730 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 58, NO.
3, MARCH 2009
Stream Soil Moisture Estimation by Reflected GPS
Signals With Ground Truth Measurements
Lie-Chung Shen, Member, IEEE, Jyh-Ching Juang, Member, IEEE, Ching-Lang Tsai,
Chia-Chyang Chang, Ping-Ya Ko, and Ching-Liang Tseng
Abstract—A new application using reflected global positioning
system (GPS) signals collected by a tightly integrated GPS re-
ceiver for ground object detection and soil moisture estimation
is developed. Several operational considerations are discussed to
successfully acquire and track the weakly reflected GPS signals
from the ground surface. Both right-hand circular polarization
(RHCP) and left-hand circular polarization (LHCP) antennas are
employed so that the direct and reflected signals can be received
simultaneously. The arrival direction of the signal may be along
the reflected signal path or the line-of-sight of a particular satellite.
Unlike most existing GPS reflection experiments, the goal of this
paper is to exploit the carrier phase observables for soil moisture
estimation and ground object detection. During the development
and test stages, ground truth measurements are also performed
for different soil water content over different surface roughness.
The ground truth measurements are expected to be useful for the
moisture content in a small sample to check with the moisture
variations in the lots instead of using bulk samples. The roughness
effect parameter is calibrated by accounting for the standard
deviation of height on soil surface and reflective footprint from
GPS RHCP/LHCP accurate positioning data.
Index Terms—Global positioning system, moisture measure-
ments, object detection, reflection coefficient, remote sensing,
rough surfaces, soil measurements.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A REFLECTED global positioning system (GPS) signal
reveals information about the reflecting object [1]. Previ-
ously, terrain moisture has been classified by using features of
the reflected GPS signals and visual element terrain with land-
cover classes containing a surface/soil moisture component
[2]–[5]. More recently, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity
(SMOS) mission, which was planned by the European Space
Agency (ESA) and scheduled for launch in 2008, has the ob-
Manuscript received February 26, 2008; revised May 20, 2008. First pub-
lished October 10, 2008; current version published February 9, 2009. This work
was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Grant 96-2628-
E-006-246-MY2. The Associate Editor coordinating the review process for this
paper was Dr. Matteo Pastorino.
L.-C. Shen, C.-L. Tsai, and C.-L. Tseng are with the Department
of Earth Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
(e-mail: shens.art@msa.hinet.net; Tsaicl@mail.ncku.edu.tw; Tseng@mail.
ncku.edu.tw).
J.-C. Juang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng
Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan (e-mail: Juang@mail.ncku.edu.tw).
C.-C. Chang is with the Department of Applied Geometrics, Ching Yun
University, Jung-Li 320, Taiwan, (e-mail: ccchang50@cyu.edu.tw).
P.-Y. Ko is with the Material and Electro-Optical Division, Chung Shan
Institute of Science and Technology, Taoyuan 325, Taiwan (e-mail: pyko@
ms24.hinet.net).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIM.2008.2005821
0018-9456/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
jective of delivering key state variables of the land surface (soil
moisture) and ocean surfaces (salinity) [6]. The mission concept
is based on an L-band microwave radiometer with an inno-
vative 2-D aperture synthesis concept. A number of airborne
and ground-based experiments have indeed demonstrated the
potential of L-band passive microwave data to retrieve surface
soil moisture (mv ) from microwave brightness temperatures
(Tb ) [7]. Several other methods have been reported to combine
passive microwave data with additional data sources to improve
the retrieval of soil moisture at higher spatial resolutions. In
[8], a combination of active and passive microwave data to
account for the subpixel variability in the soil moisture re-
trievals has been investigated. The objective of this paper is
to determine the reflectivity of ground truth measurement with
roughness surface and soil moisture by using a highly integrated
GPS receiver with reflected GPS L1 (1575.42 MHz) and L2
(1227.60 MHz) observations. Both right-hand circular polar-
ized (RHCP) and left-hand circular polarized (LHCP) antennas
are employed for the remote sensing of soil moisture and
ground truth measurements so that direct and reflected signals
can simultaneously be acquired for the estimation of soil mois-
ture and soil content. The direction of arrival of the signals may
be along the reflected signal path or along the line-of-sight of
a particular satellite. The goal of this paper is to exploit the
carrier phase measurements of the two frequencies from the two
antennas to deduce the reflectivity components of stream water
and a rough bare soil ground object. An integer ambiguity algo-
rithm is implemented for accuracy reflected positions. Then, the
standard deviation of height generated from a GPS footprint on
