Investigation of Low Latitude Scintillations

in Brazil within the CIGALA Project

V. Romano1, B. Bougard2, M. Aquino3,

J.F.G. Monico4, T. Willems2, M. Solé5
(1) Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy
(2) Septentrio N.V., Leuven, Belgium
(3) University of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K.
(4) Univ Estadual Paulista, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Pres. Prudente, Brazil
(5) Pildo Consulting S.L., Barcelona, Spain

The CIGALA project has received Community research funding under the EU Seventh Framework Program, and is carried out
in the context of the Galileo FP7 R&D program supervised by the European GNSS Agency
 Outline
 Ionospheric scintillation and its impact
 The Challenge of CIGALA
 Measurement Campaign in Brazil
 PolaRxS Ionospheric Monitoring Receiver
 Results
 Scintillation Models: WAM Model
 Scintillation Climatology with PolaRxS data
 Tracking Model and PolaRxS Comparison
 Receiver Advancement
 Conclusion
Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium
 Ionospheric Scintillation (IS)
Rapid ionospheric perturbations originated
from solar activity can cause scintillation

Basu, S. et al., J. Atmos. Terr. Phys, v.64, pp. 1745-1754, 2002

Poles and Equator (+/- 15 deg

Variation of electron density (TEC) around magnetic equator)
→ variation of the refractive index regions most affected
of the ionosphere → Equatorial Anomaly (EIA)

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Impact on GNSS Signal Tracking
GNSS Satellite

• C/N0 degradation
• Pseudorange and carrier phase
Plasma measurement noise increases
perturbations
• Cycle slips
• Loss of lock
TEC impact
v • Degradation of positioning
Ionosphere
accuracy
• Loss of positioning availability
signal
fluctuations

GNSS Receiver

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 CIGALA Project

 “Concept for Ionospheric scintillation mitiGAtion for

professional GNSS in Latin America”

 Objective: Improve the understanding of the causes and

implications of IS disturbances at low latitudes, model
their effects and develop novel countermeasures to be
implemented in GNSS receivers

 Focus on Brazil
 Takes full advantage of GNSS for navigation and high precision
DGPS, RTK and PPP applications, due to large territorial coverage
 One of the regions most affected by IS and badly hit in the past

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 CIGALA Project Partners
Leading European manufacturer of high-end multi-frequency GNSS
equipment for precise positioning, time transfer and attitude
determination applications
Key player in GNSS for aviation in Europe with a great knowledge
on managing EC and 7th FP International Activities in Latin America
Top ranked UK Center of Excellence in GNSS/Galileo Research and
Application (GRACE)
Most important scientific institution in Italy devoted to studies in
geophysics, seismic and volcanic hazards
One of the most prominent Brazilian groups in Geodesy and GNSS
application areas (GEGE)
Brazilian SME providing services and consultancy in the field of
Geographic Information Systems, Cartography, and Geodesy.

Petrobras, the Brazilian National Oil Company

Funded under: Supervised by:

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 CIGALA Project
 Development of state-of-the-art models capable of
predicting signal propagation and tracking perturbations

 Field measurement via deployment of multi-frequency

multi-constellation Galileo-capable measurement stations
to collect data in order to support model development

 Design of countermeasures for implementation in GNSS

receivers

 Field testing the mitigation techniques, leveraging CIGALA

scintillation monitoring network

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Measurement Network in Brazil
 Latitudinal and longitudinal
distribution over Brazil
 Two stations at São José
dos Campos (crest of EIA)
and Pres. Prudente
 Data stored locally and sent
to repository at UNESP,
Pres. Prudente
 Data mirrored at INGV,
Rome

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Scintillation Monitoring

 Amplitude scintillation index S4 : standard deviation of

received power normalized by its mean value
 Phase scintillation index σΦ : standard deviation of
de-trended carrier phase, with Phi60 its 60” version
 TEC (Total Electron Content)
 Lock time
 Code – Carrier Divergence
 Spectral parameters of phase PSD (Power Spectral
Density):
 Spectral slope p
 Spectral strength T
 Raw high-rate I&Q correlation values

