scholarly journals A Study on the Characteristics of the Ionospheric Gradient under Geomagnetic Perturbations

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1805
Author(s):  
Yixin Zhang ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Junlei Mei ◽  
Chunxi Zhang ◽  
Jinling Wang

The Earth’s ionosphere is greatly influenced by geomagnetic activities, especially geomagnetic storms. During a geomagnetic storm, the ionosphere suffers many perturbations, leading to a spatial gradient that are neglected during geomagnetically quiet periods. An ionospheric gradient generates potential hazards for a ground-based argumentation system (GBAS) by enlarging the errors in the delay corrections between ground monitor stations and users. To address this problem, this work investigates the characteristics of the ionospheric gradient under geomagnetic storms. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations from the continuously operating reference station (CORS) network were used to analyze the ionospheric gradients during the geomagnetic storm on 8 September 2017. The statistical behavior of the ionospheric gradient was further discussed. Experiments show that strong geomagnetic perturbations lead to large ionospheric gradients, and the gradients also vary with the geomagnetic location.

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 145-155
Author(s):  
Timo Saari ◽  
Markku Poutanen ◽  
Veikko Saaranen ◽  
Harri Kaartinen ◽  
Antero Kukko ◽  
...  

Precise levelling is known for its accuracy and reliability in height determination, but the process itself is slow, laborious and expensive. We have started a project to study methods for height determination that could decrease the creation time of national height systems without losing the accuracy and reliability that is needed for them. In the pilot project described here, we study some of the alternative techniques with a pilot field test where we compared them with the precise levelling. The purpose of the test is not to evaluate the mutual superiority or suitability of the techniques, but to establish the background for a larger test and to find strong and weak points of each technique. The techniques chosen for this study were precise levelling, Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) levelling, which included static Global Positioning System (GPS) and Virtual Reference Station (VRS) measurements. This research highlighted the differences of the studied techniques and gave insights about the framework and procedure for the later experiments. The research will continue in a larger scale, where the suitability of the techniques regarding the height systems is to be determined.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1010
Author(s):  
Lehui Wei ◽  
Chunhua Jiang ◽  
Yaogai Hu ◽  
Ercha Aa ◽  
Wengeng Huang ◽  
...  

This study presents observations of nighttime spread F/ionospheric irregularities and spread Es at low and middle latitudes in the South East Asia longitude of China sectors during the recovery phase of the 7–9 September 2017 geomagnetic storm. In this study, multiple observations, including a chain of three ionosondes located about the longitude of 100°E, Swarm satellites, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ROTI maps, were used to study the development process and evolution characteristics of the nighttime spread F/ionospheric irregularities at low and middle latitudes. Interestingly, spread F and intense spread Es were simultaneously observed by three ionosondes during the recovery phase. Moreover, associated ionospheric irregularities could be observed by Swarm satellites and ground-based GNSS ionospheric TEC. Nighttime spread F and spread Es at low and middle latitudes might be due to multiple off-vertical reflection echoes from the large-scale tilts in the bottom ionosphere. In addition, we found that the periods of the disturbance ionosphere are ~1 h at ZHY station, ~1.5 h at LSH station and ~1 h at PUR station, respectively. It suggested that the large-scale tilts in the bottom ionosphere might be produced by LSTIDs (Large scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances), which might be induced by the high-latitude energy inputs during the recovery phase of this storm. Furthermore, the associated ionospheric irregularities observed by satellites and ground-based GNSS receivers might be caused by the local electric field induced by LSTIDs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Romero ◽  
Mike Mustafa Berber

Abstract Twenty four hour GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) data acquired monthly for 5 years from 8 CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Station) stations in Central Valley, California are processed and vertical velocities of the points are determined. To process GNSS data, online GNSS data processing service APPS (Automatic Precise Positioning Service) is used. GNSS data downloaded from NGS (National Geodetic Survey) CORS are analyzed and subsidence at these points is portrayed with graphics. It is revealed that elevation changes range from 5 mm uplift in the north to 163 mm subsidence in the southern part of the valley.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 5637
Author(s):  
Łukasz Marchel ◽  
Cezary Specht ◽  
Mariusz Specht

