Analysis of GPS ionospheric scintillation signal amplitude fading characteristics at low latitude

The received satellite signal amplitude is attenuated greatly due to the strong ionospheric scintillation for lowlatitude regions, which causes the GPS tracking loop＇s loss of lock, the positioning errors to increase, and navigation to be interrupted. To solve the above problems, a novel signal processing algorithm is proposed based on the GPS L1 software receiver during strong ionospheric scintillation using the multi-channel intermediate frequency（IF） data sampling system. Tens of thousands of fading events are obtained based on the signal intensity measurement. The amplitude fading characteristics in the lowlatitude region are analyzed,including fading duration, time separation between fades and the numbers of signal intensity fading events. The fading thresholds are set to be 15 and 10 dB, respectively. The main fading time is very short in- 15 dB fading threshold, which generally is less than 20 ms. The main time separation between fades is less than 2 s in a single one-hour period from the time 23： 00 to 24： 00. Therefore, it has the characteristic of a short reacquisition time for the receiver designed to reduce the probability of simultaneous loss of lock for some satellites.Subsequently, the acquisition, tracking and PVT（position,velocity and time） calculations are completed by the customdesigned software receiver. The results show that the impact analysis of ionospheric scintillation on GPS amplitude attenuation in the lowlatitude region is helpful for designing the advanced tracking algorithm and to improve the robustness and accuracy of the GPS receiver.

Carrier frequency disturbance distributions on GPS during equatorial ionospheric scintillation

In the equatorial region,deep amplitude fading in global positioning system(GPS)signals frequently occurs during the strong ionospheric scintillation,it can lead to the loss of lock in GPS carrier tracking loops,and result in increased positioning error and even navigation interruption.The relationships between amplitude scintillation indices and detrended carrier frequency are investigated,based on GPS L1 C/A signals during the last peak of the solar cycle at the low latitude site of São Josédos Campos,Brazil(23.2S,45.9W)from 2013 to 2015.Corresponding mathematic model of the probability distribution function is built for the first time to provide statistical analysis on the above relationships.The results show that the standard carrier frequencies reveal an almost linear relation with the amplitude scintillation indices.Moreover,the frequency widths of detrended frequency are proportional to levels of amplitude scintillation when the value of the peak probability is lower than the corresponding boundary.A conclusion can be drawn that different levels of amplitude scintillation will influence the fluctuation of the carrier frequency.The analysis will provide useful guidance to set the receiver’s bandwidth with respect to the different scintillation levels and design the advanced tracking algorithms to improve the robustness and precision of the GPS receiver.

Preface to the Special Issue on recent advances in the study of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles and Ionospheric Scintillation

The 2 nd Equatorial Plasma Bubble(EPB)workshop,funded by the Institute of Geology and Geophysics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,and the National Natural Science Foundation of China,took place in Beijing,China during September 13–15,2019.The EPB workshop belongs to a conference series that began in 2016 in Nagoya,Japan at the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research,Nagoya University,resulting in a special issue of Progress in Earth and Planetary Science that focused on EPBs.The main goal of the series is to organize in-depth discussion by scientists working on ionospheric irregularities,and solve the scientific challenges in EPB and ionospheric scintillation forecasting.The 2 nd EPB workshop gathered almost 60 scientists from seven countries.A total of 20 invited and contributing papers focusing on ionospheric irregularities and scintillations were presented.Here we briefly comment on 10 papers included in this special issue.

Detection and Analysis of Strong Ionospheric Scintillation in Equatorial Region

To detect the occurrence of ionospheric scintillation in the equatorial region,a coherent/non-coherent integration method is adopted on the accumulation of intermediate frequency(IF)signal and local code,in the process of signal acquisition based on software receiver.The processes of polynomial fitting and sixth-order Butterworth filtering are introduced to detrend the tracking results.Combining with ionospheric scintillation detection algorithm and preset thresholds,signal acquisition and tracking,scintillation detection,positioning solution are realized under the influence of strong ionospheric scintillation.Under the condition that the preset threshold of amplitude and carrier phase scintillation indices are set to 0.5 and 0.15,and the percentage of scin-tillation occurrence is 50%,respectively,PRN 12 and 31 affected by strong amplitude scintillation are detected effectively.Results show that the positioning errors in the horizontal direction are below 5m approximately.The software receiver holds performances of accurate acquisition,tracking and positioning on the strong ionospheric scintillation conditions,which can provide important basis and helpful guidance for relevant research on ionospheric scintillation,space weather and receiver design with high performance.

