Heuristics for Improved Efficiency in the Use of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems for Establishing Positioning Networks

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are becoming increasingly crucial in the practice of geomatics and earth sciences. When related to positioning (through a network of points visited a number of times by relevant receiving equipment) the use of GNSS techniques is highly expensive and the management costs grow exponentially as the number of relevant parameters increases. These parameters include time, sessions to be observed, receivers and satellites to be used, stations to be co-ordinated, vehicles, personal availability. The problem is to model the above parameters in order to optimize the network design within economical as well as geometric constraints. The complexity of designing positioning networks using satellite technology increases with their size. Large networks become highly difficult to solve effectively using exact methods. Heuristic techniques, which are often based upon ideas from Artificial Intelligence (AI), have been implemented to efficiently provide flexible and computerized procedures for solving this problem.