A half-century of Baarda’s concept of reliability: a review, new perspectives, and applications

Abstract

Over the 50 years of its existence, Baarda’s concept of reliability has been used as a standard practice for the quality control in geodesy and surveying. In this study, we analysed the pioneering work of Baarda (Publ Geod New Ser 2(4) 1967; Publ Geod New Ser 2(5) 1968) and recent studies on the subject. We highlighted that the advent of personal computers with powerful processors has rendered Monte Carlo method as an attractive and cost-effective approach for quality control purposes. We also provided an overview of the latest advances in the reliability theory for geodesy, with particular emphasis on Monte Carlo method.

Keywords:

• Reliability
• Outlier
• Hypothesis Testing
• Quality Control
• Minimal Detectable Bias
• Minimal Identifiable Bias
• Data snooping

Acknowledgement

We appreciate the comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers. We also appreciate the support of all members of the research group: ‘Quality Control in Geodesy’ (http://dgp.cnpq.br/dgp/espelhogrupo/3674873915161650). This study was financed by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (proc. n. 305599/2015-1).

ORCID

Vinicius Francisco Rofatto http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1453-7530

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (proc. n. 305599/2015-1).