Ability to detect and locate gross errors on DEM matching algorithm

Digital elevation model(DEM)matching techniques have been extended to DEM deformation detection by substituting a robust estimator for the least squares estimator,in which terrain changes are treated as gross errors.However,all existing methods only emphasise their deformation detecting ability,and neglect another important aspect:only when the gross error can be detected and located,can this system be useful.This paper employs the gross error judgement matrix as a tool to make an in-depth analysis of this problem.The theoretical analyses and experimental results show that observations in the DEM matching algorithm in real applications have the ability to detect and locate gross errors.Therefore,treating the terrain changes as gross errors is theoretically feasible,allowing real DEM deformations to be detected by employing a surface matching technique.