Introduction
Introduction
It is interesting to see how an idea, born during a conversation between myself
and Dave Wells (inspired in early efforts from Lloyd Huff and Ben Remondi), has germinated into such a neat project with so many
interesting scientific and technical issues. The Princess of Acadia Project,
or just the Ferry Project, as sometimes we say, is an example of a
project that integrates several disciplines ( i.e., geodesy, hydrography, meteorology,
oceanography and geodynamics ), with each discipline feeding the other useful
information.
The basic idea behind the Princess of Acadia Project is to study
long-range kinematic GPS positioning by using a network of static GPS reference
stations and a rover GPS receiver on-board the ferry, The Princess of Acadia,
which runs between St. John, New Brunswick, and Digby, Nova Scotia, in the Bay
of Fundy (in Canada). This basic set up provides an opportunity to study the effect
of weather fronts on high-accuracy positioning, the relationships between vertical
frames, and the local effects induced by the Bay of Fundy having the highest tides in the
world. Local effects include tidal loading and sea surface topography, and specific site
dependent effects such as GPS multipath. This project looks like a birthplace of
ideas!
This website contains information, in general, about the Princess of Acadia
Project. Within its various links you will find, along with more, description
of the project setting up, its various components, instruments used,
people and organizations involved, and publications related to the project.
I would like to thanks the various organizations that have been providing
support to this project. First and foremost, Bay Ferries, for allowing
us the use The Princess of Acadia. The XYZ’s of GPS for
providing its GPS processing suite DynaPos. The Canadian Meteorological Center
for use of its numerical weather predicted and assimilated data sets. NOAA. The
Canadian Coast Guard and Digby Regional High School for the
use of their establishments for installation of some of our reference stations.
Dalhousie University for the use of one of its tidal gauges in Digby. The
Canadian Hydrographic Service for support with the tidal gauges. And the UNB’s
Ocean Mapping Group.
Direct funding has been provided by
Naval Oceanographic Office, Office of Naval Research and by NSERC (through a Discovery Grant).
Our intention is to make the original data sets, collected throughout this
project, available in the future.
Fredericton, July, 2003
Marcelo Santos
Associate Professor, UNB