CPLat: the Pilot Processing Center for SIRGAS in Argentine

Abstract

Through the first years after the full deployment of the GPS constellation, the number of permanent GPS stations around the world increased significantly. This process rendered the initial structure of IERS and IGS insufficient and by 1996 led to the creation of the Regional Network Associate Analysis Centers (RNAAC).

Ten years later, a large number of new permanent GPS stations have been established by a rather heterogeneous group of organizations that see in collaboration with IGS-IERS a means to access to the advantages of the global geodetic infrastructure. On the one hand, this has improved the distribution of ITRF on previously poorly covered areas. On the other hand, significant efforts were necessary to improve regional organization and to make collaboration more efficient.

The SIRGAS permanent GPS network, which is known as the IGS network densification for the American continent, consists today of more than 200 GPS stations covering almost all the continent and islands. The South America network is processed by the IGS RNAAC SIR at Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut (DGFI). It produces weekly free solutions. This center works in cooperation with the SIRGAS project. Last year, at the SIRGAS Workshop held in Aguascalientes, México, the SIRGAS WGI decided to establish three pilot processing centers within the region. One of them, the Centro de Procesamiento La Plata (CPLat) in Argentina, processes the data from all the permanent stations of Argentina and Chile. It also produces weekly solutions.

In this work we describe the processing strategy applied for CPLat, including comparisons of our results with the regional solutions produced by the IGS RNAAC SIR. We also discuss a set of recommendations for users who are interested in using the observations from this network and refer the results to the realization of SIRGAS in Argentina, the frame POSGAR 98.