COMPATIBILITY BETWEEN MOBILE GEOPOSITIONS AND LOCAL MAPS IN IRAQ

Abstract

The paper aims to make the coordinates obtained from global positioning systems compatible with local maps in Iraq for mobile locations . Therefore , number of control points have been selected in the study area . Both geographic and map projection coordinates are measured using mobile geopositions based on Universal Transverse Mercator ( UTM ) projection and World Geodetic System ( WGS 1984 ) datum . The measured geographic coordinates are transformed to map projection in Iraq using geographic information system ( GIS ) depending on Clarke 1880 ellipsoid . ArcGIS model builder is designed to implement coordinates transformation . Field calculator scripts are written by Python programming language . Differences between the measured and transformed coordinates are determined . The results show that the differences in northing coordinates are about ( 278.6 m ) and the percentage of difference to this value is ( 0.6 % ) , while the differences in easting coordinates reach to ( − 287.6 m ) with its percentage of difference equals to ( 0.4 % ) in the study area . It is concluded that positions discrepancies should be considered in map production and updating for engineering works .