Learning outcomes

 At the end of this class, students shall be able to:

 Define propagation of errors
 Compute error of computed quantities in various
surveying works
 Learn methods in computing errors depending on
their type of propagation
 Introduction
 The calculation of quantities such as areas, volumes,
difference in height, horizontal distance, etc., using the
measured quantities distances and angles, is done through
mathematical relationships between the computed quantities
and the measured quantities. Since the measured quantities
have errors, it is inevitable that the quantities computed from
them will not have errors. Evaluation of the errors in the
computed quantities as the function of errors in the
measurements, is called error propagation.
Recall…

 Accuracy
 Precision
 Most probable value
 Standard deviation/error
 Variance
 Standard deviation/error of the mean
 Most probable error
We measure……

 Angle and distance --> coordinates

 Coordinates --> area
 BS and FS --> elevation
 General Formula

Let:
a, b, c, ...n - observed quantities (independent)
Ea, Eb, Ec,...., En - corresponding errors
Z - computed quantities from observed quantities

 f   f   f  f
2 2 2 2
 
EZ    Ea    Eb    Ec   ...   En 
 a   b   c   n 
Z  f (a, b, c,..., n)
Error in series

 It describes the error of multiple

measurements with identical standard
deviations such as measuring a 1000m
line with a tape of 100m long

Eseries   E n
Error in a sum

 It is the square root of the sum of each of the

individual measurements squared
 It is used when there are several measurements
with differing standard errors

Esum   E1  E2  E3  ...  En
2 2 2 2
Error in Redundant
Measurements

 If a measurement is repeated
multiple times, the accuracy
increases, even if the
measurements have theE same
value Ered .meas.  
n
Examples

1) A survey party is capable of making taping

observations with a standard deviation of
±10cm in every 100m tape length. What
standard deviation would be expected in a
distance of 200m taped by this party?
2) A 120-m line was taped with a 30-m tape with
standard deviation of ±3mm. What is the
expected 95% error in the total length?
Examples

3) A distance of 1000 ft. is to be taped with an error

of not more than ±0.5 ft. Determine how accurately
each 100 ft. length must be observed to ensure that
the error will not exceed the permissible limit.
4) Compute the estimated error of a rectangular lot
whose measured dimensions and errors 295 ± 0.5 m
by 601.75 ± 0.6 m.
Long exam na ta??? 