SURVEY OF SELECTED PROCEDURES FOR THE INDIRECT DETERMINATION OF THE GROUP REFRACTIVE INDEX OF AIR

Abstract

The main aim of the research was to evaluate numeric procedures of the indirect determination of the group refractive index of air and to choose the suitable ones for requirements of ordinary and high accuracy distance measurement in geodesy and length metrology. For this purpose, 10 existing computation methods were derived from various authors’ original publications and all were analysed for wide intervals of wavelengths and atmospheric parameters. The determination of the phase and the group refractive indices are essential parts in the evaluation of the first velocity corrections of laser interferometers and electronic distance meters. The validity of modern procedures was tested with respect to updated CIPM-2007 equations of the density of air. The refraction model of Leica AT401 laser tracker was analysed.