Ionospheric scintillation effects on single frequency GPS

[1] Ionospheric scintillation of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals threatens navigation and military operations by degrading performance or making GPS unavailable. Scintillation is particularly active within, although not limited to, a belt encircling the Earth within 20 degrees of the geomagnetic equator. As GPS applications and users increase, so does the potential for degraded precision and availability from scintillation. We examined amplitude scintillation data spanning 7 years from Ascension Island, U.K.; Ancon, Peru; and Antofagasta, Chile in the Atlantic/American longitudinal sector as well as data from Parepare, Indonesia; Marak Parak, Malaysia; Pontianak, Indonesia; Guam; and Diego Garcia, U.K. in the Pacific longitudinal sector. From these data, we calculate percent probability of occurrence of scintillation at various intensities described by the S4 index. Additionally, we determine Dilution of Precision at 1 min resolution. We examine diurnal, seasonal, and solar cycle characteristics and make spatial comparisons. In general, activity was greatest during the equinoxes and solar maximum, although scintillation at Antofagasta, Chile was higher during 1998 rather than at solar maximum.

[1]  R. Schunk.  Ionospheres: Physics, Plasma Physics, and Chemistry (Cambridge Atmospheric and Space Science Series) , 2000 .

[2]  J. Vincent Eccles,et al.  Modeling investigation of the evening prereversal enhancement of the zonal electric field in the equatorial ionosphere , 1998 .

[3]  E. Fremouw,et al.  On the statistics of scintillating signals , 1980 .

[4]  Keith M. Groves,et al.  Using ionospheric scintillation observations for studying the morphology of equatorial ionospheric bubbles , 2004 .

[5]  Patricia H. Doherty,et al.  Ionospheric Scintillation Effects on Single and Dual Frequency GPS Positioning , 2003 .

[6]  Michael C. Kelley,et al.  The Earth's Ionosphere : Plasma Physics and Electrodynamics , 1989 .

[7]  Harald U. Frey,et al.  Determination of low latitude plasma drift speeds from FUV images , 2003 .

[8]  W. J. Burke,et al.  Multipoint observations of equatorial plasma bubbles , 2003 .

[9]  Pat Fenton,et al.  Commercial Ionospheric Scintillation Monitoring Receiver Development and Test Results , 1996 .

[10]  C. Rino,et al.  A power law phase screen model for ionospheric scintillation: 1. Weak scatter , 1979 .

[11]  David N. Anderson,et al.  Forecasting the occurrence of ionospheric scintillation activity in the equatorial ionosphere on a day-to-day basis , 2004 .

[12]  Keith M. Groves,et al.  Seasonal modulation of GPS performance due to equatorial scintillation , 2004 .

[13]  M. A. Cervera,et al.  Latitudinal and temporal variation of equatorial ionospheric irregularities determined from GPS scintillation observations , 2006 .

[14]  W. J. Burke,et al.  A global climatology for equatorial plasma bubbles in the topside ionosphere , 2006 .

[15]  Robert W. Schunk,et al.  Ionospheres : physics, plasma physics, and chemistry , 2000 .

[16]  Bernhard Hofmann-Wellenhof,et al.  Global Positioning System , 1992 .

[17]  W. J. Burke,et al.  A climatology of equatorial plasma bubbles from DMSP 1989–2004 , 2006 .

[18]  P. J. Sultan,et al.  Linear theory and modeling of the Rayleigh‐Taylor instability leading to the occurrence of equatorial spread F , 1996 .

[19]  P. V. S. Rama Rao,et al.  Study of spatial and temporal characteristics of L-band scintillations over the Indian low-latitude region and their possible effects on GPS navigation , 2006 .

[20]  L. C. Gentile,et al.  Seasonal-longitudinal variability of equatorial plasma bubbles , 2004 .

[21]  L. C. Gentile,et al.  Longitudinal variability of equatorial plasma bubbles observed by DMSP and ROCSAT‐1 , 2004 .

[22]  O. Beaujardiere,et al.  C/NOFS: a Mission to Forecast Scintillations , 2004 .

[23]  A. Wheelon.  Electromagnetic scintillation. Vol.2: Weak scattering , 2003 .

[24]  Theodore L. Beach,et al.  Estimating the amplitude scintillation index from sparsely sampled phase screen data , 2004 .