0 e{aDt xsf (k{1)
equation then includes not only the white noise but also " #" #
the coloured noise. The variable xsf is used to describe 1 0 v1 (k)
the long-term movement of correlating measurement (25)
errors. The new augmented state vector is defined as 0 e{aDt v2 (k)
   
x1 (k) x1 (k)
xk ~ (20) l(k)~½1 1 ze(k) (26)
xsf (k) xsf (k)
where x1(k) denotes the state vector of the GPS coor- The measurement equation (equation (26)) shows that the
dinates. The measurement equation can be augmented as observations l(k) contain the coloured noise xsf(k) and the
white noise e(k).
l(k)~H(k)x1 (k)zxsf (k)ze(k) (21)
If a more complete modelling of the deformations is
Let the coloured noise of the measurements be modelled by necessary, for instance when the state vector includes the
the difference equations position coordinates and their velocities or it contains
the position coordinates, velocities and accelerations,
xsf (k)~Wsf (k,k{1)xsf (k{1)zBsf (k)v2 (k) (22) then the kinematic model can be selected. For example,
where Wsf(k, k21) and Bsf(k) are the coefficient matrices a kinematic model whose state vector contains positions
:
and v2(k) denotes the zero-mean white noise. The system and velocities x1 (k) is described as follows
equation can be augmented by the shaping filter 2 3 2 32 3
x1 (k) 1 1 0 x1 (k{1)
" # " #" # 6: 7 6 76 : 7
x1 (k) Wk,k{1 0 x1 (k{1) 6 x1 (k) 7~6 0 1 0 76 x1 (k{1) 7z
~ z 4 5 4 54 5
xsf (k) 0 Wsf (k,k{1) xsf (k{1) xsf (k) 0 0 e {aDt
xsf (k{1)
" #" # 2 3
1 0 v1 (k) 0:5 0 " #
(23) 6 7 v1 (k)
0 Bsf (k) v2 (k) 61 0 7 (27)
4 5
v2 (k)
0 e{aDt
Model augmentation and selection
The motivation for this investigation was a landslide  
x1 (k)
problem. When the GPS receiver with high sampling rate l(k)~½1 1 ze(k) (28)
Dt51 s is used to monitor the movement of a landslide, xsf (k)
there are no acting forces and the landslide velocities are
usually slow, e.g. 12 cm/year in the Swabian Alb in
Germany. Therefore, the identity model or kinematic
Examples and analysis
model can be chosen to describe the deformation To illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm shown
according to the deformation models described above. above, different types of true deformations are applied
Because of the coloured noise in real-time GPS measure- in the following section: the step deformations (Fig. 7),
ments, the shaping filter xsf is used to describe the long- continuous deformations (which contain more or less
term movement of the correlated measurement errors. In sudden changes, Figs. 8–10) and the periodic deforma-
our case, the shaping filter follows the Gauss–Markov tions (Fig. 11).

Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326 193

Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

8 Results of a the identity model with a shaping filter, b the kinematic model with a shaping filter, c the identity model
and d the kinematic model

9 Results of a the identity model with a shaping filter, b the kinematic model with a shaping filter, c the identity model
and d the kinematic model

194 Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326

 Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

10 Results of a the identity model with a shaping filter, b the kinematic model with a shaping filter, c the identity model
and d the kinematic model

11 Results of a the identity model with a shaping filter, b the kinematic model with a shaping filter, c the identity model
and d the kinematic model

Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326 195

Li and Kuhlmann Real-time deformation measurements

Table 4 Results of four time series processed with the Table 6 Results of four time series (Figs. 8–11) processed
identity model with a shaping filter by different models without shaping filter

Standard Standard Standard

Standard deviation of deviation of deviation of
deviation of processed observations/ processed time
observations/ time series/ Models mm series/mm Improvement/%
mm mm Improvement/%
Identity 5.72 4.14 27.6
Figure 8 5.72 2.72 52.4 model
Figure 9 5.72 2.95 48.4 Kinematic 5.72 4.24 25.9
Figure 10 5.72 2.34 59.1 model
Figure 11 5.72 2.59 54.7

