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Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using

GPS/Levelling Measurements and Heuristic
Regression Approaches

Mosbeh R. Kaloop , Ahmed Zaki , Hamad Al-Ajami & Mostafa Rabah

To cite this article: Mosbeh R. Kaloop , Ahmed Zaki , Hamad Al-Ajami & Mostafa Rabah (2020)
Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements and Heuristic
Regression Approaches, Survey Review, 52:375, 544-554, DOI: 10.1080/00396265.2019.1665615

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00396265.2019.1665615

Published online: 16 Sep 2019.

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 Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model
using GPS/Levelling Measurements and
Heuristic Regression Approaches
∗ 1,2
Mosbeh R. Kaloop , Ahmed Zaki3, Hamad Al-Ajami4,5 and Mostafa Rabah4
This study investigates to use GPS/Levelling measurements of Kuwait and four heuristic regression
methods including Least Square Support Vector Regression (LSSVR), Gaussian Process
Regression (GPR), Kernel Ridge Regression (KRR), and Multivariate Adaptive Regression
Splines (MARS) for modelling local geoid undulation. The accuracy of the models was
compared by geoid undulation of gravitational observations and Global Geopotential Models
(GGMs). The results show that the KRR model is suitable for Kuwait geoid model, its error of
percentage is 0.018 and 0.124% relative to gravity and GPS/Levelling geoid undulation models,
respectively. Furthermore, the comparison of KRR model with GGMs models signifies its accuracy.
Keywords: Geoid, GPS/Levelling, Modelling, Regression

1. Introduction these are broadly divided into three types: Gravimetric,

The determination of the orthometric height (H) from
geometric levelling has practical difficulties that, despite
several scientific and technological advances, passed a
century without substantial modifications or advances
(Becker 2012). Currently, the Global Navigation Satellite
System (GNSS) has been used with reasonable success for
ellipsoidal height (h) determination. The ellipsoidal
height does not have a physical meaning (not linked to
gravity) so that, the orthometric heights are used in prac-
tice. The geoid undulation (N = H-h) is needed to convert
the ellipsoidal heights to orthometric heights. The Geoid
is defined as the equipotential surface of the Earth’s grav-
ity field which coincides with the Mean Sea Level (MSL)
in the absence of disturbing factors like ocean currents,
salinities, wind, etc., and it extends through the continents
(Uotila 1971). The geoid is continuous and much
smoother than the actual earth surface, unlike the ellip-
soid, it is still a closed, too complicated to serve as the
computational surface on which to solve geometrical pro-
blems, but it is suitable as a vertical datum (Becker 2012).
The main important application of the geoid is the deter-
mination of orthometric heights. The geoid undulation is
needed to convert the ellipsoidal heights to orthometric
heights. There are different methods to determine the
geoid based on methods of development and data used,
1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Incheon National Uni-
versity, Incheon, Korea
2
Public Works and Civil Engineering Department, Mansoura University,
Mansoura, Egypt
3
Civil Engineering Department, The Higher Institute of Engineering in El-
Shorouk City, Cairo, Egypt
4
Civil Engineering Department, Benha University, Benha, Egypt
5
Training Authority, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training,
Adailiyah, Kuwait
∗
Corresponding author, email: Mosbeh.kaloop@gmail.com
Astrogeodetic, and Geometric (Becker 2012). The Gravi-
metric solution is based on the use of gravity data (Wang
et al. 2012, Huang and Véronneau 2013). The Astrogeo-
detic geoid can be determined by the astronomic obser-
vation of latitude, longitude and the deflection of the
vertical (Adescu et al. 2016, Kumar and Nath 2016).
The Geometric method depended on the combination
between the GNSS heights and orthometric heights to
determine the geoid undulation then, interpolation the
value of geoid undulation at any unknown point. Where-
fore with a sufficient number of benchmarks with known
ellipsoidal heights and orthometric heights, it is often
possible for using a mathematical expression, or model
approaches, that allow interpolating of geoid heights
(Yang and Chen 1999, Kao et al. 2014). Herein, data
availability, the accuracy of estimations and simplicity
of modelling are the main factors to develop the model
approaches for estimating the geoid undulation. This
study was implemented for modelling a soft computing
gentile local geoid model for Kuwait using GPS/levelling
measurements.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been success-
fully used in modelling the geometric geoid undulation
and datum transformation for different regions; this is
because these techniques can be utilized in solving com-
plicated problems, especially with limitation of GPS/
Levelling data. Seager et al. (1999) utilized the BackPro-
pagation ANN (BPNN) for modelling a local geoid for
area 2°×2°, and they found that it is a suitable tool for
geoid undulation modelling. Kavzoglu and Saka (2005)
designed an ANN model for modelling the geoid undula-
tion for Istanbul in Turkey using 190 GPS/Levelling data
points, and their results showed that the model designed
had low distortion from the GPS/levelling data surface.
Elshambaky et al. (2018) established a three direction