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Septentrio PolaRxS Receivers
 In the past, ionospheric monitoring was limited to
GPS L1C/A and L2P only
 CIGALA network consists of novel Septentrio
PolaRxS receivers

 GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, SBAS

 L1, L2, L5, E5a, E5b signals, including GPS L2C
and Galileo E5 AltBOC

 Low phase noise OCXO

 50 Hz signal intensity and phase output for all
signals
 Computation of S4, sf , TEC, spectral parameters,...
for all satellites and signals
 Backwards-compatible ISMR file format
 Interfaces: RS232,
(C) CIGALA USB,
Consortium, 2010Ethernet

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 PolaRxS OCXO Performance – Phi60

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Scintillation Models
 Types of Models
 Analytical e.g. Fremouw and Rino, Iyer et al., Aarons
 Climatological e.g. WBMOD, GISM, WAM

 WAM (Wernik, Alfonsi, Materassi) model

 Originally developed for scintillation climatology over high latitudes

 Within CIGALA, WAM updated and fine-tuned with low latitudes

in-situ data (Dynamics Explorer 2 plasma density measurements)
 NeQuick model for estimating electron density profile

 WAM outputs scintillation indices, spectral parameters

 Allows generating maps, e.g. occurrence of scintillation indices above
given thresholds
 Can be used as input for signal tracking models

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 WAM Output Examples

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Ground Based Scintillation Climatology
 Input: scintillation indices as observed by GNSS receivers
 GBSC allows to build maps of percentage of occurrence above
arbitrary threshold, referred to ionospheric piercing point
 Example with PRU1/PRU2 data, threshold 0.25 for S4 :

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Ground Based Scintillation Climatology

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Tracking Models

 Theoretical model to estimate variance of phase tracking error

(PLL jitter) from scintillation parameters: Conker et al., 2003

 Investigation: Receiver behaviour vs. model

 Example:
 Perturbations extracted from actual data recorded at Pres. Prudente
 PLL jitter calculated using model
 Perturbations introduced into Spirent GNSS multi-constellation simulator
scenario
 Spirent simulation of GPS L1CA, L2C, L5 and Galileo L1 signals
 Signals tracked by PolaRxS
 Comparison of PolaRxS collected data vs. model

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Tracking Models
GPS L1CA PRN 6 GPS L2C PRN 6 GPS L5 PRN 6 Galileo L1 PRN 7

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Receiver Advancement
 Investigation of PLL behaviour under scintillation conditions
 Using Cornell Scintillation Model (CSM) (Humphreys et al.)
 Statistical model
 Input: S4 and channel decorrelation time in seconds 0
 Output: time series of signal amplitude and phase perturbations
 CSM output was fed into Matlab model of PLL tracking loop
 Very useful to investigate probability of loss-of-lock (LoL) under
scintillation

 PolaRxS lock detector appeared too prudent in case of

medium/strong scintillation, occasionally declaring LoL while
tracking could have continued without loop diverging
 Lock detector optimised, significantly reducing p(LoL)
 Optimisation applied to PolaRxS firmware for real-life validation

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Summary
 CIGALA aims to improve the understanding of IS disturbances at
low latitudes, model their effects and develop countermeasures at
GNSS receiver level to provide robustness against scintillation

 Ongoing measurement compaign with Galileo-capable PolaRxS

receivers
 WAM updated and fine-tuned to reproduce scintillation climatology
over low latitudes
 GBSC usable to produce maps of probability of scintillation indices
over low latitudes
 Tracking jitter model evaluated using Spirent multi-constellation
simulator
 CSM was used to adapt PolaRxS tracking loop, significantly
reducing probability of loss of lock under scintillation conditions

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium

 Thank you!

Project website: http://www.fp7cigala.eu/

Galileo 2011, Aug 31, 2011 (c) CIGALA Consortium