Determination of total electron content (TEC) due to location in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper studied the TEC values for Malaysia regions, a few location of GPS receiver stations were chosen.. The transmitted GPS signals must propagate through the ionosphere layer at the atmosphere before reaching the surface. The ionosphere layer can cause the effect of the GPS due to the electron density at this layer. It is the main source of error in the GPS positioning. The problem is considered as the ionospheric delay at the ionosphere layer. Ionization process is mainly caused by solar radiation whereas the density of electrons is very much dependant on location (latitude, longitude and height), time of the day, season as well as sunspot cycle. Data in RINEX format has been used to study the TEC whereas the determination of the TEC values in ionosphere is done using leveling process. In the process, the error translated from code-delay to the carrier-phase is assessed to reduce carrier phase ambiguities from the data. The GPS satellites PRN for TEC were considered and mean TEC were determined based on different set time.