© 2019 Survey Review Ltd

Received 14 July 2019; accepted 3 September 2019
544 DOI 10.1080/00396265.2019.1665615 Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375
 Kaloop et al.
transformation ANN model to transform global to local
coordinates of Egypt, and they summarized that the accu-
racy of the developed ANN model is an approach to
20.16 cm. Further applications for the ANN in the
geoid modelling and datum transformation can be
found in (Tierra et al. 2008, Pikridas et al. 2011, Veronez
et al. 2011, Ziggah et al. 2016, Elshambaky 2018).
Furthermore, the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference
System (ANFIS) and regression models were applied for
estimating the geoid undulation (Erol and Celik 2004,
Zaletnyik et al. 2008, Akyilmaz et al. 2009, Wang et al.
2009, Yilmaz 2010, Erol and Erol 2013, Rabah and
Kaloop 2013, Kao et al. 2014). ANFIS, ANN, Wavelet
Neural Network (WNN), and Multivariable Polynomial
Regression Equations (MPRE) were used to predict
geoid of Istanbul area using GPS data, and the results
showed that ANFIS and WNN models provided a better
performance (Erol and Erol 2013). Polynomial, ANFIS,
and ANN were applied to model the local geoid of the
Izmir region, and the authors concluded that the
ANFIS outperformed than other models (Akyilmaz
et al. 2009). Erol and Celik (2004) utilized the interp-
olation methods, Kriging and Inverse Distance Weight
(IDW) to estimate a local geoid undulation model, and
the results showed that the Kriging was high accurate
than IDW to estimate the geoid height. Least Square Sup-
port Vector Machine (LSSVM) was compared by ANN
and polynomial techniques for estimating a geoid height,
and the results concluded that the LSSVM is better than
ANN to predict geoid height (Wang et al. 2009). Second-
order curve surface method, BPNN and polynomial, lin-
ear and kernel functions of LSSVM were compared and
assessed into estimating local geoid in Taiwan, and the
results showed that the kernel, Radial Basis Function
(RBF), of LSSVM is better than other methods (Kao
et al. 2014). A shoreline geoid model is predicted using
ANN, ANFIS, and LSSVM, and the results noticed
that the LSSVM can be used to estimate a missing data
of the local geoid model (Kaloop et al. 2018).
Meanwhile, LSSVM algorithm, which is reformulation
of Support Vector Regression (SVR), provide better per-
formance than ANN and ANFIS in the geoid estimation;
furthermore, Yuan and Lee (2015) summarized that the
SVR performance is better than ANN under the same
training conditions, and the LSSVM has a shorter com-
puting time than SVR. Thus, SVM is used for modelling
local geoid in Hungary (Zaletnyik et al. 2008), and
Elshambaky (2019) utilized LSSVM to model Egypt
geoid model. Herein, it should be noticed that other
regression algorithms, recently, have been developed and
are not used in the geoid modelling. For instance, Multi-
variate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) has been
used widely in the prediction applications (Zakeri et al.
2010, Zhang and Goh 2016, Keshtegar et al. 2018).
MARS was utilized for two directions coordinate trans-
formation and estimating orthometric height in Ghana,
and the results showed that the MARS accuracy is higher
than ANN results (Peprah and Kumi 2017, Ziggah and
Laari 2018). Nowadays, Gaussian Process Regression
(GPR) and Kernel Ridge Regression (KRR) have been
developed into using to increase the accuracy of the pre-
diction models (Volgyesi et al. 2005, Kopsiaftis et al.
2019). Volgyesi et al. (2005) presented an application for
calculating the orthometric height by KRR; the standard
deviation of model error was ±9 mm. It is evident from
Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements
related reviews and literature that the use of MARS and
KRR have been still limited and the use of GPR has
not been studied yet in modelling geoid undulation;
besides, a comparison between these models and
LSSVM has not been conducted.
The purposes of this study are (i) to investigate the abil-
ity of MARS, GPR and KRR for modelling geoid undu-
lation using GPS/Levelling observations, (ii) to compare
the results with the LSSVM method, and (iii) to estimate
a novel technique for modelling local geoid model and
compare the model with local gravity geoid model and
GGMs models that assessed in Kuwait. Consequently,
this paper is structured to achieve these purposes by the
following sections; the input and output datasets of
GPS/levelling and the Global Geopotential Models
(GGMs) of Kuwait are described, and the modelling
approaches using the MARS, GPR, KRR, and LSSVM
are given in section 2. The comparative results of different
methods for predictions of Kuwait geoid undulation are
shown in section 3 that the Root Mean Square Error
(RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias
Error (MBE), agreement index (d) and Nash Sutcliffe
Efficiency (NSE) are used to evaluate the accuracy of
the four heuristic regression techniques; in addition, the
Taylor diagram and box- whisker plot are used to com-
pare a regression model with GGMs models. Finally,
the conclusion is presented that the KRR can be provided
accurate predictions compared to other methods and the
LSSVM is slightly accurate than the GPR. The soft com-
puting can be used to estimate an accurate geoid model
for Kuwait comparing by GGMs models.
2. Data and Methods
2.1. Data description
Kuwait locates between latitudes 28.5° N and 30.1° N and
longitudes 46.5° E and 48.5° E, as presented in Figure 1.
The total area of Kuwait is 17818 Km2. The GPS/level-
ling data was collected by Vision International Co.,
Kuwait in 2016/2017 and made available for this study.
The GPS coordinates of the benchmarks were computed
from a dual-frequency GPS receiver by Static and
Rapid-Static measurement method and refer to
ITRF2008 datum. The approximate accuracies of GPS
coordinates are ±1.0 and ±1.5 cm in the horizontal and
vertical directions, respectively (El-Ashquer et al. 2019).
In this manner, the orthometric heights of the benchmarks
were determined by high precision spirit levelling from the
Ministry of Defense (MoD) benchmarks network. The
MoD networks were referenced to Kuwait Public Work
Department vertical datum (Kuwait PWD). Kuwait
PWD was defined by Kuwait Oil Company as the Mean
Low Low Water (approximately 1.03 m below the mean
sea level) at Kuwait City (Rabah and Hattab 2009). The
absolute accuracy of the orthometric heights is approxi-
mately ±1.0 cm. The GPS/Levelling-based geoid undula-
tion ranges between −18.54 and −10.95 m with an
average value of −15.45 m and a standard deviation of
±1.51 m (El-Ashquer et al. 2019). The available GPS/
levelling data are presented in Fig. 1a; 78 stations are
divided into 63 and 15 as a training and testing datasets.
The geoid undulation of Kuwait was calculated using
the whole GPS/levelling data and presented in Fig. 1b.
Approximately smooth geoid undulation with slope
Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375 545
Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

