Global Ionospheric Model Accuracy Analysis Using Shipborne Kinematic GPS Data in the Arctic Circle

Abstract

The global ionospheric model built by the International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS) using GNSS reference stations all over the world is currently the most widely used ionospheric product on a global scale. Therefore, analysis and evaluation of this ionospheric product’s accuracy and reliability are essential for the practical use of the product. In contrast to the traditional way of assessing global ionospheric models with ground-based static measurements, our study used shipborne kinematic global positioning system (GPS) measurements collected over 18 days to perform a preliminary analysis and evaluation of the accuracy of the global ionospheric models; our study took place in the Arctic Circle. The data from the International GNSS Service stations near the Arctic Circle were used to verify the ionospheric total electron contents derived from the kinematic data. The results suggested that the global ionospheric model had an approximate regional accuracy of 12 total electron content units (TECu) within the Arctic Circle and deviated from the actual ionospheric total electron content value by about 4 TECu.

Impact and synergies of GIM error estimates on the VTEC interpolation and single-frequency PPP at low latitude region

“…Regarding the assessment of GIMs at the ionospheric domain, it is usually based on comparisons with two complementary sources of reference data: VTEC obtained with altimeters and STEC (slant TEC) variability from independent stations (Hernández-Pajares et al 2017b;Roma-Dollase et al 2018;Ho et al 1997;Erdogan et al 2020). Other GIM assessment approaches consider comparisons with different GIMs (Orús et al 2005;Goss et al 2019), models such as the International Reference Ionosphere (Meza et al 2002), measurements gathered from vessels (Luo et al 2017;Wang et al 2019), variability of DCBs (Rovira-Garcia et al 2016) and ionosonde data (Prol et al 2018;Jerez et al 2020). Another possible way of assessing ionospheric models can be performed on the positioning domain.…”

Positioning in the Arctic Region: State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives

“…Today, the primary option for communications and navigation in the deep waters of the Arctic region is the satellite connectivity [5]. Additionally, the onshore infrastructure also provides timely notifications and precise positioning information from and to the vessels in order to minimize the possible damage caused by the potentially dangerous and unpredictable environment when available [6].…”

Two‐Way Assessment of Ionospheric Maps Performance Over the Brazilian Region: Global Versus Regional Products

“…To demonstrate the capabilities of GIMs and RIMs, their assessment can be performed in different ways, for instance, with complementary sources of reference data, such as VTEC obtained with altimeters and STEC (slant TEC) from independent stations Hernández-Pajares et al, 2017;Ho et al, 1997;Roma-Dollase et al, 2018); comparisons with different GIMs (Goss et al, 2019;Orús et al, 2005); comparison with other models, such as the International Reference Ionosphere (Meza et al, 2002); comparison with measurements gathered from vessels (Luo et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2019); analysis of DCB stability (Rovira-Garcia et al, 2016); and comparison with ionosonde data (Jerez et al, 2020;Prol et al, 2018). The GNSS precise point positioning with single-frequency data is also highlighted by Rovira-Garcia et al (2020) as another strategy to evaluate ionospheric models.…”