Airborne gravimetry for geoid determination with Lacoste Romberg and Chekan gravimeters

Airborne gravimetry for geodetic purposes such as geoid determination and global geopotential models requires good bias stability, as well as good performance in turbulence for large-scale national projects. DTU-Space has since many years carried out large area airborne surveys over polar, tropical and temperate regions.

Recently we have started flying two gravimeters (L&R and Chekan-AM) side by side for increased reliability and redundancy in several surveys. In the paper we will give some examples of recent survey results, confirming accuracies in the 1 mGal range for a well-controlled Danish flight test, and around 3 mGal for intercomparisons of Chekan and L&R results in Nepal, one of the most challenging field survey regions on the Earth.

We also indicate the good agreement between airborne gravity and GOCE data in Nepal, and outline the use for improved geoid determination.