1 Kuwait (a) GPS/levelling points’ distributions and (b) contour map of geoid undulation

from west to east shows in Fig. 1b. Herein, an integration
between land and ocean observation is recommended to
improve the local geoid model of Kuwait, especially on
the shore region.
In this study, the geodetic latitudes (w) and longitudes
(l) of stations are used to estimate the geoid undulation
(N). The basic statistical properties of the datasets are
provided in Table 1 that M is the mean, STD is the stan-
dard deviation of variables, CV is coefficient of variances
as STD/M, SK is skewness of data, Min and Max are
respectively the minimum and maximum of data points.
From the table, it can be seen that the skewness of data
is small, and the geoid undulation has the highest skewed
distribution followed by the longitude and latitude in both
data sets; this indicates that the degree of distortion of
geoid undulation from the normal distribution is higher
than the longitude and latitude in Kuwait. The CV is
almost the same for training and testing data sets. Longi-
tudes have the highest correlation with geoid undulation
in both data sets.
2.2. GGMs and gravimetric geoid of Kuwait
El-Ashquer et al. (2019) have been studied the GGMs of
Kuwait. According to their study, the best combined
GGMs model can be used in Kuwait are EIGEN-6C4
and XGM2016 models at their maximum degree and
there found that the most suitable degree-and-order (d/
o) for GOCE GGMs in Kuwait is 250 from SPace Wise
model (SPW_R5). In this study, these models are used
to evaluate the best fitting model that will be estimated
using soft computing technique; also, a common model
over the world EGM2008 is used. In the computing of
geoid model by the GGMs models, the first-degree term
is set to zero by setting the centre of the reference ellipsoid
to the centre of the Earth (Yakubu et al. 2017). The bias
between the GNSS/Levelling stations and GGMs may
be occurred due to the definition of the vertical datum
of Kuwait which defined by Kuwait Oil Company
depends on the Mean Low Low Water (approximately
1.03 m below the mean sea level) at Kuwait City (El-Ash-
quer et al. 2019). Figure 2 illustrates the variation of geoid
undulation that calculated by GPS/Levelling data and
gravity data; also, the variation of EIGEN-6C4 GGM
model is presented. Here, the whole data available are
used to estimate the variation of GPS/Levelling geoid
model. Table 2 illustrates the variation of the gravity
model and GGM’s models relative to GPS/levelling
geoid model at the whole points.
The gravimetric geoid model of Kuwait has been com-
puted using the SPW_R5 up to SH d/o 250 with
EGM2008 up to SH d/o 2190 and ground gravity stations
(93 points) (El-Ashquer et al. 2019). The strategy followed
for modelling of the gravimetric geoid is based on the
RCR with RTM reduction and the one dimensional
Fast Fourier Transform (1D-FFT) technique with
Wong-Gore modification. From Fig. 2 and Table 2, it
can be seen that the geoid models that estimated by
GPS/Levelling and gravity data are very close. Therefore,
the geoid model of GPS/levelling of Kuwait is accurate
and can be used to model the geoid undulation. The vari-
ation of EIGEN-6C4 model is seen high comparing by
the gravity model, as presented in Fig. 2. Furthermore,
the accuracy of EIGEN-6C4 and XGM2016 models are

