LZER0: A Cost-Effective Multi-Purpose GNSS Platform.

Recent advances in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology have made low-cost sensors available to the mass market, opening up new opportunities for real-time ground deformation and structure monitoring. In this paper, we present a new product developed in this framework by the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics-OGS in collaboration with a private company (SoluTOP SAS): a cost-effective, multi-purpose GNSS platform called LZER0, suitable not only for surveying measurements, but also for monitoring tasks. The LZER0 platform is a complete system that includes the GNSS equipment (M8T single-frequency model produced by u-blox) and the web portal where the results are displayed. The GNSS data are processed using the RTKLIB software package, and the processed results are made available to the end user. The relative positioning mode was adopted both with real-time and post-processing RTKLIB engines. We present three applications of LZER0-cadastral, monitoring, and automotive-which demonstrate that it is a flexible, multi-purpose platform that is easy to use in terms of both hardware and software, and can be easily deployed to perform various tasks in the research, educational, or professional sectors.

Cost-Effective, Single-Frequency GPS Network as a Tool for Landslide Monitoring.

The constant monitoring of active landslides, particularly those located in the proximity of populated areas or touristic places, is crucial for early warning and risk-management purposes. The commonly used techniques deploy expensive instrumentation that can be hardly afforded, especially by small mountain communities in which landslide events often occur repeatedly. In recent years, the scientific community, as well as the private sector, have devoted growing effort to reducing the costs of monitoring systems. In this work, we present a monitoring network based on single-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors that have been activated to monitor an active landslide in the Carnic Alps, North-Eastern Italy. The system, which was composed of 12 single-frequency GPS stations, one seismometric station coupled with a single-frequency GPS instrument for real-time monitoring, and one permanent dual-frequency GPS station located in a stable area, provided daily reports of the landslide motion to the local authorities and administration. We show that this system is a valuable, flexible, and cost-effective tool for quick landslide characterization, and has high potential to be used as a landslide early warning system in case of emergency situations.

Applicability of Cost-Effective GNSS Sensors for Crustal Deformation Studies.

The geodetic monitoring of the continuous crustal deformation in a particular region has traditionally been the prerogative of the scientific communities capable of affording high-price geodetic-class instruments to track the tiny movements of tectonic plates without losing precision. However, GNSS technology has been continuously and rapidly growing, and in the last years, new cost-efficient instruments have entered the mass market, gaining the attention of the scientific community for potentially being high-performing alternative solutions. In this study, we match in parallel a dual-frequency low-cost receiver with two high-price geodetic instruments, all connected to the same geodetic antenna. We select North-East Italy as testing area, and we process the data together with the observations coming from a network of GNSS permanent stations operating in this region. We show that mm-order precision can be achieved by cost-effective GNSS receivers, while the results in terms of time series are largely comparable to those obtained using high-price geodetic receivers.