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Mapping topside ionospheric vertical electron content from multiple LEO satellites at different orbital altitudes

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Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach to generating a global topside ionospheric map (GTIM) using dual-frequency global positioning system (GPS) data from multiple low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites at different orbital altitudes. NeQuick2 is employed to normalize LEO data to the same observation range, and 13 LEO satellites from 2015/01/01 to 2015/09/27 are used to generate GTIM-500 (with an ionospheric range from 500 km to 20,200 km) and GTIM-800 (with an ionospheric range from 800 km to 20,200 km). First, we use the coinciding pierce point technique to study the error induced by altitude normalization. The results show that the relative bias error is approximately 1%. Then, the performance and accuracy of the GTIMs as well as the differential code bias (DCB) of GPS receivers onboard LEO and GPS satellites are compared and analyzed. The statistical results of the differences between the official LEO-DCB products and the LEO-DCBs estimated by our different solutions show a RMS improvement of 23% and 41% for GTIM-500 and GTIM-800, respectively. The improvement in RMS of GPS-DCBs for the proposed method is approximately 20%. Finally, the accuracy of GTIM is evaluated by the dSTEC assessment method. The results show that the RMS of GTIM-500 is 0.50 TECU (total electron content unit) for both methods. In terms of GTIM-800 estimated by the proposed method, the RMS has an improvement of 24%.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant no. 41825009) provided by Xiaohong Zhang, Changjiang Scholars program provided by Xiaohong Zhang; National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41904026) provided by Xiaodong Ren, the Funds for Creative Research Groups of China (no. 41721003) provided by Xiaohong Zhang. The numerical calculations have been done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of Wuhan University. We thank all anonymous reviewers for their valuable, constructive, and prompt comments. We are very grateful to the Ionosphere Radiopropagation Unit of the T/ICT4D Laboratory for providing the NeQuick2 model code via https://t-ict4d.ictp.it/nequick2/source-code, ESA for providing the Swarm relevant data via ftp://swarm-diss.eo.esa.int, CDAAC for providing relevant data of the other LEO satellites via https://cdaac-www.cosmic.ucar.edu/cdaac/products.html, and the Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS) data center for providing navigation file by the following FTP server: ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/gps/data/daily/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Xiaodong Ren, Jun Chen, Xiaohong Zhang, Xingxing Li & Jincheng Zhang

  2. Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM), Arcisstraße 21, 80333, Munich, Germany

    Xiaodong Ren & Michael Schmidt

  3. Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and Geodesy, Ministry of Education, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Jun Chen & Xiaohong Zhang

  4. Collaborative Innovation Center for Geospatial Technology, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Xiaohong Zhang

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  1. Xiaodong Ren
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Contributions

XR, XZ and MS designed the research; XR and JC performed the research and wrote the paper; XR, JC, and JZ analyzed the data; XZ, XL, and MS gave helpful discussions on additional analyses and result interpretation.

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Correspondence to Xiaohong Zhang.

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Ren, X., Chen, J., Zhang, X. et al. Mapping topside ionospheric vertical electron content from multiple LEO satellites at different orbital altitudes. J Geod 94, 86 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-020-01415-2

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