Automation of positional time series acquisition and velocity field generation

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the GPTS Downloader software, which allows for the acquisition of positional time series from over 23,400 continuous monitoring stations around the world—provided by the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory—and the automated generation of velocity fields. To demonstrate the potential of GPTS Downloader, velocity fields were generated for the United States using six interpolation methods from 20-year time series from more than 100 stations. The interpolated velocities were applied to temporal coordinate updates, and their discrepancies were analyzed. Among the methods analyzed, Radial Basis Function interpolation proved to be the most reliable for interpolating velocities estimated from positional time series due to its greater consistency. The discrepancies obtained using the interpolated velocities were significantly better than those obtained with the 18 velocity models commonly used by the geodetic community.