Automatic scaling of F layer from ionograms based on image processing and analysis

This paper presents a novel method for automatic scaling of the F layer from ionograms based on image processing and analysis techniques. The proposed method converts ionospheric vertical sounding data to a binary image. By extracting the F layer trace through segmentation of the F layer image, the ordinary and extraordinary traces used to scale ionospheric parameters can be separated automatically. We applied the method to ionograms recorded by the digital ionosonde developed at China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation in which the ordinary and extraordinary modes are recorded together. Tests were performed on random ionograms with different qualities obtained at three ionospheric stations in different seasons and time and comparison of the results with those scaled by the standard manual method was given. The experiments show that the scaled parameters are valid and our method is feasible.