Ionospheric Scintillation Effects on GPS Performance and Weapon's Effectiveness

Chris Evans

Abstract:	In the age of long range and precision strikes, the global positioning system (GPS) has become one of most popular forms of guidance systems on military aircraft and guided munitions. That being said, it is important to research and understand all aspects of any potential cause of signal interruption whether the interruptions are man made interference sources or natural disturbances. AFRL/SN’s Ionospheric Scintillation program is studying the effects of space weather, and more specifically studying how fluctuations in the ionosphere affect the propagation of radio frequency (RF) signals. The ionosphere is prone to significant disturbances which are significantly worse during a solar maximum. The most significant manifestation of such disturbances is called ionospheric scintillation and occurs in the equatorial regions of the Earth. Radio signals sometimes show rapid phase and amplitude variations caused by ionospheric scintillation. These affects are also observed in GPS signals. Since there is a high dependence on GPS as well as other satellite communications, it is desirable to understand scintillation and its effects on GPS performance. General Dynamics has been tasked by AFRL/SN(RW) to perform an assessment of operational mission performance and effectiveness in a high scintillation environment with and without GPS jamming. This paper will introduce the concepts of ionospheric scintillation, describe the modeling and methodology utilized in the
Published in:	Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005) September 13 - 16, 2005 Long Beach Convention Center Long Beach, CA
Pages:	690 - 696
Cite this article:	Evans, Chris, "Ionospheric Scintillation Effects on GPS Performance and Weapon's Effectiveness," Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005), Long Beach, CA, September 2005, pp. 690-696.
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