Optimum temporal update periods for regional ionosphere monitoring

[1] Monitoring of the ionospheric variability is necessary for improving the performance of communication, navigation, and positioning systems. Total electron content (TEC) is an important parameter in analyzing the variability of the ionosphere. Owing to sparse distribution of TEC in a given region, spatial interpolation methods are used for mapping TEC on a dense grid. Typically, TEC maps are produced at time intervals that do not match the variability of the regional ionosphere. To capture the local, small-scale variability, the temporal update period (TUP) in regional TEC monitoring has to be optimized. In this study, the wide sense stationarity (WSS) period is proposed to be used as the optimum TUP of the regional TEC maps. Individual WSS periods of TEC are obtained by the sliding window statistical analysis method. Four types of measures are employed to compute the differences between TEC maps. When WSS periods of the sampling points and the differences of TEC maps are compared with each other, it is observed that for the quiet days of the ionosphere where the general temporal trends dominate, the maximum WSS period in the region can be chosen as the optimum TUP. For the disturbed days of the ionosphere where high temporal and spatial variability is observed, averages or the minimums of WSS periods in a given region have to be chosen as the optimum TUP. Thus, WSS period can be developed into a useful tool in monitoring the ionospheric variability in a given region.

[1]  F. Arikan,et al.  Statistical Characterization of the Ionosphere Using GPS Signals , 2005 .

[2]  Brian Wilson,et al.  Extracting Ionospheric Measurements from GPS in the Presence of Anti-Spoofing , 1994 .

[3]  Orhan Arikan,et al.  Regional TEC mapping with Random Field Priors and Kriging , 2008 .

[4]  Atila Yilmaz,et al.  Regional TEC mapping using neural networks , 2009 .

[5]  Anthony J. Mannucci,et al.  A global mapping technique for GPS‐derived ionospheric total electron content measurements , 1998 .

[6]  Richard B. Langley,et al.  Ingesting GPS-derived TEC data into the International Reference Ionosphere for single frequency radar altimeter ionospheric delay corrections , 1998 .

[7]  Attila Komjathy,et al.  Global ionospheric total electron content mapping using the global positioning system , 1997 .

[8]  Orhan Arikan,et al.  Regularized estimation of vertical total electron content from Global Positioning System data , 2003 .

[9]  Jaume Sanz,et al.  New approaches in global ionospheric determination using ground GPS data , 1999 .

[10]  Orhan Arikan,et al.  Synthetic TEC Mapping with Kriging and Random Field Priors , 2007, 2007 IEEE 15th Signal Processing and Communications Applications.

[11]  B. Wilson,et al.  A New Method for Monitoring the Earth's Ionospheric Total Electron Content Using the GPS Global Network , 1993 .

[12]  Lee-Anne McKinnell,et al.  Development of a regional GPS-based ionospheric TEC model for South Africa , 2007 .

[13]  Adrian N. Evans,et al.  An Evaluation of Interpolation Techniques for Reconstructing Ionospheric TEC Maps , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[14]  Feza Arikan,et al.  Regularized estimation of vertical total electron content from GPS data for a desired time period , 2004 .

[15]  Feza Arikan,et al.  Statistical characterization of time variability in midlatitude single‐tone HF channel response , 1998 .

[16]  Jaume Sanz,et al.  Combining GPS measurements and IRI model values for space weather specification , 2002 .

[17]  Thomas M. Cover,et al.  Elements of Information Theory , 2005 .

[18]  Orhan Arikan,et al.  Space Weather Activities of IONOLAB Group: TEC Mapping , 2009 .

[19]  C. B. Erol,et al.  Regularized estimation of TEC from GPS data for certain midlatitude stations and comparison with the IRI model , 2007 .

[20]  Synthetic TEC Mapping with Ordinary and Universal Kriging , 2007, 2007 3rd International Conference on Recent Advances in Space Technologies.

[21]  Orhan Arikan,et al.  Total Electron Content Estimation with Reg‐Est , 2007 .