Kinematic GPS (KGPS) data for UK roads

The Kinematic GPS (KGPS) data provide accurate high-resolution locational data of approximately 6400 km of roads in Great Britain using circular and/or linear transect data collected during two fieldwork campaigns (details below) carried out by the Landmap project team in order to validate the various Landmap image and elevation products. When processed, this data yields accurate 3-D coordinates that can be used for quality assessment purposes. Kinematic GPS is a technique used to enhance the precision of standard GPS, using a reference receiver of known location, such as a main road, to make corrections to the standard GPS-determined location yielding centimetre-level accuracy.

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Landmap service which ran from 2001 to July 2014 collected and hosted a large amount of earth observation data for the majority of the UK, part of which was buildings data. After removal of JISC funding in 2013, the Landmap service is no longer operational, with the data now held at the NEODC.

Campaign 1

The first campaign, carried out in September 1999, required the kinematic GPS profiles for a number of pre-defined circular routes. This suited a 'Real-time Kinematic' (RTK-GPS) survey technique in which both GPS code pseudorange and carrier-phase measurements are recorded. This method is capable of yielding sub-decimetre accuracy over short baselines, generally less than 50 km.

The observing schedule was such that the reference receiver was established at a location deemed to be the centroid of the day's route so that the baseline distances from the 'local' reference receiver to mobile receiver would be kept to a minimum preventing the accumulation of distance-dependent errors. The mobile receiver would then be driven along the predefined route recording satellite observations at a rate of 5 Hz. Once the route was completed, the local reference station team was picked up and the entire team prepared to observe the next scheduled loop.

The mobile team covered almost 4,000 miles during the 14 days of the first campaign with the predefined circular routes representing some 2,800 miles (4,506km) of that total.

Campaign 2

The second campaign which took place during May and June of 2000 was geared to a different set of objectives and therefore had an observing schedule different to that of the first campaign. There was a requirement to observe some long GPS profiles that would essentially span a number of satellite-pass strips / several stereo-pair strips permitting some checking of the strip matching procedures using orthorectification techniques.

The establishment of a 'local' reference receiver station alongside each section of these proposed transects would have been too demanding in both time and logistics so an alternative processing approach was decided upon. The observing procedure was identical to that of the first campaign with the exception that the 'local' reference receiver remained in the same location for the duration of the campaign. A high-precision geodetic GPS receiver was established at a point of known co-ordinates at University College London where it collected GPS observations for the 9 days of this second campaign. The mobile receiver was driven along the required profiles recording data at a rate of 5Hz.

The routes followed for this second campaign contained a number of features as requested by the SPOT processing team that would aid them in their orthorectification tasks. One particular request was that a number of crossovers should be performed at major junctions whereby a mile or two of additional observations were taken on the feeder roads for the junction in question. Such manoeuvres provide the processing / imaging team with a greater number of features to identity and refer to as part of their orthorectification quality assessment routines. The nature of the road network in some areas meant that several long stretches of road were retraced or intersected which allowed some error checking.

Date (Publication): 2014-08-22T11:08:06

Date (Creation): 2014-08-22T11:08:06

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/6317f5fec38112c203357a6ec7270bf4

Citation identifier: NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) / 6317f5fec38112c203357a6ec7270bf4

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Landmap	unknown	Author
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)	neodc@rl.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)	neodc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)	neodc@rl.ac.uk	pointofContact
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)	neodc@rl.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Not planned

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

Not defined

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

orthoimagery

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Restricted data: please submit an application using the REQUEST ACCESS link for access.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/landmap.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under academic and specific use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Imagery base maps earth cover

Begin date: 1999-08-31T23:00:00

End date: 2000-06-29T23:00:00

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Data are available as shapefiles, which comprise of .shp, .shx and .dbf files. shp - shape format; the feature geometry itself shx - shape index format; a positional index of the feature geometry to allow seeking forwards and backwards quickly dbf - attribute format; columnar attributes for each shape, in dBase IV format Also provided are prj, sbn, sbx and xml files. prj - projection format; the coordinate system and projection information, a plain text file describing the projection sbn and sbx - a spatial index of the features xml - location and other associated information Free software can be used to open shapefiles, such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) or User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig) (see links on this record). Data are available by day or by campaign. kgps_all_circular and kgps_all_linear files represent all the data for the the first and second campaigns respectively. kgps_dayX where X is a number from 1 to 155 represent the data for a particular day of the campaigns. Days 1 through 13 inclusive represent campaign 1 and days 144 through 155 inclusive represent campaign 2.

Name

Version

Data are available as shapefiles, which comprise of .shp, .shx and .dbf files.

shp - shape format; the feature geometry itself

shx - shape index format; a positional index of the feature geometry to allow seeking forwards and backwards quickly

dbf - attribute format; columnar attributes for each shape, in dBase IV format

Also provided are prj, sbn, sbx and xml files.

prj - projection format; the coordinate system and projection information, a plain text file describing the projection

sbn and sbx - a spatial index of the features

xml - location and other associated information

Free software can be used to open shapefiles, such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) or User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig) (see links on this record).

Data are available by day or by campaign. kgps_all_circular and kgps_all_linear files represent all the data for the the first and second campaigns respectively. kgps_dayX where X is a number from 1 to 155 represent the data for a particular day of the campaigns. Days 1 through 13 inclusive represent campaign 1 and days 144 through 155 inclusive represent campaign 2.

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/6317f5fec38112c203357a6ec7270bf4	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/landmap/data/feature/kgps	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/Real_Time_Kinematics	Further information on KGPS

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.neodc.rl.ac.uk/conditions/landmap.html	Landmap terms of use

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/landmap/data/metadata/vector/KGPS	Metadata files for Kinematic GPS (KGPS) data for UK roads

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://www.qgis.org/en/site/	Quantum GIS (QGIS)

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://udig.refractions.net/	User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://web.archive.org/web/20140822123024/http://www.landmap.ac.uk/index.php/Datasets/KGPS/Key-Facts-KGPS	An archived version of the Landmap project KGPS site, hosted by the Internet Archive project

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://zenodo.org/record/7356924/files/RSS_2000_GPS_paperV2.pdf	GPS Validation of IfSAR Digital Elevation Models from LANDMAP

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://zenodo.org/record/7356927/files/RSS00_KK.pdf	LANDMAP: Serving Satellite imagery to the UK academic Community

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://zenodo.org/record/7356931/files/RSS00_IJD_paperV2.pdf	Planimetric Quality Assurance of the LANDMAP mosaic: methods and results

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://zenodo.org/record/7356935/files/RSS00_JPM_paperV1.pdf	The LANDMAP project for the automated creation and validation of multiresolution orthorectified satellite image products and a 1"€ DEM of the British Isles from ERS tandem SAR interferometry

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Data collected and prepared by the Landmap team before a copy of the data was obtained by NEODC directly from Landmap.

Metadata

File identifier: 6317f5fec38112c203357a6ec7270bf4 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: Landmap: Features Earth Observation Collection
42bcf75ae7f0b2a12d84dfa2216c31e5

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-07-15T02:03:18

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Point of contact

Overviews

Spatial extent

Provided by

Access to the catalogue

Read here the full details and access to the data.

Simple

Conformance result

Metadata

Overviews

Spatial extent

Keywords

Provided by

Share on social sites