Table 1 Statistical parameters of using data sets

Dataset Parameter Unit M STD CV SK Min Max Correlation with N

Training w o
29.46 0.37 0.01 −0.41 28.59 30.07 −0.02
l o
47.73 0.37 0.01 −0.64 46.61 48.40 −0.97
N m −15.52 1.35 −0.09 1.04 −17.96 −10.96 1.00
Testing w o
29.35 0.38 0.01 0.18 28.85 30.01 0.31
l o
47.79 0.40 0.01 −0.70 46.96 48.28 −0.99
N m −15.71 1.53 −0.10 0.88 −17.56 −12.60 1.00

546 Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375

 Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

2 GPS/Levelling Geoid model variation of Kuwait relative to (a) gravity model, (b) EIGEN-6C4 model.

also seen higher than EGM2008 when they are compared be optimized based on the optimality condition as fol-
by GPS/levelling geoid model. However, we can be lows:
assumed that the three GGM’s models can be used to esti-
mate the geoid model in Kuwait, whereas the variation 1 g
n
min (w, b, e) = wT w + ei (2)
between the three models is small and can be neglected. 2 2 i=1
In the current study, the three GGMs models and gravity
geoid model are used to evaluate the best soft computing where g is regulation parameter, and n is the number of
model that will be estimated by GPS/Levelling data. observations; herein, the lagrange multipliers is applied
to estimate these parameters (Kaloop et al. 2018, Elsham-
baky 2019). By eliminating both (w, e) and solving for
2.3. Heuristic methods for modelling geoid (b, a), where a is the lagrange multiplier, the geoid undu-
undulation lation can be represented as follows:
2.3.1. Least square support vector regression (LSSVR)

n

Least square support vector machine/regression (LSSVR) N= ai k(x, xi ) + b (3)

and support vector machine/regression (SVR) are almost
the same with slight differences. Elshambaky (2019)
demonstrated the differences between SVR and LSSVR,
and he found the performances of LSSVR is better in
the datum transformation. Furthermore, LSSVR is used
widely to optimize geoid undulation in different areas
(Zaletnyik et al. 2008, Wang et al. 2009, Kao et al.
2014, Kaloop et al. 2018, Elshambaky 2019). Here, the
LSSVR is used to estimate Kuwait geoid undulation
and evaluate the accuracy of other models, so a summary
of this method is presented. In LSSVR, The geoid undu-
lation can be calculated as follows:
Ni = wT c(xi ) + b + ei
where, c(xi ) is a mapping function to transfer the input
variables xi = [wi , li ] from its primal space to feature
space. w is input weight vector; b represents the biase of
the linear model, and e is the model errors. Herein, a com-
mon mapping function utilized is the kernel radial basis
function (RBF) (k(x, xi )), and the other parameters can
Table 2 Evaluation of global and gravity geoid models
relative to GPS/Levelling geoid model of Kuwait
(units in m)
Model Min Max M STD
i=1
and, the RBF kernel function can be presented as follows:
−x − x 
i
k(x, xi ) = exp (4)
2 s2
where, s is the kernel function bandwidth.
The structure diagram for predicting Kuwait geoid
undulation based on LSSVR model is represented in
Fig. 3a. Thus, from above, it can be seen that the main
parameters that affected the accuracy of LSSVR are g,
a, b, and s. In the current study, Matlab code has been
designed to estimate these parameters and geoid undula-
tion. The cross-validation method is applied to estimate
(1) the LSSVR parameters, and the obtained parameters g,
b and s are 14.65, −0.83 and 0.08, respectively. Figure
3b shows the a values of training points.
2.3.2. Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS)
MARS is a nonlinear and non-parametric regression
method; it can simulate nonlinear relationship between
input and output variables of models using piecewise lin-
ear splines. The basis functions (BFs) are used in MARS
which are defined in pairs forms based on a knot to define
an inflection region. The geoid undulation can be esti-
mated by MARS as follows:


m

EIGEN-6C4 −1.23 −0.72 −0.90 0.09

N = b0 + bi BFi (5)
i=1
XGM2016 −1.27 −0.70 −0.90 0.09
EGM08 −1.06 −0.63 −0.79 0.10 where, bi are unknown parameters which are calculated
Gravity model −0.05 0.03 0.00 0.01
using the least square method, and m is the number of

Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375 547

Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

3 (a) LSSVR model diagram, (b) The a parameter of LSSVR

model

terms in the final model that is found in a forward back-

ward stepwise process. BFi is the i th basis function which
is defined based on knot C from piecewise linear or non-
linear basis function from the following set function,
BFi = {|x − Ci |+ , |Ci − x|+ }, where, |x − Ci |+ =
max (0, x − Ci ) and |Ci − x|+ = max(0, Ci − x). Finally,
the cross validation is used to estimate the best model
can be used to estimate the geoid undulation; the lowest
generalized cross validation (GCV) model was selected.
The GCV can be calculated as follows:
SSE
GCV =
(1 − enp/n)2
Where, SSE is the mean square error of the model in the
training stage; enp is the effective number of par-
ameters, the default enp is between 2 and 4 (Keshtegar
et al. 2018), and n is the number of observations.
Herein, no assumption for the relationship between
input and output variables; high flexibility is provided
by MARS to obtain piecewise curves. It generates
BF’s by exploring in a stepwise manner. Two stages
are used in modelling by MARS, the first is the forward
stage which adds functions and finds potential knots to
advance the accuracy, to produce an overfit model. The
second one is the backward stage which contains elim-
inating the terms having the lowest effect (Keshtegar
et al. 2018). Figure 4a illustrates MARS model flow-
chart. More details for MARS model design and evalu-
ation can be found in Friedman (1993). In this study,
nonlinear and linear piecewise models are evaluated;
the results show that the two models can be used in
our case, but the GCV of the nonlinear model of the
estimated model using training points and presented
in Fig. 4b and Eq.7 is shown lower than that for the
4 (a) MARS geoid model diagram, (b) MARS model of Kuwait
geoid undulation
linear model. The GCV of this model is 0.038 m.
N = −15.504 + 1.7169∗BF1 − 1.5416∗BF2
(6) − 2.9524∗BF3 + 2.7805∗BF4
− 0.85102∗BF5 (7)
where, BF1 = 2(l |−1,46.981,47.347,47.642); BF2 = 2(w |
+1,28.843,29.092,29.409); BF3 = 2(l |+1,47.642,47.937,
47.997); BF4 = 2(l |−1,47.997,48.057,48.226); BF5 =
2(w |−1,29.409,29.727,29.898)
2.3.3. Gaussian process regression (GPR)
GPR principals and theory are presented in Rasmussen
and Williams (2006). To simplify this method to estimate
the geoid undulation, Richardson et al. (2017) defined the
GPR as a non-parametric model that is a probability dis-
tribution over function, and the model in the training
stage can be built as follows:
N = f (x) + e (8)
where,
f (x) gP(m(x), K(x, x′ )) (9)
where, x is any finite collection of input points
x = x1 , . . . ., xn . m(x) and K(x, x′ ) are the mean and

548 Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375

 Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

covariance, commonly is a kernel, functions, respect- be computed as follows:

ively. Thus, the prediction value of geoid undulation
for the inputs x∗ can be estimated by computing the
conditional distribution p(N ∗ |x∗ , x, N), and this can
be calculated analytically by the standard rules for con-
ditioning Gaussians (Murphy 2012, Richardson et al.
2017).
In GPR model optimal values of the hyper-parameters
(kernel, sigma variance noise, and termination criteria)
were tuned. The RBF is tune by maximizing the marginal
likelihood based on the trial and error basis. The pro-
cedure of GPR geoid model is given in algorithm
1. The final configurations of tuned parameters sigma
(0.08) and variance noise of 0.1 with a tolerance of ter-
mination criterion of 0.001 with three-fold cross-vali-
dation were chosen in order to obtain their higher
prediction with the lowest error.
a = (K + lIn )−1 N (12)
where, K is a kernel function between training and testing
data. Thus, the prediction new geoid undulation (Nx ) can
be estimated as follow:
Nx = N ′ (K + lIn )−1 K (13)
Here, as presented above, the kernel function and ridge
parameter are vital variables in this method. Algorithm
2 illustrates the design KRR model for estimating Kuwait
geoid undulation. In this study, the RBF kernel function
is used, the s of RBF is 0.08, and cross validation is
used to calculate the ridge parameter and we estimated
the best value in Kuwait is 1.0e−5.