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) are increasingly used to perform numerous tasks connected with measurements in inland waters and seas. One of such target applications is hydrography, where traditional (manned) bathymetric measurements are increasingly often realized by unmanned surface vehicles. This pertains especially to restricted or hardly navigable waters, in which execution of hydrographic surveys with the use of USVs requires precise maneuvering. Bathymetric measurements should be realized in a way that makes it possible to determine the waterbody’s depth as precisely as possible, and this requires high-precision in navigating along planned sounding profiles. This paper presents research that aimed to determine the accuracy of unmanned surface vehicle steering in autonomous mode (with a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller) along planned hydrographic profiles. During the measurements, a high-precision Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Real Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning system based on a GNSS reference station network (positioning accuracy: 1–2 cm, p = 0.95) and a magnetic compass with the stability of course maintenance of 1°–3° Root Mean Square (RMS) were used. For the purpose of evaluating the accuracy of the vessel’s path following along sounding profiles, the cross track error (XTE) measure, i.e., the distance between an USV’s position and the hydrographic profile, calculated transversely to the course, was proposed. The tests were compared with earlier measurements taken by other unmanned surface vehicles, which followed the exact same profiles with the use of much simpler and low-cost multi-GNSS receiver (positioning accuracy: 2–2.5 m or better, p = 0.50), supported with a Fluxgate magnetic compass with a high course measurement accuracy of 0.3° (p = 0.50 at 30 m/s). The research has shown that despite the considerable difference in the positioning accuracy of both devices and incomparably different costs of both solutions, the authors proved that the use of the GNSS RTK positioning system, as opposed to a multi-GNSS system supported with a Fluxgate magnetic compass, influences the precision of USV following sounding profiles to an insignificant extent.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duojie Weng ◽  
Xingli Gan ◽  
Wu Chen ◽  
Shengyue Ji ◽  
Yangwei Lu

One’s position has become an important piece of information for our everyday lives in a smart city. Currently, a position can be obtained easily using smartphones that is equipped with low-cost Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chipsets with accuracy varying from 5 m to 10 m. Differential GNSS (DGNSS) is an efficient technology that removes the majority of GNSS errors with the aid of reference stations installed at known locations. The sub-meter accuracy can be achieved when applying the DGNSS technology on the advanced receivers. In 2016, Android has opened the accesses of raw GNSS measurements to developers. However, most of the mid and low-end smartphones only provide the data using the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) protocol. They do not provide the raw measurements, and thus do not support the DGNSS operation either. We proposed a DGNSS infrastructure that correct the standalone GNSS position of smartphones using the corrections from the reference station. In the infrastructure, the position correction is generated considering the GNSS satellite IDs that contribute to the standalone solution in smartphones, and the position obtained is equivalent to the solution of using the range-domain correction directly. To serve a large number of smartphone users, a Client/Server architecture is developed to cope with a mass of DGNSS positioning requests efficiently. The comparison of the proposed infrastructure against the ground truth, for all field tests in open areas, showed that the infrastructure achieves the horizontal positioning accuracy better than 2 m. The improvement in accuracy can reach more than 50% for the test in the afternoon. The infrastructure brings benefits to applications that require more accuracy without requiring any hardware modifications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Yibin Yao ◽  
Linyang Xin ◽  
Qingzhi Zhao

Abstract. As an innovative use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the GNSS water vapor tomography technique shows great potential in monitoring three-dimensional water vapor variation. Most of the previous studies employ the pixel-based method, i.e., dividing the troposphere space into finite voxels and considering water vapor in each voxel as constant. However, this method cannot reflect the variations in voxels and breaks the continuity of the troposphere. Moreover, in the pixel-based method, each voxel needs a parameter to represent the water vapor density, which means that huge numbers of parameters are needed to represent the water vapor field when the interested area is large and/or the expected resolution is high. In order to overcome the abovementioned problems, in this study, we propose an improved pixel-based water vapor tomography model, which uses layered optimal polynomial functions obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) by adaptive training for water vapor retrieval. Tomography experiments were carried out using the GNSS data collected from the Hong Kong Satellite Positioning Reference Station Network (SatRef) from 25 March to 25 April 2014 under different scenarios. The tomographic results are compared to the ECMWF data and validated by the radiosonde. Results show that the new model outperforms the traditional one by reducing the root-mean-square error (RMSE), and this improvement is more pronounced, at 5.88 % in voxels without the penetration of GNSS rays. The improved model also has advantages in more convenient expression.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1037
Author(s):  
Dehai Li ◽  
Yaming Dang ◽  
Yunbin Yuan ◽  
Jinzhong Mi