the soil surface is obtained. Standard deviations of the height
and length of the reflected footprint are then used to estimate
the soil roughness parameter. During the development and test
stages, the satellite’s images were used and mapped with the
integrated software for ground object detection.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the measure-
ment principles are delineated, and soil samples of material and
GPS-reflected positions and surface-roughness-estimated meth-
ods are presented. In Section III, ground truth measurements
and remote sensing of soil moisture based on the reflectivity
method are briefly outlined. Experimental results are then dis-
cussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn.
II. M EASUREMENT P RINCIPLE AND M ETHODS
A. Basic Principles
The measurement of soil moisture is conducted by process-
ing the direct line-of-sight and reflected GPS signals. Fig. 1
SHEN et al.: SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION BY REFLECTED GPS SIGNALS WITH GROUND TRUTH MEASUREMENTS
Fig. 1. System block diagram.
Fig. 2. Measurement system for the estimation of soil moisture and roughness.
depicts the block diagram of signal processing in which two
different types of antennas are used to receive dual-frequency
GPS signals. The computational process first determines the
position of the two antennas, deduces the reflection point,
and then estimates the reflectivity of the reflecting surface. A
representative ground truth measurement is illustrated in Fig. 2,
in which an RHCP antenna is used to receive direct line-of-
sight GPS signals, and three LHCP antennas are used to receive
731
the reflected signals [9]. The opposite polarization of the two
antenna sets is due to the fact that the GPS signals are RHCP,
and as a result, the reflected signals become LHCP. As the
reflected signals are bounced from the surface, the soil moisture
and roughness will affect the signal quality. The measurement
principle is thus to deduce the reflectivity and soil moisture by
processing the collected direct and reflected signals. Relevant
descriptions of the setup and results of using the combined
732 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 58, NO. 3, MARCH 2009
signals for stream flow measurement and soil classification can
be found in [10] and [11].
At any epoch, there are 12 GPS observation data including
code pseudoranges, carrier phases, and signal strengths of the
two antennas at two frequencies that can be used for data
processing. The software for reflected GPS signal processing
involves the determination of the antenna through carrier phase
measurement processing with integer ambiguity resolution,
calculation of the reflection point through the use of digital
terrain elevation database and multispectral satellite image,
estimation of the reflectivity of ground object, and estimation
of soil moisture. The procedure of the processing contains the
following steps.
1) Determination of the antenna position. Typically, a GPS
receiver gives a position estimate of the antenna in the
range of several meters. Using carrier phase measure-
ments and integer ambiguity resolution techniques [12],
[14], the position of the antenna can be estimated with
an accuracy of several decimeters. In the software, an
altitude iteration loop is also used so that the accuracy
is further improved [13], [15].
2) Compensation of ionospheric and tropospheric errors. As
dual-frequency receivers are used, processing the dual-
frequency measurements can compensate the ionospheric
errors. The tropospheric error is corrected through the use
of a tropospheric delay model.
3) Estimation of the reflection point. The reflection point de-
pends on the path of signal propagation. As the position of
the antenna and satellite can be computed, the reflection
point is constrained to the plane established from the two
positions and the geo-center. In the determination of the
reflection point, special care is exercised to estimate the
altitude, as one of the objectives is to estimate the ground
object height through the processing of reflected signals.
To this end, the digital terrain elevation database is used
so that the measurements are correlated with the existing
model.
4) Estimation of reflectivity. The attenuation of reflected
signal in comparison with the direct signal bears infor-
mation pertaining to the property of the ground object.
The signal strengths of the direct and reflected signals
are processed to estimate the reflectivity in this step.
Multispectral satellite images around the reflection area
are also used so that the measurements can be compared
with the existing data model.
5) Estimation of soil moisture. When the reflection points
are located on the surface of the stream, soil moisture is
estimated by comparing with ground truth measurement.
In the following, the algorithms for the determination of
reflection point, reflectivity, and soil moisture are described.
Essentially, the reflection point is determined by comparing the
time delay between the direct signal and the reflected signal.
In contrast, reflectivity is estimated by comparing the signal-to-
noise ratios between direct and reflected signals. Furthermore,
in the determination of soil moisture, a ground truth measure-
