A new European service to share GNSS Data and Products

Abstract

This paper describes the new GNSS data and product services that have been developed within the context of the EPOS (European Plate Observing System) European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), which is part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures. These services, optimized for Solid Earth research applications, endeavour to harmonise, and standardise Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data collection and processing. They have been implemented by the members of the GNSS Data & Products (EPOS-GNSS), one of the Thematic Core Services (TCS) of EPOS with the active support of national and pan-European infrastructures (in particular the Regional Reference Frame Sub-Commission for Europe (EUREF) of the International Association of Geodesy). The optimized use of data from dozens of diverse European GNSS networks, installed not specifically for geodynamic studies, created additional requirements from an organizational and technical point of view, the solutions for which we describe in this article. The data flows from data suppliers and analysis centers to the various TCS Data & Product Portals are described, as well as their integration into the overall EPOS system. This is made through GLASS (GNSS Linkage Advanced Software System), a dedicated software package developed since 2016, whose architecture and functionalities are detailed here. Time series and other GNSS products computed at the several analysis centers are described as are the quality control steps that are performed. Finally, several user cases are presented that demonstrate how different stakeholders (from data providers to scientists) can benefit from the efforts being carried out by the EPOS- GNSS community.