Course title

Course code

Syllabus

Environmental Geodesy

         CE670A

The Earth system: Systems approach to studying Earth, climate and weather systems, mass distribution, transport and exchange in the Earth system, Impact of physical processes on the geometry and gravity of the Earth, loading theory and the sea level equation.

Observation techniques in Geodesy: Geometric techniques – total stations, strain meters, tide gauges, global navigation satellite systems, satellite laser ranging, very long baseline interferometry, satellite altimetry (radar and laser), interferometric SAR; gravimetric techniques – absolute gravimetry, relative gravimetry, satellite gravimetry.

Tides: Gravitational interaction of the Sun, Moon and the Earth, ocean tides   atmospheric tides,  solid Earth tides, Doodson numbers.

Hydrological observables: Water storage chnage, soil moisture, river runoff and lake levels, groundwater variability.

Oceanographic observables: Sea surface topography and the mean sea level, ocean currents, ocean mass redistribution, ocean bathymetry.

Cryospheric observables: Sea ice thickness observations, ice mass balance, glacier thickness and drift

Atmospheric observables: Total precipitable water, ionospheric total electron content, atmospheric circulation and mass redistribution.

Solid Earth observables: Elastic, viscoelastic and episodic deformation and gravity responses to geodynamic processes like plate tectonics, Earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Remote Sensing

         CE671A

Introduction to remote sensing: Remote sensing system and components; physics of remote sensing including wave equation and EMR propagation through medium, EMR source characteristics, role of atmosphere, physics of EMR interaction with objects, BRDF, EMR (optical and microwave) interaction with soil, vegetation, water, rocks etc.

Concept of digital image and CCD: Sensor characteristics: various resolutions, FOV, IFOV, point spread function, push broom, whisk broom, side looking sensors, PAN, MS, SLAR; image recording formats; various operational satellites and their data products.  

Image processing: Interpretation elements, manual versus digital interpretation, image histogram and histogram manipulation, image convolution, high and low pass filters, directional and non-directional image derivatives; Image classification, unsupervised and supervised-various methods, training data selection, classification accuracy measures-error matrix, khat index. 

Geometric distortion in remotely sensed data: Parametric and non-parametric methods of distortion removal, geo-referencing and GCPs, accuracy indices, resampling methods; atmospheric errors in data, models for removal of atmospheric errors. 

Satellite orbits: Terminology, characteristics of ideal and actual orbit, equations governing satellite orbits, geostationary orbit, sun-synchronous orbit, exactly repeating orbits, orbital sub-cycles, examples of operational satellite orbits.

Application of optical and microwave remote sensing techniques in problem solving: Civil engineering related examples/projects.

Machine Processing of Remotely Sensed Images

         CE672A

Introduction:Digital image Processing (DIP) system; components and functions, basic imaging process, multi-concept in RS data analysis, elements of human and computer assisted interpretation

Formats of digital imagery (bmp, jpg, tiff, NRSA formats, Other SW specific formats, colour look up tables and transformations.

Pre-processing of remotely sensed images:Geometric distortions: sources of image geometry errors, altitude, attitude, scan skew, velocity, Earth rotation, map projection, sensor mirror sweep, panoramic, and perspective effects, correction of geometric distortions; model based correction, ground control points, mapping polynomials, image rectification, geo-referencing, registration, resampling, and intensity interpolation.

Radiometric distortions: Sources of radiometric distortion, effect of atmospheric condition on radiation, atmospheric effects on remote sensing imagery, correction of radiometric distortions.

Image enhancement: Image histogram, point operations and look-up tables, contrast enhancements, histogram equalization, spatial and frequency filtering, linear and non-linear filters, smoothing, sharpening

low pass filters, high pass filters: edge detection and enhancement, edge detection operators(Conventional filters); first derivative (Robert, Frei-Chen, Sobel), second derivative (Laplacian, Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG), Difference of Gaussian (DoG), edge thinning and linking, colour edge detection, morphological filters, properties and filters for radar images.

