1. Fields of application

1.1 Geodesy

To define the shape and deformations of the Earth as accurately as possible, geodesists have progressively abandoned time-consuming local techniques, based on a framework of pre-determined points, leading to distortions on a national scale and problems of connection at junctions between networks, in favor of space-based techniques using measurements from laser rangefinders on satellites or the moon, VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) and, more simply, GPS. The use of GPS (Global Positioning...