Ionospheric weather maps using the total electron content (TEC) monitored by ground‐based Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers over South American continent, TECMAP, have been operationally produced by Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais's Space Weather Study and Monitoring Program (Estudo e Monitoramento Brasileiro de Clima Especial) since 2013. In order to cover the whole continent, four GNSS receiver networks, (Rede Brasileiro de Monitoramento Contínuo) RBMC/Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics, Low‐latitude Ionospheric Sensor Network, International GNSS Service, and Red Argentina de Monitoreo Satelital Continuo, in total ~140 sites, have been used. TECMAPs with a time resolution of 10 min are produced in 12 h time delay. Spatial resolution of the map is rather low, varying between 50 and 500 km depending on the density of the observation points. Large day‐to‐day variabilities of the equatorial ionization anomaly have been observed. Spatial gradient of TEC from the anomaly trough (total electron content unit, 1 TECU = 1016 el m−2 (TECU) <10) to the crest region (TECU > 80) causes a large ionospheric range delay in the GNSS positioning system. Ionospheric plasma bubbles, their seeding and development, could be monitored. This plasma density (spatial and temporal) variability causes not only the GNSS‐based positioning error but also radio wave scintillations. Monitoring of these phenomena by TEC mapping becomes an important issue for space weather concern for high‐technology positioning system and telecommunication.
In the absence of the selective availability, which was turned off on May 1, 2000, the ionosphere can be the largest source of error in GPS positioning and navigation. Its effects on GPS observable cause a code delays and phase advances. The magnitude of this error is affected by the local time of the day, season, solar cycle, geographical location of the receiver and Earth's magnetic field. As it is well known, the ionosphere is the main drawback for high accuracy positioning, when using single frequency receivers, either for point positioning or relative positioning of medium and long baselines. The ionosphere effects were investigated in the determination of point positioning and relative positioning using single frequency data. A model represented by a Fourier series type was implemented and the parameters were estimated from data collected at the active stations of RBMC (Brazilian Network for Continuous Monitoring of GPS satellites). The data input were the pseudorange observables filtered by the carrier phase. Quality control was implemented in order to analyse the adjustment and to validate the significance of the estimated parameters. Experiments were carried out in the equatorial region, using data collected from dual frequency receivers. In order to validate the model, the estimated values were compared with "ground truth". For point and relative positioning of baselines of approximately 100 km, the values of the discrepancies indicated an error reduction better than 80% and 50% respectively, compared to the processing without the ionospheric model. These results give an indication that more research has to be done in order to provide support to the L1 GPS users in the Equatorial region.
Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a wellknown technique of positioning by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) that provides accurate solutions. With the availability of real-time precise orbit and clock products provided by the International GNSS Service (IGS) and by individual analysis centers such as Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales through the IGS Real-Time Project, PPP in real time is achievable. With such orbit and clock products and using dual-frequency receivers, first-order ionospheric effects can be eliminated by the ionospheric-free combination. Concerning the tropospheric delays, the Zenith Hydrostatic Delays can be quite well modeled, although the Zenith Wet Delays (ZWDs) have to be estimated because they cannot be mitigated by, for instance, observable combinations. However, adding ZWD estimates in PPP processing increases the time to achieve accurate positions. In order to reduce this convergence time, we (1) model the behavior of troposphere over France using ZWD estimates at Orphéon GNSS reference network stations and (2) send the modeling parameters to the GNSS users to be introduced as a priori ZWDs, with an appropriate uncertainty. At the user level, float PPP-RTK is achieved; that is, GNSS data are performed in kinematic mode and ambiguities are kept float. The quality of the modeling is assessed by comparison with tropospheric products published by Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière. Finally, the improvements in terms of required time to achieve 10-cm accuracy for the rover position (simulated float PPP-RTK) are quantified and discussed. Results for 68 % quantiles of absolute errors convergence show that gains for GPS-only positioning with ZWDs derived from the assessed tropospheric modeling are about: 1 % (East), 20 % (North), and 5 % (Up). Since ZWD estimation is correlated with satellite geometry, we also investigated the positioning when processing GPS ? GLONASS data, which increases significantly the number of available satellites. The improvements achieved by adding tropospheric corrections in this case are about: 2 % (East), 5 % (North), and 13 % (Up). Finally, a reduction in the number of reference stations by using a sparser network configuration to perform the tropospheric modeling does not degrade the generated tropospheric corrections, and similar performances are achieved.
The propagation paths of signals through equatorial ionospheric irregularities are analyzed by evaluating their effects on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning and availability. Based on observations during 32 days by a scintillation monitor at São José dos Campos, Brazil, it was noted that there is a dominance of enhanced scintillation events for Global Positioning System (GPS) ray paths aligned with the azimuth angle of 345° (geographic northwest). This azimuth corresponds to the magnetic meridian that has a large westward declination angle in the region (21.4ºW). Such results suggest that the enhanced scintillation events were associated with GPS signals that propagated through plasma bubbles aligned along the direction of the magnetic field. It will be shown that, under this alignment condition, the longer propagation path length through plasma bubbles can result in more severe scintillation cases and more losses of signal lock, as supported by proposed statistics of bit error probability and mean time between cycle slips. Additionally, large precise positioning errors are also related to these events, as demonstrated by precise point positioning experiments.
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