ment is conducted to build a reference model and the roughness
and dielectric constant.
Fig. 3. Profile of reflection point.
B. Ground Height Estimation and Surface Roughness
To extract soil moisture information out of the reflected
signal, it is essential to obtain the coordinates of the reflection
point. A reflection point is described for the surface with slope
of the line-of-sight between satellite and RHCP/LHCP receiver
position. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the reflection point can be
computed when the positions of the satellite and receiver are
known. To determine the reflection point, dual-frequency GPS
measurements are used to calculate the positions of the LHCP
and RHCP antennas, respectively. The computed position of
the RHCP antenna is close to the physical location of the
antenna, whereas the calculated position of the LHCP antenna,
due to reflection, is close to the image point, as depicted in
Fig. 3. The reflection point is thus constrained to be in the
occultation plane established by the satellite, RHCP antenna,
and LHCP antenna. A line segment that is perpendicular to
the segment from the calculated position of the RHCP antenna
to the calculated position of the LHCP antenna and passed
through the midpoint can be established. Supposing that the
calculated heights of the RHCP and LHCP antennas are hRHCP
and hLHCP , respectively, the height of this line segment that is
also the height of the reflection surface is
hRHCP + hLHCP
hreflection = . (1)
2
The reflection point is determined by finding the intersec-
tion between the aforementioned segment and the segment
between the satellite and the calculated position of the LHCP
antenna.
The position of the reflection point must be corrected for the
local datum so that information pertaining to terrain height and
terrain property can be associated with the reflection point. To
this end, the digital terrain elevation data (DTED) (Level 2,
∼90 ft of pixel) in the region is used to refine the position
estimation process. The DTED data are available for most of
Taiwan and are accurate to ∼10 m in the vertical and have at
best a 30-m horizontal resolution. Based on DTED data, the
SHEN et al.: SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION BY REFLECTED GPS SIGNALS WITH GROUND TRUTH MEASUREMENTS
height of the reflection surface after correction hground can be
obtained. An alternative way to obtain hground is as follows:
hRHCP + hLHCP
hground = − hundulation (2)
2 mv and composition of the reflecting surface, which is charac-
where hundulation is available from the output of the GPS
receiver. Both methods yield similar results that compare well
to the ground-based measurements of the ground height and
reflection surface level.
The surface roughness parameter (DISP) is defined as the
ratio of the surface height standard deviation to the length of
the reflected footprint, i.e.,
standard deviation of hground
DISP = . (3)
length of reflected footprint
The DISP will be used in the following for the estimation of
soil moisture.
C. Reflectivity and Ground Object Detection
The GPS signal reflection or scattering by an object depends
on the surface roughness and electrical properties (conductivity
and emissivity) of the reflecting material. Indeed, different
materials including dry ground (grass), wet ground (different
composition of sand, silt, and clay), trees and forest, fresh
stream water, ocean water bodies, road, and concrete may give
different reflectivities [1], [3]. The surface reflectivity , which
is defined as the ratio of reflected power to direct power [5],
can be used for the classification of ground object. In Dinesh
Manandhan, the resultant reflection coefficient is shown to be
the sum of the copolar and cross-polar reflection coefficients.
Let Γ0 and Γx be, respectively, the copolar and cross-polar
reflection coefficients, and the resultant reflection coefficient
 Accordingly, the reflectivity can then be used to deduce soil
Fc is Fc = Γ20 + Γ2x . As the GPS signals are circularly po-
larized, the reflection coefficient is indeed a function of the
elevation angle from the receiver to the satellite. This coefficient
is denoted as Fc and can be computed once the elevation angle
is known, giving the form Fc (EL), where EL is the elevation
angle from the receiver to the satellite. In the case when the
satellite image of the area is available, it is possible to index
the object using red–green–blue (RGB) intensity so that the
coefficient Fc is also a function of the RGB color classification.
The surface reflectivity  is related to the reflection coefficient,
the power ratios between reflected and direct signals, and a
correction factor due to the surface property. More precisely,
the surface reflectivity is expressed as
(SNR)r − Nr
= · Fc (EL) · F (mv , DISP, %sand, %clay)
(SNR)d − Nd
(4)
where (SNR)r and (SNR)d are the signal-to-noise ratios of
the reflected and direct signals, respectively. The two terms
Nr and Nd , respectively, represent the noise level along the
path of reflected and direct paths, which are also functions of
the LHCP and RHCP antennas and channels. The correction
factor F (mv , DISP, %sand, %clay) is used to model the soil
733
roughness effect and soil content. Letting l be the emissivity

