The ionosphere prediction service prototype for GNSS users

Sreeja Vadakke Veettil,Stefano Di Rollo,Angela Aragon-Angel,Alice Cristaldi,Claudio Cesaroni,Eric Guyader,Vincenzo Romano,Roberto Ronchini,Marcio Aquino,Giorgiana De Franceschi,Dario Del Moro,Francesco Berrili,Filippo Rodriguez,Luca Spogli

doi:10.1051/swsc/2019038

Abstract

The effect of the Earth’s ionosphere represents the single largest contribution to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) error budget and abnormal ionospheric conditions can impose serious degradation on GNSS system functionality, including integrity, accuracy and availability. With the growing reliance on GNSS for many modern life applications, actionable ionospheric forecasts can contribute to the understanding and mitigation of the impact of the ionosphere on our technology based society. In this context, the Ionosphere Prediction Service (IPS) project was set up to design and develop a prototype platform to translate the forecast of the ionospheric effects into a service customized for specific GNSS user communities. To achieve this overarching aim, four different product groups dealing with solar activity, ionospheric activity, GNSS receiver performance and service performance have been developed and integrated into a service chain, which is made available through a web based platform. This paper provides an overview of the IPS project describing its overall architecture, products and web based platform.

Highlights

There is a growing reliance on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for safety critical applications such as civil aviation, marine navigation and land transportation, as well as in many other aspects of social and economic human activity, including environmental monitoring and high accuracy applications in construction, mining, agriculture, surveying and geodesy
This paper provides an overview of the Ionosphere Prediction Service (IPS) project describing its overall architecture, products and web based platform
This paper presents a general overview of the IPS prototype architecture, the nowcasting and forecasting products developed in the project, as well as the IPS project web portal

Summary

Introduction

There is a growing reliance on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for safety critical applications such as civil aviation, marine navigation and land transportation, as well as in many other aspects of social and economic human activity, including environmental monitoring and high accuracy applications in construction, mining, agriculture, surveying and geodesy. The IPS outputs are nowcasting and forecasting products generated by algorithms implemented in so called Remote Processing Facilities (RPFs) and can be divided into three main blocks: solar and space weather monitoring (RPF 1), ionospheric activity monitoring and forecasting (RPF 2) and GNSS receiver and user positioning performance (RPF 3). In addition to these products, a fourth RPF addressed nowcasting and forecasting of the GNSS service performance, targeted at aviation users (RPF 4). IPS is designed to be a service that provides forecasting of key performance indices that will assist GNSS users in different categories of applications (high accuracy and aviation)

IPS architecture

CSPF and the web server

Conclusions