Image transformations: Principal component analysis (standardized/unstandardized), Independent Component Analysis, Tasseled cap transformation, band ratios and vegetation indices, Image fusion; Conventional approach, wavelet based approach, Price algorithm.

Pattern recognition: Pattern, image classification, decision surfaces, feature selection, unsupervised classification; k-means clustering, ISODATA, supervised classification; maximum likelihood, parallelepiped, and minimum distance to means, K-NN, training areas and and their characteristics, refinement of training data, Feature selection; divergence analysis, Bhattacharya and Mahalanobis distance, JM distance, separability analysis, classification accuracy estimation, naïve measure, Kappa, Tau indices, fuzzy classification and accuracy analysis, spatial classification; texture, contextual, object-based classification

other classifiers; ANN, SVM classification, binary and hybrid classification, hyperspectral classification.

Instrumentation, Laboratory and Field Practices in Geoinformatics

         CE673A

Reconnaissance and establishing the control stations; GNSS observation for control points, Control network densification and topographic mapping using Total Station, Road profiling, Hand-held GNSS survey for GIS data collection.

Introduction to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)

          CE674a

Background: Revision to satellite Geodesy, Keplerian laws, inertial coordinate systems etc.,

Overview of GNSS: Introduction to  GPS,  GLONASS, GALILEO, BIDOU, IRNSS satellite systems etc.,

GPS: Basic concepts, signal structure and code modulation, pseudo range measurements and navigation solution. Accuracy of navigation position:  UERE and DOP.  Intentional degradation of GPS signals: Selective availability (SA) and  anti-spoofing (AS),  Differential GPS:  Space based augmentation systems (e.g., GAGAN, WAAS, EGNOS) and ground based augmentation systems.

GPS carrier phase measurements: Single differencing, double differencing and triple differencing in GPS measurements.  ambiguity resolution, multi path and other observational errors, doppler effect on GPS signals, cycle slip detection and repair. gnss observation, data downloading, processing and discussion of processed data

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for Surveying and Mapping

         CE675b

GNSS Basic Observables: Pseudo ranges and carrier phase measurements.

GNSS Surveying Techniques: Point positioning and differential positioning, DGPS and SBAS.

Relative positioning: Static – Rapid static and pseudo kinematic; kinematic positioning – pure kinematic, semi kinematic and real time kinematic (RTK) methods of observations. Real time network (VRS) services.

Planning and field observations: Networking, data post processing; with vendor software and scientific software.CORS, setting up of regional geodetic networks and development of regional geoid models.

GNSS applications to Global, Regional and Local issues: IUGG, IAG, IGS and IERS services.

Laser Scanning and Photogrammetry

         CE676A

Introduction to photogrammetry: Photogrammetric terms, applications, advantages, limitations and a brief history, types of camera: metric vs. non-metric, types of photogrammetry.

Aerial photogrammetry: Geometry of vertical/near-vertical aerial photographs: Orthographic vs. perspective projection, Map vs. photograph, scale of photograph, estimate the scale, relief displacement and its determination, parallax in photographs and measurement, stereoscopy.

Transformation between image and object space: collinearity equations, Interior & exterior orientation, Space resection, Space forward intersection and limitations, Aerial triangulation and bundle block adjustment.

Ortho-photo and DTM generation: Terrestrial photogrammetry, computer vision approach, DLT, epipolar geometry, Image matching methods: SURF, RANSAC etc, structure from motion (SfM) (Introduction and brief).

LiDAR: Introduction, Laser characteristics, laser interaction with objects, Types of LiDAR systems: Terrestrial, airborne, static and dynamic, Altimetric LiDAR: topographic and bathymetric, single and multiple return, full waveform digitization.

Components of a LiDAR system: INS/GNSS/LiDAR integration, system calibration, Kalman filter (brief), LiDAR geo-location, accuracy of LiDAR components, error propagation and error analysis, Airborne LiDAR surveys: Flight Planning, survey execution, Examples and applications of integrated LiDAR systems: MMS, Airborne LiDAR systems, UAVs.

Integration of LiDAR with spectral data (camera): LiDAR data classification techniques, raw data to bald Earth DEM processing, applications of return intensity and full waveform in information extraction, LiDAR Applications: building, tree, powerline extraction.