of soil moisture and ε the dielectric constant, √
it is known
√ that
[18] the two terms are related via l = 1 − |1 − ε /1 + ε |2 .
The dielectric constant, however, is a function of soil moisture
terized in terms of sand and clay contents in percentage of dry
weight of soil, represented by %sand and %clay, respectively.
Further, the correction factor F (mv , DISP, %sand, %clay) can
be expressed as
1−l
F (mv , DISP, %sand, %clay) = . (5)
exp(DISP)
It is further remarked that in reflected GPS signal processing,
there are multiple observations that can simultaneously be
measured. As a result, with respect to each satellite, the local
height hground , roughness DISPi , and reflectivity ij can be
obtained. The superscript i may be used hereafter to denote
the relevant term with respect to the ith satellite. In addition,
the term may be a function of the frequency. Hereafter, the
subscript j is used to stand for different frequencies.
The discussions thus far are briefly summarized using the
flowchart in Fig. 4. As depicted, the positions of the RHCP
and LHCP antennas are first computed. This is followed by
an altitude loop that relies on DTED data to obtain a refined
estimate of the reflection point and reflectivity. When the satel-
lite image can be brought to bear, a ground object detection
index can further be obtained. Consequently, the soil reflection
coefficient, roughness effect, emissivity, and dielectric constant
are computed. Finally, the soil moisture mv and soil content are
computed. The last step in the computation of soil moisture and
soil content relies on a model-based approach. More precisely,
the relationship between soil moisture and dielectric constant
is established based on a set of controlled experiment data.
moisture and dielectric constant.
D. Ground Truth Measurement
The process for the establishment of a model is described
in the following. A set of soil samples is collected and placed
in a controlled experiment setup, as depicted in Fig. 2. The
soil sample is textually a sand loam soil, with a composition
within the topsoil of 51.5% sand, 10.3% clay, 38.2% silt, and a
bulk density ρbulk of 1.91 kg · m−3 . The mass of water content
mg and the volumetric of soil moisture mv depend on the dry
density of soil ρbulk , wet density of soil ρwet , weight of wet soil
Wwet , and weight of dry soil Wdry . The relationship between
mv and mg is [16], [18]
ρbulk ρbulk Wwet − Wdry
mv = mg = . (6)
ρwet ρwet Wdry
In the measurement, six planes of samples with different
soil moistures are prepared, and the parameters and deduced
variables for ground truth measurement for soil moisture are

