SAPOS®

The satellite positioning service of the German national survey SAPOS® is a joint product of the Association of Surveying Administrations of the Lander of the Federal Republic of Germany (AdV). SAPOS® provides up-to-date room references for everyone with modern technology. As basic infrastructural services, this is part of the legal mandate of the German state survey. SAPOS® uses the NAVSTAR — GPS (Navigation System with Timing and Ranging — Global Positioning System), a satellite navigation system originally set up for militaric purposes. The system operator is the U.S. Department of Defense.For civilian GPS users with only one GPS receiver, positioning accuracy of 10-20 meters is possible. Higher accuracy can only be achieved by relative GPS method (DGPS — Differential GPS). Previously, the user had to work with at least two receivers, one of which was operated as a temporary reference station on a known point.SAPOS® has set up a permanently operated, multifunctional DGPS service. This is available with over 250 stations throughout Germany.SAPOS® is based on a network of flatly distributed GPS reference stations, which offer the user the possibility to use relative GPS methods with only one receiver. This allows him to do his GPS positioning tasks with high efficiency and minimal investment effort. In order to ensure effective and secure use as well as to adapt to the respective technical progress, SAPOS® is built in Thuringen in such a way that it can be used centrally and decentralisedly for central control, monitoring, user management and user accounting and can be gradually expanded according to the respective requirements.SAPOS® comprises 3 service areas