Integrated systems (UAV, Car, Aircraft etc.): Applications and some case studies: Mining, exploration, SLAM.

Introduction to Inertial and Multi-Sensor Navigation

         CE677b

Introduction to inertial sensors, operating principle of inertial sensors, observations and types. Brief introduction of coordinate frames used by inertial sensors. Allan variance and performance quantification of inertial sensors. State space model, measurement model, smoothing, filtering, sstimation theory: Least squares, sequential least squares, Kalman filter, extended Kalman filter, unscented Kalman Filter

Introduction to inertial navigation, kinematic navigation equations, IMU/AHRS/INS, INS errors and propagation. INS/GNSS integration approaches: Loosely coupled, tightly coupled, ultra-tightly coupled,

overview of other sensors and integration approaches for navigation in indoor/outdoor environments: ultra-wide-band, Wi-Fi, LiDAR. Brief overview of centralized cooperative localization

Physical Geodesy

         CE678A

Introduction: Need to study gravity, historical review, research areas, applications, open questions

potential theory: some vector calculus, attraction and potential, potential of a solid body, laplace equation – exterior potential field, Poisson equation – interior potential field, spherical harmonics, boundary-value problems.

Gravity field of the Earth: Gravitation, gravity, attraction of a point mass, attraction of a rigid body, gravity and shape of the Earth, level surfaces and plumb lines, natural coordinates.

Normal gravity: Superposition principle, ellipsoid as an approximation of the Earth, the level ellipsoid, series expansion of the normal gravity field.

Gravimetry: Functionals of the gravity field, terrestrial gravimetry – absolute and relative, airborne gravimetry, spaceborne gravimetry, gradiometry, torsion balance, gravity networks.

Gravity field modelling: Linear model of physical geodesy, disturbing potential and gravity, anomalous potential and gravity, gravity reductions.

Geoid modelling: The Stokes integral, Koch’s formula, Vening-Meinesz formula, Molodensky’s approach, practical aspects.

Statistics of the gravity field: The power spectrum, Kaula’s rule of thumb, covariance functions..

Height systems: Height measurements, physical and geometric heights and their relationship, height systems around the world, Geoid as a vertical reference frame.

Temporal variations of the gravity field: Geophysical effects on gravity, loading theory, tides, hydrological loading, atmospheric loading, ocean loading, ice-mass loading, glacial isostatic adjustment.

Signal Processing on Sphere

        CE679A

Harmonic analysis on the line: Fourier series and transforms (discrete and continuous), orthogonality (discrete and continuous), sampling theorem (uniform sampling), aliasing, convolution, window functions, autocovariance/autocorrelation functions, power spectral densities, computational aspects, periodogram estimation, FFT, least squares spectral analysis.

Global harmonic analysis on the sphere: Orthogonal base functions on the sphere, associated Legendre functions, spherical harmonics, convolution, sampling theorems (uniform), aliasing, filtering, autocovariance/autocorrelation functions, power spectral density, computational aspects.

Localized analysis on the sphere: Space localizing basis functions (radial basis functions, spherical splines, Band-limited spline functions), computational aspects.

Slepian functions: Uncertainty principle of signal processing, uncertainty principle on the sphere, Slepian functions, Shannon number, periodogram estimation,computational aspects.

Empirical orthogonal functions: Spatio-temporal datasets, eigenvalue decomposition, significance testing of modes, signal reconstruction, data compression, computational aspects.

