Browsing by Subject "IRI-Plas model"

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Open Access
3D electron density estimation in the ionosphere by using IRI-Plas model and GPS measurements
(2016-05) Tuna, Hakan
Three dimensional imaging of the electron density distribution in the ionosphere is a crucial task for investigating the ionospheric effects. Dual-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite signals can be used to estimate the Slant Total Electron Content (STEC) along the propagation path between a GPS satellite and ground based receiver station. However, the estimated GPS-STEC are very sparse and highly non-uniformly distributed for obtaining reliable 3D electron density distributions derived from the measurements alone. Standard tomographic re- construction techniques are not accurate or reliable enough to represent the full complexity of variable ionosphere. On the other hand, model based electron density distributions are produced according to the general trends of the iono- sphere, and these distributions do not agree with measurements, especially for geomagnetically active hours. In this thesis, a novel regional 3D electron density distribution reconstruction technique, namely IONOLAB-CIT, is proposed to as- similate GPS-STEC into physical ionospheric models. The IONOLAB-CIT is based on an iterative optimization framework that tracks the deviations from the ionospheric model in terms of F2 layer critical frequency and maximum ionization height resulting from the comparison of International Reference Ionosphere ex- tended to Plasmasphere (IRI-Plas) model generated STEC and GPS-STEC. The IONOLAB-CIT is applied successfully for the reconstruction of electron den- sity distributions over Turkey, during calm and disturbed hours of ionosphere using Turkish National Permanent GPS Network (TNPGN-Active). Reconstruc- tions are also validated by predicting the STEC measurements that are left out in the reconstruction phase. The IONOLAB-CIT is compared with the real ionosonde measurements over Greece, and it is shown that the IONOLAB-CIT results are in good compliance with the ionosonde measurements. The results of the IONOLAB-CIT technique are also tracked and smoothed in time by using Kalman filtering methods for increasing the robustness of the results.
Open Access
Model based computerized ionospheric tomography in space and time
(Elsevier, 2018) Tuna, H.; Arıkan, Orhan; Arikan, F.
Reconstruction of the ionospheric electron density distribution in space and time not only provide basis for better understanding the physical nature of the ionosphere, but also provide improvements in various applications including HF communication. Recently developed IONOLAB-CIT technique provides physically admissible 3D model of the ionosphere by using both Slant Total Electron Content (STEC) measurements obtained from a GPS satellite - receiver network and IRI-Plas model. IONOLAB-CIT technique optimizes IRI-Plas model parameters in the region of interest such that the synthetic STEC computations obtained from the IRI-Plas model are in accordance with the actual STEC measurements. In this work, the IONOLAB-CIT technique is extended to provide reconstructions both in space and time. This extension exploits the temporal continuity of the ionosphere to provide more reliable reconstructions with a reduced computational load. The proposed 4D-IONOLAB-CIT technique is validated on real measurement data obtained from TNPGN-Active GPS receiver network in Turkey.