An Event Driven GPS Data Collection System for Studying Ionospheric Scintillation

Praveen Vikram, Yu Morton, Wouter Pelgrum

Abstract:	Ionospheric scintillation of GNSS signals occurs due to random electron density fluctuations. To study this phenomenon and its effects on trans-ionosphere radio wave propagations, we need to capture the affected radio signals. Because scintillation events are relatively short-lived, spatially and temporally sporadic phenomena, capturing scintillation data is a challenging task. Further complicating this task is the multipath and interference that affect the signals of interest in similar ways. This paper proposes an event triggering method to effectively capture scintillation-affected IF samples of GPS signals from a stationary site based on commercial GPS receiver measurements. Three triggering levels are presented along with preliminary result of their performance. Multiple parameters such as S4 index, sf, and C/N0 were studied for detecting scintillation and reducing the influence of multipath.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011) September 20 - 23, 2011 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	3903 - 3909
Cite this article:	Vikram, Praveen, Morton, Yu, Pelgrum, Wouter, "An Event Driven GPS Data Collection System for Studying Ionospheric Scintillation," Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011), Portland, OR, September 2011, pp. 3903-3909.
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