Analysis of coordinate transformation with different polynomial models

Abstract

The main task of geodesy is providing geodetic networks with fixed points in order to create a uniform geographical spatial reference frame as a fundament for the data collection by the official geodesy survey institutes. A german geodesy survey institute called AdV (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Vermessungsverwaltungen der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) declared in 1991 that the ETRS89 datum should be introduced in Germany as a reference system. In order to transform the already exciting coordinate informations in the Gauß-Krüger coordinate system into the later introduced UTM coordinate system, different transformation models have been developed and discussed. Besides the most commonly used 7-parameter Helmert transformation and 6-parameter affine transformation models, polynomial transformation models can also be applied. A method for improving the transformation results of a polynomial model will be discussed, with which a significance test (T-test) for each parameter will be done and the polynomial terms with lower significance to the model will be eliminated in order to get the optimal polynomial model. Here different transformation models are reviewed and the transformation results based on these models with the Least Squares estimation method are compared and analysed.