Stepwise deformations In Figs. 8c–11c and 8d–11d, the identity model

The first experiment is about stepwise changes obtained
from the GPS kinematic experiment [9]. Stepwise
changes are one of the types of deformations experi-
enced in some fields, for example, in a landslide or a
cycle slip in GPS phase data.
The standard deviation of the processed results is
3?0 mm. Figure 7 illustrates that the coloured noise has
been reduced significantly. The accuracy of the pro-
cessed time series has been improved by 47?4%. The time
delay of the detection of the stepwise deformation is
47 s. The noise reduction and the timely detection of the
deformation show the efficiency of the algorithm. For
details of the calculations, see [9].
Continuous deformations
Four different deformation trends were simulated. They
are shown in Figs. 8–11. The identity model with a
shaping filter (equations (25) and (26)) and the kine-
matic model with a shaping filter (equations (27) and
(28)) were selected to process the different continuous
deformation time series. The results obtained with the
identity model with a shaping filter and the kinematic
model with a shaping filter are shown in Figs. 8a–11a
and 8b–11b respectively. The standard deviations of the
time series processed with these two models are shown
in Tables 4 and 5. In order to compare the effectiveness
of the shaping filter, the observations were also pro-
cessed by the standard Kalman filters without shaping
filters (the identity model and the kinematic model).
Figures 8c–11c and 8d–11d show the results obtained
with the identity and the kinematic models.
Figures 8a–11a and 8b–11b demonstrate clearly that
the differences between the processed time series and the
simulated time series are significantly smaller than the
differences between the observations and the simulated
series. The influence of the GPS coloured noise is
reduced significantly by these two models (the identity
model with a shaping filter and the kinematic model
with a shaping filter).
Table 5 Results of four time series processed by the
kinematic model with a shaping filter
Standard Standard
deviation of deviation of
observations/ processed time
mm series/mm Improvement/%
Figure 8 5.72 2.98 47.9
Figure 9 5.72 2.67 53.3
Figure 10 5.72 2.49 56.5
Figure 11 5.72 3.01 47.4
without a shaping filter and the kinematic model
without a shaping filter cannot reduce the coloured
noise. The results of the identity model with a shaping
filter and kinematic model with a shaping filter are
superior to those of the standard Kalman filters (the
identity and the kinematic models without shaping
filters). Obviously, the shaping filter does reduce the
GPS coloured noise. Without the shaping filter, the
coloured noise remains in the processed time series.
Compared with the simulated time series (the true
value), the standard deviations of the processed time
series vary from 2?34 to 2?95 mm in Table 4, and, thus,
are smaller than the standard deviations of the obser-
vations (5?72 mm which is roughly estimated). It is
obvious that the noise of the observations can be
significantly reduced in different continuous time series
by using the identity model with a shaping filter. As a
consequence, the accuracy of the deformation time series
greatly improves.
As shown in Tables 4 and 5, the identity model with a
shaping filter and the kinematic model with a shaping
filter reduce the coloured noise in the GPS observations
and improve the accuracy of the position coordinates.
Table 6 illustrates that the identity and the kinematic
models without shaping filters can reduce the noise to
some extent. But when comparing the standard devia-
tions of the processed time series in Tables 4 and 5 with
those in Table 6, the identity and kinematic models with
shaping filters are found to be better in reducing the GPS
coloured noise than the models without shaping filters.
Conclusions
The standard Kalman filter can reduce white noise and
improve the precision of GPS observations, but the
coloured noise remains in the processed time series. A
deformation analysis based on Kalman filters with
shaping filters, which uses the identity model and the
kinematic model, was applied to GPS time series with
different movement trends. Not only stepwise deforma-
tions but also the continuous deformations can be
processed by Kalman filters with shaping filters. The
results show that the Kalman filters with shaping filters
can reduce the coloured noise, improve the accuracy of
the coordinates and estimate the movement closer to the
true trajectory. The Kalman filters with shaping filter
perform better than the standard Kalman filters without
shaping filters when used to process deformation time
series.
The Kalman filter with a shaping filter can be used to
process GPS short baseline time series in real-time to
obtain positions with a high accuracy. Its use is

196 Survey Review 2012 VOL 44 NO 326


recommended for the following applications: dam
deformation monitoring, bridge deformation monitor-
ing, landslide deformation monitoring, etc.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by ‘the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities of China’.
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