Algorithm 2: KRR geoid model

Algorithm 1: GPR geoid model
Input: Training set of n observatuins {(xi , Ni ), i = 1, 2, . . . , n},
RBF kernel function was chosen, test inputs x∗
Output: Test outputs N ∗ |x ∗ , x, N
1. Estimating the optimal hyperparamter (uopt ) by maximizing the
likelihood, in each iterative step of which one need to
2. From a covariance matrix K(x, x ′ )
3. Calculate a vector a such that Ka = N
4. Calculate the likelihood
n 5. Scatter M to all the nodes evenly by rows
log p(N|x) = −0.5Na − 0.5 log |K| − log(2p) (Guo and
2 6. End if
Hesthaven, 2018)
5. Calculate the gradient of the likelihood with respect to the
hyperparameters
6. Set K = K(uopt ) and a = a(uopt ) for the optimal
hyperparameters
7. From correlation matrices K ∗∗ = K(x ∗ , x ∗ ) and K ∗ = K(x ∗ , x)
for the optimal hyperparamteres
8. Calculate a matrix A∗ such that KA∗ =K∗
∗
9. From the conditioning mean value vector m∗ =K Ta and the
∗ ∗∗ ∗ T ∗
corresponding covariance matrix C =K -K A
10. Define N ∗ |x ∗ , x, N  N (m ∗ , C ∗ )
2.3.4. Kernel ridge regression (KRR)
KRR is a technique used to perform ridge regression
with a potentially infinite number of nonlinear trans-
formations of the independent variables as regressors
(Exterkate 2013). This method is used SVM and Gaus-
sian processing to improve prediction results, and it is
called a regularization network in the ANN (Cawley
et al. 2005, Exterkate 2013, Haworth et al. 2014). the
Nonlinear predicting KRR of geoid undulation is
designed in this study. The nonlinear algorithm can
be estimated from linear KRR by rearranging in
term of the weight vector w as follows (Haworth
et al. 2014):
N = Xw + e
w = l−1 X ′ (N − Xw) = aX ′
where, X represents the input variables (X = [w, l]),
and l ≥ 0 is called the ridge parameter and it is calcu-
lated empirically using cross validation method. e is
the model errors, which independent of X with mean
zero (E(e) = 0), and variance s2 (E(ee’)=s2In).
In 
training, w can be written as a linear combination as:
w = ni=1 ai Xi , with a = l−1 (N − Xw). Hence, a can
Input: n labeled data input (xi , Ni ) for training; k labeled data
points (x̂j , N̂j ) for testing; xi and x̂j are d dimensional vectors;
assuming intial MSE, i [ {1, 2, . . . , n}, j [ {1, 2, . . . , k}
Output: mean square error (MSE) of prediction; best paramters
l, s.
1. If rank =0 then
2. Store data points (xi , Ni ) as (X , N)
3. M=[X,N] is a n-by-d+1 matrix
4. Shuffle M by rows
Creat a m-by-m kernel matrix K, m=n
7. For i=1to m do
8. xi , Ni = M[i][1:d + 1]
9. End for
 
10. For l = L and s = do, L and are assuming set
paramters of l and s, respectively.
11. For i=1to m do
12. For j=1to m do
13. K[i][j]  select RBF function
14. End for
15. End for
Solve linear equation (12) for a
16. For j = 1 to k do
17. Solve equation (13) for Nx
18. End for
19. If rank=0 then
20. Calculate MSE of the prediction geoid undulation
21. If estimated MSE less than assumed MSE then
22. Select best paramteres l and s
23. End if
24. End if
25. End for
From above, it can be seen that there are small differ-
ences between LSSVR, KRR, and GPR methods in the
processing to estimate the geoid model; that can be sum-
marized as follows (Rasmussen and Williams 2006, Well-
ing 2013): the KRR learns a linear function by the
(10) respective kernel which corresponds to a non-linear func-
tion in the original space. The linear function in the kernel
(11)
space is chosen based on MSE loss with ridge regulariz-
ation. GPR uses the kernel to define the covariance of a
prior distribution over the target function and uses the
observed training data to define a likelihood function. A
major difference is that GPR can choose the kernel’s
hyperparameters based on gradient-ascent on the mar-
ginal likelihood function while KRR needs to perform a
grid search on a cross-validated loss function (MSE

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Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

5 Observed and estimated geoid undulation of training dataset

loss). A further difference is that GPR learns a generative, n

(N pi − Noi )2
probabilistic model of the target function and can thus d = 1 − n i=1
(17)
provide meaningful confidence intervals and posterior (|N pi − Nm | + |N pi − Nm |)2
i=1
samples along with the predictions while KRR only pro- n
(N pi − Noi )2
vides predictions. Whereas, the main difference between NSE = 1 − i=1
n (18)
i=1 (Noi − Nm )
2
KRR and SVR is the different of loss functions that
used in both methods, in KRR uses MSE loss while in where, n is the number of observation and Nm, No, and Np
SVR uses linear epsilon-insensitive loss; besides, SVR is are average, observed, and predicted values of geoid
much faster in the learned model (Welling 2013). undulation, respectively.

