Difference between revisions of "IC SG3"

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<big>'''JSG 0.3: Comparison of current methodologies in regional gravity field modelling'''</big>
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<big>'''JSG 0.12: Advanced computational methods for recovery of high-resolution gravity field models'''</big>
  
Chairs: ''M. Schmidt (Germany), Ch. Gerlach (Germany)''<br>
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Chairs: ''Robert Čunderlík (Slovakia)''<br>
Affiliation: ''Comm. 2, 3''
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Affiliation: ''Comm. 2 and GGOS''
  
 
__TOC__
 
__TOC__
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===Introduction===
 
===Introduction===
  
Traditionally the gravitational potential of the Earth and other celestial bodies is modelled as a series expansion in terms of spherical harmonics. Although this representation is technically possible for ultra-high expansions, it is well-known that spherical harmonic approaches cannot represent data of heterogeneous density and quality in a proper way. In order to overcome these and other deficiencies regional modelling comes into question.
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Efficient numerical methods and HPC (high performance computing) facilities provide new opportunities in many applications in geodesy. The goal of the JSG is to apply numerical methods and/or HPC techniques mostly for gravity field modelling and nonlinear filtering of various geodetic data. The discretization numerical methods like the finite element method (FEM), finite volume method (FVM) and boundary element method (BEM) or the meshless methods like the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) or singular boundary method (SOR) can be efficiently used to solve the geodetic boundary value problems and nonlinear diffusion filtering, or to process e.g. the GOCE observations. Their parallel implementations and large-scale parallel computations on clusters with distributed memory using the MPI (Message Passing Interface) standards allows to solve such problems in spatial domains while obtaining high-resolution numerical solutions.  
  
In the last years many groups have developed sophisticated approaches for regional modelling, e.g., the expansion of the gravity field or functionals of the field in terms of spherical (radial) base functions. Analogously to spherical harmonic approaches, also in regional modelling the unknown model parameters, i.e., the coefficients of the series expansion, can be either determined by means of numerical integration or as the solution of a parameter estimation process. Numerical integration techniques are widely used in the mathematical community and provide efficient and stable solutions. However, numerical integration techniques suffer from important disadvantages. Among others these methods (1) require the input data to be given on a spherical integration grid, (2) cannot provide estimated error variances and covariances of the model parameters and (3) have difficulties to handle the combination of data from different measurement techniques. Due to these disadvantages, parameter estimation is the preferred strategy in the geodetic community. Although solutions in regional modelling based on parameter estimation are generated by several groups since many years, a large number of unsolved problems and open questions still remain. They mostly arise from the condition of the normal equation system and are therefore directly connected to the parametrization of the gravity field, the type and distribution of observation data, the choice and location of base functions, possible regularisation schemes, etc.
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Our JSG is also open for researchers dealing with the classical approaches of gravity field modelling (e.g. the spherical or ellipsoidal harmonics) that are using high performance computing to speed up their processing of enormous amount of input data. This includes large-scale parallel computations on massively parallel architectures as well as heterogeneous parallel computations using graphics processing units (GPUs).
  
The aim of the JSG is to find guidelines on suitable strategies for setting up the parameter estimation of regional gravity field modelling. This includes appropriate strategies for the combination of satellite, airborne and terrestrial data. The focus of the JSG is on the methodological foundation of regional gravity field modelling based on series expansions in terms of localizing base functions. Therefore, numerical studies will be concentrated on simulations based on synthetic data. It is not the aim of the JSG to process and compare solutions from real data.
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Applications of the aforementioned numerical methods for gravity field modelling involve a detailed discretization of the real Earth’s surface considering its topography. It naturally leads to the oblique derivative problem that needs to be treated. In case of FEM or FVM, unstructured meshes above the topography will be constructed. The meshless methods like MFS or SBM that are based on the point-masses modelling can be applied for processing the gravity gradients observed by the GOCE satellite mission. To reach precise and high-resolution solutions, an elimination of far zones’ contributions is practically inevitable. This can be performed using the fast multipole method or iterative procedures. In both cases such an elimination process improves conditioning of the system matrix and a numerical stability of the problem.  
 +
The aim of the JSG is also to investigate and develop nonlinear filtering methods that allow adaptive smoothing, which effectively reduces the noise while preserves main structures in data. The proposed approach is based on a numerical solution of partial differential equations using a surface finite volume method. It leads to a semi-implicit numerical scheme of the nonlinear diffusion equation on a closed surface where the diffusivity coefficients depend on a combination of the edge detector and a mean curvature of the filtered function. This will avoid undesirable smoothing of local extremes.
  
