GPS Reference for Radiosonde Validation

Qualifying the accuracy of GPS systems is both expensive and time consuming. This situation is especially true when validating GPS systems on radiosondes. A new and unique GPS reference system is presented that gives radiosonde evaluators a very low cost, highly accurate GPS reference for use in validating GPS data. The accuracy of the proposed GPS reference system depends on several key features including an improved GPS receiver on the GPS reference, and software. The proposed approach takes into account the improved performance of the GPS receivers along with software algorithms in coming up with positional accuracies of +/- 1 meter. The GPS reference proposed would use existing systems that the National Weather Service as well as other users of radiosonde processing systems is familiar with along with newly developed hardware and software.