Effect of high solar activity on satellite positioning accuracy and availability and methods to mitigate the impact
Loading...
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Engineering |
Master's thesis
Unless otherwise stated, all rights belong to the author. You may download, display and print this publication for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Authors
Date
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
52
Series
Abstract
In the last few decades GNSS technology has become widely available for public use. Improvement in technology as well as rising number of GNSS constellations has increased the accuracy of satellite positioning to cm levels. Vital fields in modern society such as agriculture, logistics and mining rely on accurate GNSS positioning. In modern society it is crucial that accurate satellite positioning is available at all times and in all conditions. One phenomenon that causes problems in GNSS accuracy is the solar cycle. With increased solar activity satellite signals suffer from changes in amplitude and frequency. This detrimental effect on satellite signals is called scintillation. Scintillation causes problems for GNSS positioning in the equator region and in high latitude areas. Scintillation detection requires special ionospheric scintillation monitoring receivers (ISMRs). These devices require expensive hardware which increases the price range for these receivers and makes them less available for the public. The objective of this study was to validate the performance of a new scintillation detection indicator in high latitude areas. This scintillation parameter, called SI, was developed by Septentrio, a company that designs and manufactures high accuracy GNSS receivers. This study was done in collaboration with the company. The SI parameter was validated by performing a correlation and scale factor analysis against a scintillation index called Phi60, a current standard for scintillation detection in the GNSS field. Part of this study was also an attempt to mitigate the impact of scintillation by applying SI based ionospheric model. A strong correlation was detected between the SI and Phi60 scintillation indices indicating that SI is a good parameter for scintillation detection. Results from the scale factor analysis suggest that SI and Phi60 behave dissimilar in different areas of the world. With SI based ionospheric model RTK loss in availability was able to be reduced by about 50%.Description
Supervisor
Nordman, MaariaThesis advisor
Söderholm, StefanVaseur, Cyrano