 
===Objectives===
 
===Objectives===
  
The main objectives of this JSG are:
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The main objectives of the study group are as follows:
* to collect information of available methodologies and strategies for regional modelling, including
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* to develop algorithms for detailed discretization of the real Earth’s surface including the possibility of adaptive refinement procedures,
** the type of base functions (splines, wavelets, Slepian function, Mascons, etc.),
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* to create unstructured meshes above the topography for the FVM or FEM approach,
** the point grids for placing the functions (standard grid, icosaeder, Reuter grid, etc. on a sphere, ellipsoid, etc.),
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* to develop the FVM, BEM or FEM numerical models for solving the geodetic BVPs that will treat the oblique derivative problem,
** the choice and establishment of an appropriate adjustment model (combination strategy, variance component estimation, rank deficiency problems, e.g., due to downward continuation, etc.),
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* to develop numerical models based on MFS or SBM for processing the GOCE observations,
** the consideration of model errors (truncation errors, edge effects, leakage, etc.),
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* to develop parallel implementations of algorithms using the standard MPI procedures,
** the specific field of application,
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* to perform large-scale parallel computations on clusters with distributed memory,
* to analyze the collected information in order to find specific properties of the different approaches and to find, why certain strategies have been chosen,
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* to investigate and develop methods for nonlinear diffusion filtering of data on the Earth’s surface where the diffusivity coefficients depend on a combination of the edge detector and a mean curvature of the filtered function,
* to create a benchmark data set for comparative numerical studies,
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* to derive the semi-implicit numerical schemes for the nonlinear diffusion equation on closed surfaces using the surface FVM,
* to carry out numerical comparisons between different solution strategies for estimating the model parameters and to validate the results with other approaches (spherical harmonic models, least-squares collocation, etc.),
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* and to apply the developed nonlinear filtering methods to real geodetic data.
* to quantify and interpret the differences of the comparisons with a focus on detection, explanation and treatment of inconsistencies and possible instabilities of the different approaches,
 
* to create guidelines for generating regional gravity solutions,
 
* to outline standards and conventions for future regional gravity products,
 
 
 
Comparable work outside gravity field determination, e.g., in the mathematical communities and in geomagnetic field determination will be taken into account. To achieve the objectives, the JSG interacts and collaborates with other ICCT JSGs as well as IAG Commission 2. As a matter of fact, the outcomes of the JSG can be also used by other IAG commissions, especially in Commission 3.
 
The JSG's work will be distributed to IAG sister associations through respective members.
 
  
 
===Program of Activities===
 
===Program of Activities===
  
The JSG’s program of activities will include organization of JSG meetings and of one or more scientific workshops on regional modelling participation in respective symposia (EGU, AGU, etc.), publication of important findings in proper journals, maintaining a website for general information as well as for internal exchange of data sets and results, supporting ICCT activities.
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* Active participation at major geodetic workshops and conferences.
 +
* Organization of group working meetings at main international symposia.
 +
* Organization of conference sessions.
  
 
===Members===
 
===Members===
  
'' '''Michael Schmidt (Germany), chair<br /> Christian Gerlach (Germany), chair'''<br />Katrin Bentel (Norway) <br /> Annette Eicker (Germany) <br /> Indridi Einarsson (Denmark) <br /> Junyi Guo (USA) <br /> Majid Naeimi (Germany) <br /> Isabelle Panet (France) <br /> Judith Schall (Germany) <br /> Uwe Schäfer (Germany) <br /> Frederick Simons (USA) <br /> C.K. Shum (USA) <br /> Matthias Weigelt (Germany) <br /> Gongyou Wu (China) <br />''
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'' '''Róbert Čunderlík (Slovakia), chair <br /> Karol Mikula (Slovakia), vice-chair''' <br /> Jan Martin Brockmann (Germany) <br /> Walyeldeen Godah (Poland) <br /> Petr Holota (Czech Republic) <br /> Michal Kollár (Slovakia) <br /> Marek Macák (Slovakia) <br />  
 +
Zuzana Minarechová (Slovakia) <br /> Otakar Nesvadba (Czech Republic) <br /> Wolf-Dieter Schuh (Germany) <br />''

