Abstract

This article deals with the approach to determining the geopotential numbers from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite surveying and disturbing potential at a point on the Earth's surface. The disturbing potential was solved by the Brovar-type solution of Molodenskii's boundary value problem but in the context of the fixed problem. The solution is compatible with the techniques for smoothing of external field: removerestore techniques, residual terrain model, and use of high-resolution global geopotential models. This method provides an absolute geopotential numbers related to the so-called world height system. As an example, we calculate the disturbing potential model in Southern Brazil. The general condition of the sparse and absent gravity values is the main point to be solved. The absolute and relative accuracies of the quasigeoid model were tested vs. GPS/leveling data. Based on 99 GPS/leveling points, the mean value of fitting for the quasigeoid model was estimated near 0.032 m in the absolute view and 0.2 ppm in the relative view.