News & Events

Natalia Hanna from TU Wien has spent one month at UPWr working with SpaceOS research group. The major goal of the internship was to derive the 3D distribution of the water vapour in the troposphere using GNSS tomography models (ATom, SWART) and to provide the tomographic outputs to the customers. Recent studies show that the outputs of the GNSS tomography can be used in numerical weather forecasting. Hence, the tomographic data can provide relevant aid in the wind power industry, by increasing the predictability of weather models for managing wind farms. The process of data preparation included estimation of the tropospheric products, finding the suitable model settings and output data format, and validation of the results. The research group of Dr. Witold Rohm at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics has a great experience in the field of GNSS tomography and data assimilation, what enabled to prepare the tomographic products according to the requirements of the customers.

The main goal of the internship was to compare and validate the different approaches of troposphere delay modeling in Satellite Laser Ranging and their impact on geodetic parameters estimated from SLR observations to passive geodetic satellites LAGEOS-1 and LAGEOS-2 like station coordinates, geocenter coordinates, and Earth Rotation Parameters (ERP).  The Visit in Prof. Johannes Boehm research group was also an opportunity to discuss the possibility of  processing  ERP  based on the VLBI (Very Long Base-Line Interferometry) technique with a combination at the level of the normal equations in Bernese GNSS Software. The result will be presented at EGU General Assembly  that will be held in 3- 8 May 2020.

The short-term visit (8-15.12.2019) to TU Dresden was a great opportunity to find common research topics between UPWr and hosting institution. Participant as a UPWr’s Lead Research Group (LRG) in the discipline civil engineering and transport SpaceOS take part in two seminars: 9/12/2019 at the Institute of Geodesy with a group of Prof. Lambert Wanninger and second one on 13/12/2019 at the Institute of Planetary Geodesy with a group of prof. Martin Horvath.

In the first seminar Recipient gave two talks (each 30 minutes long) “SpaceOs research at UPWr” with overview of all activities of LRG, While the second one entitled “GNSS signal a tool in active remote sensing” was much more focused on Participant’s expertise ie. GNSS meteorology and covered GNSS rain study and tomography assimilation study.

Second seminar was led by prof. Horvath and covered mostly polar research conducted by Institute researchers including GRACE gravimetry observations, GNSS epoch processing and ice melting retrieval using number of techniques.

Through the discussion following common research topics were identified:

• Using TU Dresden developed (prof. Lambert Wanninger) GNSS processing software to

• support Bernese replacement activities at UPWr

• Using GNSS WARP by researchers from TU Dresden as an additional PPP processing engine

• Working on the low-cost GNSS data processing strategies for positioning and troposphere

• Introduction to ice/snow research using GNSS – R
  
  

One of the challenges in GNSS tomography is different parameterisation methods that are used for computing the design matrix. Therefore, the internship was based on ray-tracing methods in GNSS tropospheric tomography. Zohreh Adavi, a PhD student at the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation in TU Wien said that the cooperation with the research group of Dr. Witold Rohm at Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, UPWr has created an opportunity to learn how to formulate Eikonal ray-tracing method for the GNSS tropospheric tomography. It was also a good chance to achieve new experiences in GNSS tomography as well to improve her knowledge by team working.

On the 8th of April - 10th of May, the first academic exchange within the INCREaSE project took place. Ph.D. student from the UPWr, Estera Trzcina, made a mid-term visit to the TU Wien.

On the 27th March the INCREaSE project had its kick-off, hosted by Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences.

The meeting gathered over 30 participant from all Partner universities: TU Wien, TU Dresden, ICL.  All representatives presented their Institutions as well the fruitful discussion and planning of the necessary steps to overtake the upcoming months had place.

On the 28-29th March, the research workshops at the Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy (GEOWorkshops) and at the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Science (BIOWorkshops) took place.

Over 120 participants in total participated in the series of presentations which revealed the scientific potential and possible fields of cooperation within the Partnership. Young scientists, PhD and master students had opportunity to discover wide range of application in geo- and biosciences.

On the 27.03 the kick-off meeting of INCREaSE project will take place at UPWr

During the kick-off Partners will officially launch the implementation of project activities and discuss the actions to be put into place in the time ahead.

On the 28-29.03 a two-day scientific workshops will be running in parallel on two topics:

• “Synthetic biology approaches for biotechnological processes using microorganisms”
• “Geodetic techniques in geophysics, environment monitoring and smart cities”

The first day of the workshops is aimed to identify common research areas, involve partners, plan further exchanges and pinpoint the future challenge (only for Partners participants).