Abstract
<p>Recognizing the applicability of tomographic imaging in the ionosphere, the reconstruction method has been applied to generate more realistic low latitude ionospheric background based on the Ionex TEC data and also direct measurement TEC data over West Bengal, India. Using these backgrounds, ray tracing of high frequency waves has been performed. Influence of Earth’s magnetic field and also the existence of horizontal gradient of electron concentration in the ionosphere are considered separately for analyzing the ray tracing algorithm. Evaluation of ray tracing parameters and maximum usable frequency for different ground range ensures the possibility of application of ionospheric tomography technique for accurate ray tracing. The analysis shows accurate ray tracing for HF waves, thus defeating the restriction of choice of ionospheric model for analytical ray tracing methods. Performance analysis of the ray tracing technique presented in this paper ensures the consistency of speed with the other methods.</p>
Highlights
From the early days of radio communications, long distance transionospheric communication with high frequency (HF) radio waves has been used extensively
The performance of some communication systems, e.g. HF broadcasting, over-the-horizon radar systems and direction finding systems critically depends on accurate ray tracing through a realistic ionospheric model
Azzarone et al [2012] introduce a windows software tool, namely IONORT, for implementing a 3-dimensional (3-D) ray tracing of high frequency waves in the ionosphere
Summary
From the early days of radio communications, long distance transionospheric communication with high frequency (HF) radio waves has been used extensively. CIT is a pixel based method of imaging the ionosphere by solving system of linear equations with a priori knowledge of the total electron content (TEC, integrated electron density) along ray paths. This method reconstructs a two dimensional electron density profile of the ionosphere. 3. Ray tracing results Considering the reconstructed electron density distribution of the ionosphere (as described in Section 2) as the background, implementation of the ray tracing algorithm for transmission of radio waves from one point to another on the Earth has been carried out. In this paper two distinct cases are considered: Case 1, when the ionosphere is horizontally stratified; and Case 2, when there exists a horizontal gradient of electron concentration in the ionosphere
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
