Theoretical geodesy

Abstract The paper presents a summary of research activities concerning theoretical geodesy performed in Poland in the period of 2011-2014. It contains the results of research on new methods of the parameter estimation, a study on robustness properties of the M-estimation, control network and deformation analysis, and geodetic time series analysis. The main achievements in the geodetic parameter estimation involve a new model of the M-estimation with probabilistic models of geodetic observations, a new Shift-Msplit estimation, which allows to estimate a vector of parameter differences and the Shift-Msplit(+) that is a generalisation of Shift-Msplit estimation if the design matrix A of a functional model has not a full column rank. The new algorithms of the coordinates conversion between the Cartesian and geodetic coordinates, both on the rotational and triaxial ellipsoid can be mentioned as a highlights of the research of the last four years. New parameter estimation models developed have been adopted and successfully applied to the control network and deformation analysis. New algorithms based on the wavelet, Fourier and Hilbert transforms were applied to find time-frequency characteristics of geodetic and geophysical time series as well as time-frequency relations between them. Statistical properties of these time series are also presented using different statistical tests as well as 2nd, 3rd and 4th moments about the mean. The new forecasts methods are presented which enable prediction of the considered time series in different frequency bands.