2.4. Performance evaluation of models

Different comparison statistics are used to assess the per-
3. Results and Discussions
formance of the four models. The Root Mean Square In the training stage, the scatterplot based comparison of
Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean the four models is plotted in Fig. 5; in addition, the com-
Bias Error (MBE), agreement index (d) and Nash Sut- parative statistical results of different models are tabu-
cliffe Efficiency (NSE) are calculated and compared. lated in Table 3. It is clear from the figure and table that
The equations of the used criteria are given as follows: the LSSVM, GPR, and KRR perform superior accuracy
 compared to the MARS model in the training stage. In
n addition, the linear fitting equation, which presented in
i=1 (N pi − Noi )
2
RMS = (14) Fig. 5, of four models shows that the four models can
n
be used to detect the geoid undulation of Kuwait. From
n these results, it can be found that the GPR and KRR
|N pi − Noi |
MAE = i=1 (15) accuracy is acceptable to detect the geoid undulation of
n
our case, while the weakest model is MARS. Herein, it
1
n
N pi − Noi should be mentioned that the area of Kuwait is small;
MBE = (16) therefore, the accuracy of fitting models assumed to be
n i=1 Noi
high. Consequently, it can be concluded that the MARS

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 Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

Table 3 Comparison of statistical errors for models in evaluation of these models. The linear fitting equation
training stage of the models is presented in Fig. 6.
Model MAE (m) RMSE (m) MBE d NSE From Table 4, it can be seen that the MAE, RMSE, and
MBE of KRR model are 0.019, 0.024 m, and −5.19e−4,
LSSVM 0.049 0.066 −3.53e−11 0.975 0.998 respectively, and these values are the lowest for the tested
GPR 0.054 0.074 −5.30e−11 0.973 0.997 models. In addition, the d and NSE of KRR model are
KRR 0.035 0.051 −1.82e−05 0.982 0.999 0.992 and 0.999, respectively, and these values are the
MARS 0.114 0.155 −2.65e−11 0.942 0.987 highest for the other models. Furthermore, the slope of
the linear equation of KRR model is an approach to
one; it means that the accuracy of this model is high.
model may not suitable for fitting geoid undulation with a The accuracy of this model is improved by 45.45% relative
large area. to LSSVM model in term of RMSE. In contrast, the
Furthermore, it can be observed from Table 3 that the MARS model is found to be the worst model compared
five statistical parameters achieved for the training data by LSSVM model in this stage.
portray the extent at which the optimum trained models From training and testing stages, it is clearly shown that
predicted output agreed to the observed data. The com- the accuracy of Kuwait geoid model is improved by using
parative LSSVM and other models show that the devel- KRR model comparing by that estimated by LSSVM
oped KRR model is better to use in Kuwait. In model; therefore, it can be concluded that the KRR
addition, the lowest MAE, RMSE, and MBE and higher model is the best that can be used to estimate the geoid
agreement index (d ) and NSE is the KRR model com- undulation of Kuwait.
pared by other models. The accuracy of this model is To more validate the accuracy of the developed KRR
improved by 22.7% in RMSE term relative to LSSVM model, the gravity geoid model and EGM2008, EIGN-
model. Therefore, the best model can be used to estimate 6C4, and XGM-2016 GGM’s of Kuwait are used to assess
the geoid undulation in Kuwait is KRR model. the model. In this phase, the training data is used to build
In the testing stage, the four models are also compared the KRR model and the whole data are used to compare
and evaluated. Figure 6 presents the scatterplot of the the model with gravity observation model and GGM’s
four fitting models, and Table 4 shows the statistical models. Table 5 demonstrates the geoid undulation of

6 Observed and estimated geoid undulation of testing dataset

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Kaloop et al. Optimizing Local Geoid Undulation Model using GPS/Levelling Measurements