presented in Table I. The dielectric constant ε is assumed to be
734 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 58, NO. 3, MARCH 2009

Fig. 4. Processing algorithm of reflectivity and soil moisture.

a function of soil moisture mv , percentage of sand %sand, and TABLE I

PARAMETERS OF GROUND TRUTH MEASUREMENT
percentage of clay %clay of the following form [17]:


ε = (a0 + a1 (%sand) + a2 (%clay))

+ mv (b0 + b1 (%sand) + b2 (%clay))

+ m2v (c0 + c1 (%sand) + c2 (%clay)) . (7)

In the above, a0 , a1 , a2 , b0 , b1 , b2 , c0 , c1 , and c2 are coefficients

that are given as follows:

a0 = 2.75, a1 = 0.71, a2 = 0.55

III. M EASUREMENTS AND R ESULTS
b0 = 0.37, b1 = −1.5, b2 = −2.5
In this section, some field experiment results will be
c0 = 45.0, c1 = 135.0, c2 = 115.0. presented.
SHEN et al.: SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION BY REFLECTED GPS SIGNALS WITH GROUND TRUTH MEASUREMENTS
Fig. 5. Reflected area and receiver position at NCKU.
A. Roughness Results
The first experiment is conducted at the top floor of a building
at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). As shown in
Fig. 2, the GPS L1/L2 dual-frequency antennas are mounted
on a 0.7-m-high steel pipe on the planes, and it is able to
change its horizontal angle. Every 1–2 h, the GPS integrated
receiver system takes a measurement at the soil moisture planes
at different vertical angles (from 20◦ to 80◦ with no spacing
between 0 and 1 for each reflected GPS observations). For
the GPS L1/L2 dual-frequency integrated receiver system, it is
considered that the emissivity depth of soil is in the range of
2–6 cm, depending on the soil dielectric properties. As there are
six planes in total, the measurements are separately processed
to give the surface roughness DISP effects on the dielectric
constant of soil moisture with six different planes at different
volumetric of soil moisture. Fig. 5 depicts the reflection point
and receiver position at a specific epoch of measurement. The
length of reflected footprint for PRN 13 is 0.40 m, the standard
deviation of height for PRN 13 is 0.098 m, and consequently,
the surface roughness of soil moisture for PRN 13 reflected
point DISP13 = 0.098/0.40 = 0.245, which is like a roughness
surface. Similarly, the surface roughness of ground truth mea-
surement for PRN 23 is DISP23 = 0.0987/0.45 = 0.219, and
the surface roughness of ground truth measurement for PRN 25
is DISP25 = 0.0989/0.48 = 0.206. The surface roughness es-
timates based on this ground truth measurement for PRN 13,
PRN 23, and PRN 25 are rough surface. This analysis is
consistent with the soil samples that are used in the experiment.
Another experiment, which is an uncontrolled one, is con-
ducted over the Lon-Ann Bridge over Dar-Jar stream. This is
illustrated in Fig. 6. Again, as depicted in Fig. 4, the reflection
point with respect to each observable satellite is computed
based on the collected dual-frequency direct and reflected GPS
measurements. In this experiment, the length of the reflected
735
Fig. 6. Reflected footprint for PRN 27, PRN 28, and receiver positions on Lon
Ann Bridge.
footprint for PRN 27 is 75.5 m, and the standard deviation of
altitude for PRN 27 is 2.58 m, giving the surface roughness
of stream soil moisture for PRN 27 reflected point DISP27 =
2.58/75.5 = 0.034, which implies that the reflection is from a
smooth surface. In addition, the length of the reflected footprint
for PRN 28 is 350.2 m, the standard deviation of altitude
is 2.56 m, and the surface roughness of the reflected point
becomes DISP28 = 2.56/350.2 = 0.007. This also indicates
that the reflection of PRN 27 is from a smooth surface. In Fig. 6,
the reflection points of PRN 27 and PRN 28 are indeed from the
stream. Hence, the analysis of roughness can indeed be used to
estimate the type of reflection surface.
B. Soil Moisture Results
In the following, the reflectivity and soil moisture results
are presented based on the analysis of the aforementioned
two experiments. Fig. 7 depicts a comparison of reflectivity
versus soil moisture and surface roughness for measurements at
Lon-Ann Bridge (PRNs 27 and 28) and NCKU (PRNs 13,
23, and 25). The reflectivity for PRN 28 (28 1 = 0.10−0.25)
is larger than the reflectivity of PRN 27 (27 1 = 0.05−0.10).
The reflectivity dependent on the elevation angle EL28 = 20◦
of PRN 28 is not the same as the elevation angle EL27 =
60◦ of PRN 27. The reflectivity from stream soil moisture
with smooth surface DISPi = 0.007−0.034 and volumetric
water (mv : 13.5%–26.7%) of soil moisture is the same as
the reflectivity of the ground truth measurement. The specific
plottings of reflectivity 281 = 0.35−0.45 for PRN 28 and
27
1 = 0.10−0.17 for PRN 27 are from stream water.
The ground truth measurement derived the reflectivity
25
1 = 0.09−0.16 of PRN 25 that is lower than the reflec-
tivity 13
1 = 0.15−0.22 of PRN 13. However, the reflected
angle EL13 = 37◦ of PRN 13 is the same as the reflected
736 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 58, NO. 3, MARCH 2009
Fig. 7. Comparison of GPS L1 reflectivity with volumetric water (mv :
13.5%–26.7%) of soil moisture at Lon Ann Bridge, ground truth measurement
at NCKU, Taiwan, and variation of reflectivity versus moisture and surface
roughness on sandy–loam soil at GPS L1/L2 band frequency.
angle PRN 25 EL25 = 39◦ with roughness surface DISP13 =
0.206−0.245 and volumetric water (mv : 26.7%–27.3%) of soil
moisture. Therefore, the reflectivity i1 = 0.05−0.25 of stream
soil moisture in sandy–loam soil moisture is higher than the
reflectivity 25
