Enhanced GNSS receiver system for robust ionospheric monitoring
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre developed an enhanced system to process radionavigation satellite signals for atmospheric monitoring, specifically targeting ionospheric activity.
This system is designed to develop Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers with improved robustness for atmospheric monitoring.
It introduces an open-loop tracking scheme that departs from the traditional closed-loop approach used by conventional GNSS receivers, which often struggle with strong ionospheric scintillation events that can distort signals and render tracking difficult or impossible.
The system is intended for atmospheric monitoring using ground-based GNSS receivers, with a focus on measuring and mitigating ionospheric disturbances. This is crucial for understanding space weather and its impact on the atmosphere, as well as for assessing its effects on the operation and performance of GNSS receivers. Such GNSS receivers are also more resilient to atmospheric disturbances which is a key asset for high-end uses requiring a high precision, especially in areas prones to atmospheric disturbances.
Resilience to strong scintillation: The open-loop architecture allows the system to output scintillation indexes under strong ionospheric disturbances, where traditional systems may fail.
Elimination of continuous tracking: By leveraging external knowledge of precise receiver locations, satellite orbits, and clock corrections, the system avoids the need for continuous signal tracking, which is a major source of vulnerability in traditional systems.
Improved robustness: The absence of complex closed-loop tracking algorithms and feedback mechanisms enhances the robustness of the system, particularly beneficial for measuring phase scintillation with a filtering phase sensitive to signal loss.
Flexible integration: The system can adapt and integrate auxiliary data such as receiver-related parameters, satellite orbital parameters, and atmospheric information, making it suitable for diverse satellite systems.
Competitive edge
To our knowledge, there are no known GNSS receivers with an open-loop architecture applied to atmospheric monitoring capable of measuring amplitude and phase scintillation indexes. The growing demand for resilient receivers capable of handling strong ionospheric disturbances, particularly as solar activity increases, underscores the competitive advantage of this invention.
