Empirical Modelling of Refraction Error in Trigonometric Heighting Using Meteorological Parameters

Refraction is a complex problem in terrestrial optical measurement and can be regarded as a major source of systematic error in the precise determination of height differences using trigonometric heighting. This paper deals with the development of an empirical model to estimate vertical refraction corrections from meteorological measurements gathered by freely available meteorological sensors. The proposed methodology can produce more realistic local estimates for the refraction coefficient than the typically used single generic value. Along with presentation of the proposed method, this study also presents experimental data to illustrate that the produced results are comparable to those obtained by surveying observations.