Application of Robust Estimation Methods for the Analysis of Outlier Measurements

The basis of mathematical analysis of geodetic measurements is the method of least squares (LSM), whose bicentenary we celebrated in 2006. In geodetic practice, we quite often encounter the phenomenon when outlier measurements penetrate into the set of measured data as a result of e.g. the impact of physical environment. That fact led to modifications of LSM that have been increasingly published mainly in foreign literature in recent years. The mentioned alternative estimation methods are e.g. robust estimation methods and methods in linear programming. The aim of the present paper is to compare LSM with the robust estimation methods on an example of a regression line.