First Observations of GNSS Ionospheric Scintillations From DemoGRAPE Project

Abstract

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia leads an international project funded by the Italian National Program for Antarctic Research, called Demonstrator of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Research and Application for Polar Environment (DemoGRAPE), in partnership with Politecnico di Torino, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, and with South African National Space Agency and the Brazilian National Institute of Space Physics, as key collaborators. DemoGRAPE is a new prototype of support for the satellite navigation in Antarctica. Besides the scientific interest, the accuracy of satellite navigation in Antarctica is of paramount importance since there is always the danger that people and vehicles can fall into a crevasse during a snowstorm, when visibility is limited and travel is restricted to following specified routes using satellite navigation systems. The variability of ionospheric delay and ionospheric scintillation are two of the primary factors which affect the accuracy of satellite navigation. The project will provide a demonstrator of cutting edge technology for the empirical assessment of the ionospheric delay and ionospheric scintillations in the polar regions. The scope of the project includes new equipment for the recording and dissemination of GNSS data and products installed at the South African and Brazilian bases in Antarctica. The new equipment will facilitate the exchange of software and derived products via the Cloud computing technology infrastructure. The project portal is accessible at http://www.demogrape.net. We report the first Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal scintillations observed in Antarctica.

Software-defined radio technology for GNSS scintillation analysis: bring Antarctica to the lab

“…an SDR receiver allows any user with enough expertise to do any modification, improvement, or extension. (Alfonsi et al 2016). The objective of the project is to improve the quality of the GNSS position solution in polar regions.…”

“…The first GNSS scintillations from DemoGRAPE have been captured in January 2016 from SANAE station (Alfonsi et al 2016). One of the events occurred during a moderate geomagnetic storm that started on January 19 and peaked on January 20, 2016, as shown by the Disturbance Storm Time (DST) index in Fig.…”

The Reprise Special Collection for the 2001 Space Weather Monograph

“…In less than 15 years GPS was joined by the Globalnaya navigatsionnaya sputnikovaya sistema, and Galileo navigation systems. Alfonsi et al () documented the first coincident GPS, Globalnaya navigatsionnaya sputnikovaya sistema, and Galileo signal scintillation event from Antarctica, showing that signals from all operating Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) were subject to natural interference. Beyond issues of signal propagation, during the last 15 years the GPS constellation yielded data on the challenging radiation environment in which the constellation operated.…”

Analysis of the ionospheric scintillations during 20–21 January 2016 from SANAE by means of the DemoGRAPE scintillation receivers

“…The scintillation data was collected as part of the DemoGRAPE project (http://www.demogrape.net/), aimed at the demonstration of cutting edge technology for the empirical assessment of the ionospheric delay and ionospheric scintillations in the polar regions which affect the accuracy of satellite navigation [1]. The deployment of the new-concept of GNSS data acquisition system was implemented by Politecnico di Torino, SANSA and INGV with support from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC).…”