ION Technical Content
GPS Operations in Arctic Areas
| Abstract: | The influence of high-latitude ionospheric scintillations on signals from navigation satellites is studied by analysing data from GPS and TRANSIT receivers. Over a period of six weeks near the vernal equinox of 1987, simultaneous data from two TRANSIT and two GPS receivers were gathered at Tromso (69°39'N) and Longyearbyen (78°15'N). GPS data was found to be the best tool for studying the scintillation problem, and the analysis of these data shows that scintillation activity will seriously affect signal tracking for a considerable part of the time. An increase in scintillation activity with increasing latitude was observed, and the polar cap region seems to be the most active area. The scintillation problem shows up as increased noise on the carrier 'phase data, and the user will experience serious problems with cycle slips in the data. Scintillations will have the most severe effects for the geodetic user, but navigation problems are also reported. Since the data used in this study were gathered near sunspot minimum, it must be assumed that the normal situation will show much more disturbed data. |
| Published in: |
Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1988) June 21 - 23, 1988 U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, Maryland |
| Pages: | 46 - 53 |
| Cite this article: | Ofstad, Arne Edmund, "GPS Operations in Arctic Areas," Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1988), Annapolis, Maryland, June 1988, pp. 46-53. |
| Full Paper: |
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