Many Beidou navigation satellite system (BDS) receivers or boards provide dual-frequency measurements to conduct precise positioning and navigation for low-power consumption. Cycle-slip processing is a primary work to guarantee consistent, precise positioning with the phase data. However, the cycle-slip processing of BDS dual-frequency phases still follows with those of existing GPS methods. For single-satellite data, cycle-slip detection (CSD) with the geometry-free phase (GF) is disturbed by severe ionospheric delay variations, while CSD or cycle-slip repair (CSR) with the Melbourne–Wubbena combination (MW) must face the risk of the tremendous disturbance from large pseudorange errors. To overcome the above limitations, a new cycle-slip repair method for BDS dual-frequency phases (BDCSR) is proposed: (1) An optimal model to minimize the variance of the cycle-slip calculation was established to the dual-frequency BDS, after correcting the ionospheric variation with a reasonable and feasible way. (2) Under the BDS dual-frequency condition, a discrimination function was built to exclude the adverse disturbance from the pseudorange errors on the CSR, according to the rankings of the absolute epoch-difference GFs calculated by the searched cycle-slip candidates after correcting the ionospheric variation. Subsequently, many compared CSR tests were implemented in conditions of low and medium elevations during strong geomagnetic storms. Comparisons from the results of different methods show that: (1) The variations of ionospheric delays are intolerable in the cycle-slip calculation during the geomagnetic storm, and the tremendous influence from the ionospheric variation should be corrected before calculating the cycle-slip combination with the BDS dual-frequency data. (2) Under the condition of real dual-frequency BDS data during the geomagnetic storm, the actual success rate of the conventional dual-frequency CSR (CDCSR) by employing the optimized combinations, but absenting from the discrimination function, is lower than that of BDCSR by about 2%; The actual success rate of the CSD with MW (MWCSD), is lower than that of BDCSR by about 2%. (3) After adding gross errors of 0.7 m to all real epoch-difference pseudoranges epoch-by-epoch, results of CDCSR and MWCSD showed many errors. However, BDCSR achieved a higher actual success rate than those of CDCSR and MWCSD, about 43% and 16%, respectively, and better performance of refraining the disturbance of large pseudorange error on the cycle-slip determination was achieved in the BDCSR methodology.


Author(s):  
Baatarkhuu Dagva ◽  
Amarjargal Sharav ◽  
Lkhagvajav Chultemiin

This work is focused on the correlation of ionosphere total electron content (TEC) with solar and geomagnetic activities of the space weather at mid-latitude zone.  In our analysis, we investigate the TEC time series obtained from dual-frequency GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) observations at three continuous GPS/GNSS stations HOVD (48.00N, 91.66E), CHOB (48.08N, 114.53E) and DALN (43.56N, 104.42) for 2013. The statistical analyses are performed on 15 minute averaged yearly TEC values, which reveal the semi-annual anomaly and high correlation with the activities of the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. Phase overlapping seasonal variations of TEC and Sunspot, and Solar flux (10.7) indices, and Earth rotations (LOD) and Atmospheric angular moment (AAM) are observed in our data analyses. Sudden ionospheric storm changes in TEC with geomagnetic storm induced by the extreme solar flare and 2013 events were investigated. The result shows that GPS derived TEC behaves as an indicator of these events showing sudden increase in TEC during the event.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4567
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Benvenuto ◽  
Paolo Dabove ◽  
Ilaria Ferrando ◽  
Domenico Sguerso

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver is one of the many sensors embedded in smartphones. The early versions of the Android operating system could only access limited information from the GNSS, allowing the related Application Program Interface (API) to obtain only the location. With the development of the Android 7.0 (Nougat) operating system in May 2016, raw measurements from the internal GNSS sensor installed in the smartphone could be accessed. This work aims to show an initial analysis regarding the feasibility of Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) estimation by GNSS measurements extracted from smartphones, evaluating the accuracy of estimation to open a new window on troposphere local monitoring. Two different test sites have been considered, and two different types of software for data processing have been used. ZTDs have been estimated from both a dual-frequency and a multi-constellation receiver embedded in the smartphone, and from a GNSS Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS). The results have shown interesting performances in terms of ZTD estimation from the smartphone in respect of the estimations obtained with a geodetic receiver.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariusz Tomaszewski ◽  
Paweł Wielgosz ◽  
Jacek Rapiński ◽  
Anna Krypiak-Gregorczyk ◽  
Rafał Kaźmierczak ◽  
...  

Precise real-time kinematic (RTK) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning requires fixing integer ambiguities after a short initialization time. Originally, it was assumed that it was only possible at a relatively short distance from a reference station (<10 km), because otherwise the atmospheric effects prevent effective ambiguity fixing. Nowadays, through the use of VRS, MAC, or FKP corrections, the distances to the closest reference station have been increased to around 35 km. However, the baselines resolved in real time are not as far as in the case of static positioning. Further extension of the baseline requires the use of an ionosphere-weighted model with ionospheric delay corrections available in real time. This solution is now possible thanks to the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime (RTCM) stream of SSR corrections from, for example, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), the first analysis center to provide it in the context of the International GNSS Service. Then, ionospheric delays are treated as pseudo-observations that have a priori values from the CLK RTCM stream. Additionally, satellite orbit and clock errors are properly considered using space-state representation (SSR) real-time radial, along-track, and cross-track corrections. The following paper presents the initial results of such RTK positioning. Measurements were performed in various field conditions reflecting realistic scenarios that could have been experienced by actual RTK users. We have shown that the assumed methodology was suitable for single-epoch RTK positioning with up to 82 km baseline in solar minimum (30 March 2019) mid and high latitude (Olsztyn, Poland) conditions. We also confirmed that it is possible to obtain a rover position at the level of a few centimeters of precision. Finally, the possibility of using other newer experimental IGS RT Global Ionospheric Maps (GIMs), from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) among CNES, is discussed in terms of their recent performance in the ionospheric delay domain.


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