CART Receives CORS Station through Rahall Transportation Institute

(Bluefield)—An innovative Global Positioning System (GPS) reference station, permitting exquisite (within centimeters) positioning accuracies, will be established at Bluefield State College.  The Continuously Operated Reference Station (CORS) comes to the College as part of an ongoing relationship between the Nick J. Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute (RTI) and the Center for Applied Research and Technology (CART) at BSC.

“The CORS station pinpoints high accuracy differential global positioning surveying to within just a few centimeters,” noted Bruce Mutter, CART Director.  “This reference station we are to receive will benefit surveyors, engineers, scientists, our students—in short, anyone needing to apply CORS data to position points at which GPS data is collected.  It will be especially helpful as CART continues to refine the GPS-dependent operational accuracy of the autonomous ground vehicles we are developing for collegiate and industry competitions, as well as (BSC) Professor Kerry Stauffer’s new Geographic Information Systems applications course that will be offered during the coming semester.”

Hosting a CORS site at BSC will permit a GPS carrier phase and code range measurements that are capable of supporting three-dimensional positioning accuracies much more precise than previously possible.

Through an ongoing relationship with the Marshall University Research Corporation on behalf of RTI, CART serves as a campus coordinator for transportation-related applied research initiatives, acting as a liaison between RTI and its staff at Marshall University and other collaborative institutions.