Latest revision as of 12:07, 24 April 2016

JSG 0.12: Advanced computational methods for recovery of high-resolution gravity field models

Chairs: Robert Čunderlík (Slovakia)
Affiliation: Comm. 2 and GGOS

Introduction

Efficient numerical methods and HPC (high performance computing) facilities provide new opportunities in many applications in geodesy. The goal of the JSG is to apply numerical methods and/or HPC techniques mostly for gravity field modelling and nonlinear filtering of various geodetic data. The discretization numerical methods like the finite element method (FEM), finite volume method (FVM) and boundary element method (BEM) or the meshless methods like the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) or singular boundary method (SOR) can be efficiently used to solve the geodetic boundary value problems and nonlinear diffusion filtering, or to process e.g. the GOCE observations. Their parallel implementations and large-scale parallel computations on clusters with distributed memory using the MPI (Message Passing Interface) standards allows to solve such problems in spatial domains while obtaining high-resolution numerical solutions.

Our JSG is also open for researchers dealing with the classical approaches of gravity field modelling (e.g. the spherical or ellipsoidal harmonics) that are using high performance computing to speed up their processing of enormous amount of input data. This includes large-scale parallel computations on massively parallel architectures as well as heterogeneous parallel computations using graphics processing units (GPUs).

Applications of the aforementioned numerical methods for gravity field modelling involve a detailed discretization of the real Earth’s surface considering its topography. It naturally leads to the oblique derivative problem that needs to be treated. In case of FEM or FVM, unstructured meshes above the topography will be constructed. The meshless methods like MFS or SBM that are based on the point-masses modelling can be applied for processing the gravity gradients observed by the GOCE satellite mission. To reach precise and high-resolution solutions, an elimination of far zones’ contributions is practically inevitable. This can be performed using the fast multipole method or iterative procedures. In both cases such an elimination process improves conditioning of the system matrix and a numerical stability of the problem. The aim of the JSG is also to investigate and develop nonlinear filtering methods that allow adaptive smoothing, which effectively reduces the noise while preserves main structures in data. The proposed approach is based on a numerical solution of partial differential equations using a surface finite volume method. It leads to a semi-implicit numerical scheme of the nonlinear diffusion equation on a closed surface where the diffusivity coefficients depend on a combination of the edge detector and a mean curvature of the filtered function. This will avoid undesirable smoothing of local extremes.

Objectives

The main objectives of the study group are as follows:

  • to develop algorithms for detailed discretization of the real Earth’s surface including the possibility of adaptive refinement procedures,
  • to create unstructured meshes above the topography for the FVM or FEM approach,
  • to develop the FVM, BEM or FEM numerical models for solving the geodetic BVPs that will treat the oblique derivative problem,
  • to develop numerical models based on MFS or SBM for processing the GOCE observations,
  • to develop parallel implementations of algorithms using the standard MPI procedures,
  • to perform large-scale parallel computations on clusters with distributed memory,
  • to investigate and develop methods for nonlinear diffusion filtering of data on the Earth’s surface where the diffusivity coefficients depend on a combination of the edge detector and a mean curvature of the filtered function,
  • to derive the semi-implicit numerical schemes for the nonlinear diffusion equation on closed surfaces using the surface FVM,
  • and to apply the developed nonlinear filtering methods to real geodetic data.

Program of Activities

  • Active participation at major geodetic workshops and conferences.
  • Organization of group working meetings at main international symposia.
  • Organization of conference sessions.

Members

Róbert Čunderlík (Slovakia), chair
Karol Mikula (Slovakia), vice-chair

Jan Martin Brockmann (Germany)
Walyeldeen Godah (Poland)
Petr Holota (Czech Republic)
Michal Kollár (Slovakia)
Marek Macák (Slovakia)
Zuzana Minarechová (Slovakia)
Otakar Nesvadba (Czech Republic)
Wolf-Dieter Schuh (Germany)