Adjustment Computation for Geoinformatics-I

         CE770a

Adjustment computations: Introduction, observation/measurements: True value, most probable value (MPV), true error, residual, discrepancy, types and sources of error, Gaussian law of accidental errors, precision and accuracy, measures of precision from Gaussian law, expectation operator, variance, covariances, correlation, weights and cofactors, various error measures on 1D, 2D, and 3D standards, propagation of errors, variance, covariance and cofactors, pre-analysis, introduction to statistical concepts, probability distributions, hypothesis testing

Geoinformatics methodology: Mathematical model, definition, elements and types of models: stochastic and function, linear, non-linear, over-determined, under-determined, unique, explicit, implicit, observation, condition, combined, Adjustment: purpose and types, Least squares adjustment: principle and techniques, assumptions, ordinary, weighted, generalized is, geometrical interpretation

Observation equations: Model and solution strategy, adjustment of linear and non-linear forms, variance-covariance propagation of adjusted data in observations equations method

Condition equation: Model and solution strategy, adjustment of linear and non-linear forms, variance-covariance propagation of adjusted data in condition equations method

Combined method: Model and solution strategy, variance-covariance propagation of adjusted data in combined equations method observation and condition equations as simplification of combined method

Post-analysis of adjusted data: Absolute and relative error ellipse and error ellipsoid, significance and use in designing projects, outlier/blunder detection, redundancy, redundancy number, reliability and sensitivity analysis.

Applications of adjustment computations: Traversing, Tacheometry, EDM, photogrammetry, GNSS, network adjustment.

Introduction to Geostatistics: Geostatistical tools: Semivariance, variogram, various models Kriging.

Adjustment Computation for Geoinformatics-II

         CE771a

Review of Least squares (LS): Adjustment of observations using observation equations, condition equations and combined equations form

Variations to LS methods: LS with constraints, Bayesian LS, treatment of nuisance parameters

Adjustment using generalized LS

Datum problem and free network adjustment, rank deficient models

least squares collocation

Dynamic Mode Filtering and Prediction: Prediction, Filtering, and Smoothing, sequential/recursive/phased adjustment, stacking of normal equations, Helmert-Wolf blocking, Kalman Filtering, comparison of Kalman filter and LS, Similarity (S) transformation, deformation analysis.

Applications: Geodesy, Photogrammetry, GNSS, 3D Network adjustment

Reference Frames, Coordinate Systems and Map Projections

         CE772a

Introduction to Geodesy: Topographic maps, elements of a map, map scale, relief representation, geodesy definition, branches and history.

Coordinate systems in Geodesy: Horizontal and vertical datum: important reference surfaces in geodesy: Geoid, ellipsoid and topographical surface, Everest, WGS84 and GRS80 ellipsoids, Geoid, Indian mean sea level, level surfaces and plumb line, deflection of vertical and Geoid undulations.

Geometrical Relationships of an Ellipsoid: Geometrical relationship of an ellipse, radius of curvature along the meridian and the prime vertical sections, mean radius of curvature, curves on an ellipsoid of revolution; normal section azimuths and geodesics, direct/inverse problems in geodesy.

Terrestrial Reference Systems: Terrestrial coordinate systems – geocentric and topocentric, various geocentric coordinate systems and reference frames; cartesian, ellipsoidal, natural and geodetic coordinate systems and their inter-relationships, WGS84, IGS and ITRF reference frames, polar motion and Earth rotation.

Map projections: Map projections: Introduction to map projections, purpose and methods of map projections and their classification, conformal projections – special reference to Lambert conformal conic, stereographic and transverse mercator, equivalent and equidistant projections, Indian grid system, UTM projection, methods of map projection transformations.

Geodetic Astronomy and Introduction to Satellite Geodesy

          CE773b

Geodetic Astronomy: Celestial sphere, definition of terms in astronomy, solution of astronomical triangle celestial coordinate systems and their inter-transformations variation in celestial coordinates: precession, nutation, polar motion, physical effects and proper motion time systems: solar, sidereal, ephemerides, atomic and rotational time systems: UT0, UT1, UT2 and UTC, polar motion CIO, Earth rotation, leap second, determination of astronomic azimuth, latitude and longitude.

Satellite Geodesy: Introduction to satellite geodesy, Keplerian laws of satellite motion, geometry of ellipse and keplerian ellipse in space, transformation of coordinates from Keplerian elements to Earth centered Earth fixed (ECEF) coordinate system, perturbed satellite motion, Lagrangian and Gaussian forms of perturbation equations, gravitational and non-gravitational perturbing forces, introduction to GNSS, SLR, VLBI and satellite altimetry, geodetic applications of satellite missions.