Cors Growth and Applications in Australia and Indonesia

Since the definition of the Geocentric Datum of Australia in 1994 (GDA94), Australia has had a GPS continuously operating reference station (CORS) network for datum maintenance. The Australian Fiducial Network (AFN) now comprises eight geologically stable, geodetic quality GNSS CORS stations which also contribute to the Australian Regional Geodetic Network and the International GNSS Network. In recent years, state government land authorities have been investing in their own CORS infrastructures to assist with their surveying, geodetic and land administrative tasks. Many new services have arisen from these CORS networks which further assist and evolve the use of spatial information across all sectors of government and the community. Examples of applications are the computation of precise orbits, troposphere and timing products from the IGS, support for machine guidance in mining and construction, precision agriculture, emergency management and the AUSPOS online positioning software. However as CORS networks evolve across state borders, the compatibility of coordinates, business models, accuracy measures and the like need to be addressed. The Federal government in November 2006 announced funding of approximately AUD$16.8M under the AuScope project to support, amongst other geodetic infrastructure, the rollout of 100 new GNSS CORS and 3 VLBI stations to improve the accuracy of the national geodetic network by an order of magnitude. Australia’s nearest neighbour, Indonesia, is also experiencing an unprecedented growth in the number of CORS stations for a wide range of applications. This paper will discuss the similarities between our national geodetic datums and then highlight the added difficulties experienced in Indonesia due to the complex geodynamics of the Indonesian Archipelago.