Suppression of Plasma Bubbles over South America under Weak Geomagnetic Perturbations

During a long-term Equatorial Plasma Bubbles(EPBs)occurrence between October 2020 and March 2021,a significant EPB suppression event was identified on November 22 and the observations from multi-instrument have been utilized to investigate this event.Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk(GOLD)satellite observed prominent EPBs between 23:40 UT and 23:55 UT during the long-term occurrence days.However,no dark stripes representing EPBs were observed on November 22,and the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly(EIA)structure remained intact.The Total Electron Content(TEC)maps show that these EPBs appeared in the region between 35°W and 65°W longitudes and the magnitudes of the TEC loss in EPBs regions were about 20 TECU.Except for 22 November,the S4 index was consistently greater than 0.6 throughout November,indicating significant ionospheric scintillation.The Rate Of TEC Index(ROTI)maps revealed that the spatial extent and intensity of EPBs increased after their suppression,and the EPBs were locally generated.The swarm electron density measurements indicated that the variation amplitudes of EPBs at 510 km altitude were approximately 3 to 5 times larger than that at 460 km altitude.The impact region of EPBs at 510 km was between 15°S and 20°N latitudes,while at 460 km,it was between 0°and 17°N latitudes.During the period of EPB suppression,the average h’f at three ionosonde stations decreased by about 50 km,and the vertical drift velocity(V z)approached~0 m/s while it was more than 20 m/s during the long-term occurrence.

An Investigation of Optimal Machine Learning Methods for the Prediction of ROTI

The rate of the total electron content(TEC)change index(ROTI)can be regarded as an effective indicator of the level of ionospheric scintillation,in particular in low and high latitude regions.An accurate prediction of the ROTI is essential to reduce the impact of the ionospheric scintillation on earth observation systems,such as the global navigation satellite systems.However,it is difficult to predict the ROTI with high accuracy because of the complexity of the ionosphere.In this study,advanced machine learning methods have been investigated for ROTI prediction over a station at high-latitude in Canada.These methods are used to predict the ROTI in the next 5 minutes using the data derived from the past 15 minutes at the same location.Experimental results show that the method of the bidirectional gated recurrent unit network(BGRU)outperforms the other six approaches tested in the research.It is also confirmed that the RMSEs of the predicted ROTI using the BGRU method in all four seasons of 2017 are less than 0.05 TECU/min.It is demonstrated that the BGRU method exhibits a high level of robustness in dealing with abrupt solar activities.

Remote sensing ionospheric variations due to total solar eclipse, using GNSS observations

For years great interest has been taken in the effects of physical phenomena on ionosphere structure. A total solar eclipse was visible in North America on August 21 st, 2017. This event offered a great opportunity for remote sensing the ionospheric behavior under the eclipse condition. In this study we investigated the effects of total solar eclipse on variations of Total Electron Content(TEC), and consequently deviations on regional models of Vertical TEC(VTEC), as well as variations in ionospheric scintillation occurrence. Although variations of TEC due to total solar eclipse are studied thoroughly by many authors, but the effect of solar eclipse on ionospheric scintillation has never been considered before. Our study is based on measurements from a high-rate GPS network over North America on the day of eclipse, a day before and after its occurrence, on the other hand, GPS measurements from groundbased stations on similar days were used to model TEC on the day of event, and also one day before and after it. The results of this study demonstrate that solar eclipse reduced scintillation occurrence at the totality region up to 28 percent and TEC values showed a decrease of maximum 7 TECU. Considering TEC models, our study showed apparent variations in the regional models, which confirms previous studies on ionospheric responses to eclipse as well as theoretical assumptions.

Case study of ionospheric fluctuation over mid-latitude region during one large magnetic storm

From Nov. 6 to 10, 2004, a large number of solar events occurred, which triggered many solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These CMEs caused two large geomagnetic storms and continuous energy proton events. During this period, one large positive ionospheric storm happened over the East-Asian region on Nov. 8, 2004. On Nov. 10, 2004, a strong spread-F was observed by the ionosonde located in the mid-latitude region of East China and Japan, and the ionospheric fluctuation over the ionosonde stations derived from GPS observation was also obvious. In this report, the characteristics of the spatial distribution of the ionosphere fluctuation and its temporal evolution are studied using the parameter of the rate of total electron content (ROT) derived from dual-frequency GPS measurement. Strong fluctuating activity of the ionosphere was found over the mid-latitude region in the southern and northern hemispheres between longitudes of 100°E and 180°E during the magnetic storm period on Nov. 10, 2004, and a regular movement of the disturbing region was observed. In the end, the reason of the ionospheric fluctuation during this magnetic storm is analyzed.