1 = 0.09−0.22 of the ground truth measurement
in the sandy–loam soil moisture. The reflectivity of soil mois-
ture is between 0.05 and 0.25 for stream soil moisture and
ground truth measurement with roughness surface DISPi =
0.034−0.245 and volumetric water (mv : 13.5%–27.3%) in the
sandy–loam soil moisture at the GPS L1 band. The authors
are concerned that future experiments are local at the “small
scale (6 × 8 km2 )” or “large scale (30 × 240 km2 ).” The
results of soil moisture measurements will be different in that
the resolution of ground surface at large scale (30 × 240 km2 )
evaluates to decreasing values. The horizontal resolution will
reduce from 2 to 10 m, and the vertical resolution will hold
at 10–100 cm when the aircraft flies two times over a 240-km
straight path at an altitude of 4000 m for 2 h with 20-Hz samples
from the experiment.
IV. S UMMARY AND C ONCLUSION
The results have demonstrated the usefulness of GPS reflec-
tivity in estimating soil moisture and soil content. This ground
truth measurement is applicable to small samples and, thus,
could be used for routine soil moisture measurements as well as
to detect stream soil moisture and content. This GPS reflectivity
measurement method of soil moisture will provide for a lower
cost, high resolution, and better performance than other existing
measurements such as airplane and ground-based experiments.
In conclusion, it has been found that the classification accu-
racies were improved at about 25%–35% by using the multi-
spectral (green, red, blue, and reflectivity) data coupled with
roughness surface parameters. The volumetric water of surface
soil moisture at a stream was improved by about 45%–65% by
using the correction factor F (mv , DISP, %sand, %clay) with
ground truth measurement. In the future, we will further im-
prove the convenience of the experimental setup and enhance
the accuracy and resolution to extend the applicability and
performance of the GPS remote sensing apparatus.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank C. Houng-Shenq (Chief
Manager of SOKKIA’s vendor in Taiwan) for supporting the
measurements with two receivers and three LHCP antennas,
Dr. Wickert for his advise and assistance with the in-
stantaneous troposphere delay effects concerning real-time
weather data and their researching method during his visit to
NCKU, Taiwan, and Dr. Bud (Manager of Lockheed Martin/
Fort Worth) for his advisory discussion about the content of the
oral paper.
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Lie-Chung Shen (M’06) received the B.S. degree
from Chung Cheng Science and Institute University,
Lon-Tan, Taiwan, in 1983 and the M.S. degree from
the National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan,
in 1990. He is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree with the Department of Earth Science, Na-
tional Chung Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Jyh-Ching Juang (S’80–M’82) received the B.S.
and M.S. degrees from the National Chiao Tung
University, HsinChu, Taiwan, in 1980 and 1982,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, in 1987.
He was previously with Lockheed Aeronautical
System Company, Burbank, CA. Since 1993, he
has been with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan,
Taiwan. His research interests include sensor net-
works, GNSS signal processing, and software-based receivers.
Ching-Lang Tsai received the B.S. degree from
Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1969.
He is currently a Professor with the Department
of Earth Science, National Cheng Kung University,
Tainan, Taiwan.
737
Chia-Chyang Chang received the B.Sc. degree
from Chung Cheng Institute of Technology (CCIT),
Taoyuan, Taiwan, the M.Sc. degree from the Na-
tional Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, and
the Ph.D. degree in space geodesy from the Univer-
sity of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., in 1995.
He was a Full Professor with the Department of
Surveying and Mapping Engineering, CCIT, and the
Department of Information Management, Yuda Uni-
versity, Miao-Li, Taiwan. Since 2007, he has been
with the Department of Applied Geomatics, Ching
Yun University, Chungli, Taiwan. His research interests include satellite navi-
gation, geodetic monitoring, mobile positioning, and location-based services.
Ping-Ya Ko received the B.S. degree from Chung
Cheng Institute of Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan, in
1983, the M.S. degree from the National Taiwan
University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1988, and the Ph.D.
degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford
University, Palo Alto, in 2000.
He is currently the General Director of the Mate-
rials and Electro-Optics Research Division with the
Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology,
Taoyuan. His research interests include system en-
gineering, system integration, GPS/INS integration,
and electrooptical system integration.
Ching-Liang Tseng received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees from the National Cheng Kung University
(NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan, in 1968 and 1971, re-
spectively, the M.S. degree from The Ohio State
University, Columbus, in 1975, and the Ph.D. degree
from the University of South Australia, Adelaide,
SA, Australia, in 2001.
He is currently with NCKU, where he was a Pro-
fessor and the Head of the Department of Surveying
Engineering and is currently a Professor with the
Department of Earth Science and the Director of the
Satellite Geoinformatic Research Center.