ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: OPENING ADDRESS On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee, I welcome you all to the first International Workshop on GPS-techniques in surveying and geodesy held at this university. This workshop is designed to bring together experts from various countries and also scientists who carry out, analyze and interpret such measurements with those who work on instrumental and theoretical problems. The workshop focuses hereby on high-precision applications with emphasis on monitoring time-dependent phenomena such as those relevant to geodynamics as well as men-made constructions as those in civil engineering and similar fields. It is astonishing to see how, in spite of all earlier satellite work over the last two decades, GPS-methods became so fast a relevant new technology, in its proper sense, in modern geodesy and surveying besides VLBI and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR). With the recent development of new dual-frequency receivers the role of GPS-procedures in monitoring large-scale phenomena over big distances will still expand; and the application of kinematical GPS-approaches is of utmost interest in solving high-precision problems. It is indeed fascinating to realize how GPS-methods have become in such a short time a surprisingly efficient and effective, this means : fast, precise and easy to apply, tool which is able to replace already now, after a few years of existence and with an incomplete set of a few out of the 18 satellites (of the final stage), at least partially some expensive, slow and cumbersome classical surveying methods. On the other hand, it cannot be overemphasized that GPS-procedures are still at their beginning and the full spectrum of their capabilities still has to be explored. In Europe, for example, where excellent classical surveying systems do exist the situation is quite different from the situation in other countries such as Canada or the USA. Even within Europe the application types of GPS-methods will vary; for example, in Norway the situation is quite different from central European countries. It is often forgotten, that together with GPS we will have to introduce new concepts and a new thinking in combination with other modern satellite procedures. GPS itself can resolve only a small part of the problems to be solved by modern geodesy but it will open the way to a great variety of new applications and capabilities. Modern global tectonics is just one of the new disciplines of high interest and great practical impact. I could continue in citing other similarly important new fields. GPS is, however, of special importance because it replaces old technologies and fills gaps where modern and efficient tools are most needed. Consequently, also the optimal combination of GPS-methods with new auxiliary and also classical high-precision techniques is of great importance, mainly under the european conditions outlined above. Moreover, the real-time or almost-real-time use of GPS in combination with photogrammetry, inertial geodesy, gravity gradiometry or even classical surveying is of substantial interest. It is indeed important to realize the new concepts in modern satellite and space methods and I, therefore, spoke above of a new "technology" which should be optimally developed as there is a worldwide need of such capabilities and tools. In view of the few active NAVSTAR-satellites in sky in 1988 this is perhaps not the best year for GPS-applications but the right time for a review of the experience gained until now and using it as a base for the planning of the future...