Ground control points used in UAS operations and positions of installed permanent ground control points on North Core Banks, NC in October 2022

The vinyl ground control points (GCPs) were processed with the following steps:
1. Five vinyl GCPs with black and white squares were deployed within each survey area and surveyed at the center with the SP80 using the NC CORs RTK network.
2. The data were exported from the SP80 rover with xyz variances in the horizontal datum NAD83(2011) to produce latitude, longitude, and ellipsoid heights, and then UTM18N and NAVD88 using GEOID 18 were used to produce UTM coordinates and orthometric heights. From each site GCP locations were put into the CSV file named 2022034FA_NCB_GCPs.csv.

Each of the five permanent GCPs (CALO1-5) were placed with the following steps:
1. Three five-foot steel rebar ½” posts were driven into the ground. Three ½” silicon-bronze grounding wire clamps and stainless-steel washers were placed near the top at a level surface.
2. The 2x2 foot rigid aluminum coated foam laminate ¼” thick target (four-square black and white) with three holes drilled into it was placed onto the posts and on top of the clamps and washer, and then an additional clamp and washer was placed on top of the target to fasten the target in place on the posts. A level was used to make sure the target lay flat and slightly above the sand and vegetation.
3. An RTK point at the target center was taken and provided in the 2022034FA_NCB_GCPs.csv. The target centers of CALO2-5 were occupied with the SP80 station as a base for roughly one hour. Target CALO1 was occupied for four hours. The SP80 G-File for each target was converted into a RINEX file using a converter (v.5.0.8 available here https://spectrageospatial.com/survey-office/). The RINEX .0 file was manually cleaned and decimated to 10 seconds using teqc (latest and end-of-life version here https://www.unavco.org/software/data-processing/teqc/teqc.html). The decimated file was uploaded to the rapid-static OPUS option using the SPP91564_2 NONE antenna option with an antenna height of 1.54 meters. The resulting OPUS solution is provided in its entirety as a plain text file.