Mapping and Navigation - Specialization

Mapping and Navigation

Learn how to create and utilize detailed 3D maps and precise satellite navigation.

Accurate maps have always been a prerequisite for human endeavours, and today, more than ever, detailed and precise maps and navigation services are essential for our society, allowing efficient transportation, planning, and exploration.

Students following the specialization' Mapping and Navigation' will learn to produce maps from aerial and satellite data, analyze geographic data, and utilize navigation information. The mapping is based on digital aerial photographs, multispectral data, and laser and radar measurements from aircraft and satellites. It covers everything from 3D maps of buildings to mapping of sea levels and flooding on land. To understand how to make exact measurements, students will learn to calculate satellite orbits and how to make corrections for continental drift, atmospheric influence and other sources of error. They will also learn about geodetic reference systems.

The specialization' Mapping and Navigation' focuses on both data collection and use. Graduates will be able to develop tomorrow's maps for urban planning and climate change adaptation and more accurate services and applications for navigation, which can be used in, for example, the transport sector.

Academic focus

The academic focus of this specialization is the development and use of instrumentation, observation techniques, models, systems, services and decision-support tools for mapping and navigation.

Students will also learn advanced mathematical methods to analyze data, design databases and combine spatial information in geographic information systems (GIS). Satellite navigation is combined with mapping to ensure accurate correspondence between the maps and positions derived from satellite navigation data.

Within the specialization' Mapping and Navigation', you can focus primarily on data processing, physical and mathematical modelling, or instrumentation (there are no specialization courses, only project work!).

Requirements for the specialization

If students - in addition to the general requirements for the programme - meet the following five more strict requirements for the selection of courses, the title of the specialization 'Mapping and Navigation' will be added to the diploma under the title of the general programme: 'Earth and Space Physics and Engineering'.

1.
Students must have passed the following mandatory programme-specific course in Measurement Technology:

2.
Students must have passedat least 10 ECTS programme-specific courses in Measurement Technology  from the following list:

3.
Students must have passed the following mandatory programme-specific courses in Physical Large Scale Structures and Processes:

In addition, the head of the specialization recommends taking the following programme-specific course in Physical Large Scale Structures and Processes 

Programme-specific courses beyond 30 ECTS will count as elective courses.

4.
The topics of both the mandatory project in 'Earth and Space Physics and Engineering' and the Master's Thesis must be within the specialization field.

5.
Students must have passed a sufficient number of elective courses – and preferably selected from the following list of the recommended elective courses - to bring the total number of ECTS points of the entire study up to 120:

Other relevant elective online courses may be found in the EuroTeQ Partner Universities' course catalogue

Specializations are merely recommended ways of choosing the courses in the curriculum. Applicants are not admitted to a specialization but to the programme and it is possible to choose among all the courses in the curriculum following the directions given. However, if a specialization has been fulfilled the title of the specialization may be added to the diploma.