Table 4 Comparison of statistical errors for models in Figure 7a clearly shows that the four models’ corre-
testing stage lations are high and the RMSD of them are small; the per-
Model MAE (m) RMSE (m) MBE d NSE formances of XGM2016 and EIGN-6C4 are
approximately the same into estimating Kuwait geoid
LSSVM 0.037 0.044 5.31e−6 0.984 0.999 undulation. The KRR geoid undulation has performed
GPR 0.043 0.052 −3.28e−4 0.982 0.999 significantly and its standard deviation is very close to
KRR 0.019 0.024 −5.19e−4 0.992 0.999 the gravity geoid undulation values. Figure 7b shows the
MARS 0.098 0.134 1.40e−3 0.959 0.992 error and their distribution produced by models through
five number summaries (minimum value, lower quartile
(Q1), median value (Q2), upper quartile (Q3), maximum
Table 5 Comparison of Geoid undulation model for value). From the analysis of the result, it is evident that
observed data and models (units in m)
KRR has performed significantly as its Q2, Q1, Q3 are
Model Min Max M STD very closed showing the quantile range (Q1, Q3) and
median are equal distances and following approximately
Gravity −17.96 −10.96 −15.56 1.38 normally distributed. This result signifies that KRR
GPS/Levelling −17.96 −10.96 −15.56 1.38 model is consist and produced normally distributed
EGM2008 −17.14 −10.11 −14.77 1.36
error. In addition, the whisker length and outlier points
EIGN-6C4 −17.16 −10.03 −14.66 1.40
XGM2016 −17.11 −9.94 −14.66 1.41 for KRR model is also comparatively less than the
KRR −17.96 −10.96 −15.56 1.38 GGM’s models. Furthermore, the median of KRR
model errors is close to zero. Therefore, based on the
above evidence, it can be concluded that KRR model
can be considered as a better option as a soft-computing
gravity and GPS/Levelling data and KRR and GGM’s technique for the modelling of Kuwait geoid undulation.
models. In addition, Fig. 7 presents the statistical Taylor
diagram of the models and box–whisker plot of the errors
of GGM’s and KRR models relative to gravity geoid 4. Conclusions
model. Taylor diagram is statistical summaries to evaluate The accuracy of novel LSSVR, GPR, KRR, and MARS
the degree of correspondence between values of geoid models based on geodetic coordinates inputs in modelling
undulation of gravity model and that for KRR model in geoid undulation of Kuwait were investigated in this
terms of correlation coefficient and standard deviation study. These model’s errors were compared through sev-
and Root Mean Square Difference (RMSD) (Taylor eral comparative statistics including root mean square
2001). The Pearson correlation is represented by an azi- error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean bias
muthal angle (dash-blue contours); RMSD is pro- error (MBE), agreement index (d) and Nash Sutcliffe effi-
portional to the radial distance from the point of ciency (NSE). In the training stage, the comparative
correlation equal one (dash-green contours) and radial LSSVM and other models show that the KRR model
distance from the origin (dot-black contours) is the stan- was better to use in Kuwait. In addition, the accuracy
dard deviation of the simulated pattern. The box–whisker of this model is improved by 22.7% in terms of RMSE
plot is used to check the model’s error and its centre and relative to LSSVM model. The MAE, RMSE, and
spread of a distribution of error. MBE of KRR model were 0.019, 0.024 m, and −5.19e
From Table 5, it can be seen that the KRR model accu- −4, respectively, and d and NSE of the model were
racy is high to estimate the geoid undulation of Kuwait 0.992 and 0.999, respectively, in the testing stage. The
compared by gravity and GPS/Levelling geoid models. accuracy of this model was improved by 45.45% relative
The percentage of error accuracy of KRR model is to LSSVM model in term of RMSE. Furthermore, the
0.018 and 0.124% relative to gravity and GPS/Levelling KRR model is compared by GGMs models
geoid models, respectively, in terms of standard deviation. (EGM2008, EIGN-6C4, and XGM-2016) to validate
This indicates that the KRR model is suitable to detect the developed KRR model for using in Kuwait, and the
Kuwait geoid model. results show that KRR model can be considered as a

7 Evaluation models and models errors: (a) Taylor diagram displaying the model performance, and (b) Error distributions of
different models for geoid undulation estimation

552 Survey Review 2020 VOL 52 NO 375

 Kaloop et al.
better option as a soft-computing technique for the mod-
elling of Kuwait geometric geoid undulation. Finally, for
future study, an integration for land and ocean data is rec-
ommended for improving the geoid model, especially on
the shore region.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by Basic Science Research Pro-
gram through the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT &
Future Planning (2019R1I1A1A01062202).
Funding
This work was supported by Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Plan-
ning: [Grant Number 2019R1I1A1A01062202].
ORCID
Mosbeh R. Kaloop http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8449-
8883
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