Trimble  have announced that they have been selected by the National Development and Reform Commission, which is led by the China Earthquake Administration (CEA), to supply Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Continuous Operating Reference Station (CORS) receivers for the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC). Trimble will supply 295 NetR8 GNSS CORS receivers and GNSS Choke Ring antennas for the project.

The CMONOC project is one of 12 National Key Scientific Infrastructure Projects that are listed in the National High Technology Development Project Program by the National Development and Reform Commission, which is led by the CEA, and co-implemented by the General Staff Headquarters Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, China Meteorological Administration and Ministry of Education.

The project will provide a fundamental platform for monitoring structures of China’s mainland lithosphere, offshore and near-earth space as well as the variation of 4D structural conformations, recognising an overall trend of present crustal movement and dynamics, and boosting development of scientific applications in fields of resource and environment monitoring and post-disaster recovery.

The CMONOC will be used in conjunction with space-to-ground observation technologies such as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) along with traditional geodetic surveying technologies such as precision gravity and precision leveling.

The CMONOC is a comprehensive monitoring system which combines real-time with non-real-time technologies to observe crustal movement of the Chinese mainland and neighboring areas and variation of their gravity field, atmospheric vapor and ionosphere, and others. The CMONOC will consist of a Geodetic Reference Network, Regional Networks and Data System.