Realization of New Korean Horizontal Geodetic Datum: GPS Observation and Network Adjustment

New geocentric geodetic datum has recently been realized in Korea, Korean Geodetic Datum 2002- KGD2002, to overcome problems due to the existing Tokyo datum, which had been used in this country since early 20th century. This transition will support modern surveying techniques, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and ensures that spatial data is compatible with other international systems. For this realization, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations were initially carried out in 1995 to determine the coordinates of the origin of KGD2002 based on the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Continuous GPS observations were collected from 14 reference stations across Korea to compute the coordinates of 1st order horizontal geodetic control points. During the campaign, GPS observations were also collected at about 9,000 existing geodetic control points. In 2006, network adjustment with all data obtained using GPS and EDM since 1975 has been performed under the condition of fixing the coordinates of GPS continuous observation stations to compute coordinate measurements of the 2nd and 3rd geodetic control points. This paper describes the GPS campaigns which have been undertaken since 1996 and details of the network adjustment schemes. This is followed