SICRA: A GNSS cooperative system for avalanche rescue

Olmedo, Rafael; Olmedo, Antonio; Fernández, A.; Ares, F.; Rico, Juan; Sancho, J.; Aguilera, David; Miguel, Pablo de; Cerezo, Cristina; Bataller, V.; Villarroel, José Luis

doi:10.1109/navitec.2012.6423107

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Early assessment of the snow water equivalent or wetness 1 in mountain environments enhances early warning and thus prevention of major impacts. Sub-snow GNSS techniques are lately suggested to determine liquid water content (Koch et al 2014) or considered for avalanche rescue (Schleppe and Lachapelle 2008;Olmedo et al 2012). Schleppe and Lachapelle (2008) analyzed experimentally the GPS tracking performance under avalanche deposited snow at two test sites 1 Wetness or liquid water content is defined as the amount of water within the snow that is in the liquid phase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…B Ladina Steiner ladinasteiner@ethz.ch 1 Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Zurich, Robert-Gnehm-Weg 15, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland in Canada. The potential of a GPS-based rescue system for victims buried under avalanches was investigated by Olmedo et al (2012) in the framework of the SICRA project. Koch et al (2014) estimated the liquid water content (wetness) continuously based on GPS L1 observations for a seasonal snowpack in the Swiss Alps.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Characteristics and limitations of GPS L1 observations from submerged antennas

Steiner

Meindl

Geiger

2018

J Geod

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Observations from a submerged GNSS antenna underneath a snowpack need to be analyzed to investigate its potential for snowpack characterization. The magnitude of the main interaction processes involved in the GPS L1 signal propagation through different layers of snow, ice, or freshwater is examined theoretically in the present paper. For this purpose, the GPS signal penetration depth, attenuation, reflection, refraction as well as the excess path length are theoretically investigated. Liquid water exerts the largest influence on GPS signal propagation through a snowpack. An experiment is thus set up with a submerged geodetic GPS antenna to investigate the influence of liquid water on the GPS observations. The experimental results correspond well with theory and show that the GPS signal penetrates the liquid water up to three centimeters. The error in the height component due to the signal propagation delay in water can be corrected with a newly derived model. The water level above the submerged antenna could also be estimated.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics and limitations of GPS L1 observations from submerged antennas

Steiner

Meindl

Geiger

2018

J Geod

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) remotesensing techniques are capable of providing reliable, accurate, efficient, and continuous observations independent of L. Steiner et al: Sub-snow GPS for quantification of snow water equivalent weather conditions. Sub-snow GNSS techniques have been tested lately for SWE estimation (Limpach et al, 2013;Henkel et al, 2018), which is suggested to determine liquid water content (Koch et al, 2014) or considered for avalanche rescue (Claypool, 1997;Schleppe and Lachapelle, 2008;Olmedo et al, 2012). Most studies concentrate on the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) single-frequency signals (L 1 , with a frequency of f 1 = 1575.42 MHz).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schleppe and Lachapelle (2008) experimentally analyzed the GPS tracking performance under avalanche-deposited snow at two test sites in Canada. The potential of a GPS-based rescue system for victims buried under avalanches was investigated by Olmedo et al (2012) in the framework of the SICRA project. Steiner et al (2018) analyzed the GPS receiver behavior from antennas submerged in water and developed a model to estimate the water depth above the submerged GPS antenna based on the path delay of the GPS L 1 signals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of sub-snow GPS for quantification of snow water equivalent

Steiner

Meindl

Fierz³

et al. 2018

The Cryosphere

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) contribute to various Earth observation applications. The present study investigates the potential and limitations of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to estimate in situ water equivalents of the snow cover (snow water equivalent, SWE) by using buried GPS antennas. GPS-derived SWE is estimated over three seasons (2015/16–2017/18) at a high Alpine test site in Switzerland. Results are validated against state-of-the-art reference sensors: snow scale, snow pillow, and manual observations. SWE is estimated with a high correspondence to the reference sensors for all three seasons. Results agree with a median relative bias below 10 % and are highly correlated to the mean of the three reference sensors. The sensitivity of the SWE quantification is assessed for different GPS ambiguity resolution techniques, as the results strongly depend on the GPS processing.

show abstract