Comprehensive statistical analysis of scintillations on L-band signals from six GNSS constellations over low-latitude region
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Kursheed Mohammed
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Lakshmanna Kuruva
Abstract
Rapid variations in the amplitude and phase of signals travelling through the ionosphere of the Earth are known as ionospheric scintillations. This study presents the results of amplitude and phase scintillation characteristics at different L-band signal frequencies of six satellite constellations. The scintillation data was acquired using Septentrio’s PolaRx5S Ionospheric GNSS scintillation monitoring receiver located at a low latitude station. Samples of S4 and σ φ data above standard threshold values with a 30° elevation mask for 293 days of the year 2023 are considered for analysis. Three aspects of scintillations are studied: i) statistics of their occurrences at different frequencies for all constellations ii) the correlation between amplitude and phase scintillation parameters for different frequencies iii) the temporal and spatial distributions of amplitude and phase scintillation at selected intensity levels. The results shows that about 70 % of total scintillation activity occurred during 20:30 to 22:59 LT. Further it is found that the signals coming in northern direction followed by southern direction are most affected compared to other directions indicating more ionospheric irregularities in those directions. This information is useful for identifying the least scintillation affected signals for position fixing.
Funding source: Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, Govt. of India
Award Identifier / Grant number: CRG/2021/001660, dated:11 February, 2022
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper is carried out under the project entitled “A New Model for Short Term Forecasting of Scintillations using Machine Learning Approach and Generation of Regional Scintillation Maps” sponsored by Department of Science and Technology under SERB-CRG scheme, vide sanction letter no: CRG/2021/001660, dated: February 11, 2022. All views expressed are those of the authors and not of the funding Agency.
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Research ethics: Not applicable.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: The work presented in this paper was carried out in collaboration between all authors. ADS contributed to the conceptualisation, methodology, and validation of results. MK conducted data analysis, investigation, and preparation of the manuscript, including figures. KL and DLS contributed to data acquisition and validation, checking of results, data interpolation, and review of the manuscript.
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Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
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Conflict of interest: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
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Research funding: In this paper, the work carried out under the sponsored project funded by Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, Govt. of India. However, there is no funding for publication processing fee under this project. Partial financial support was received from Department of Science and Technology under SERB-CRG scheme, vide sanction letter no: CRG/2021/001660, dated: February 11, 2022.
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Data availability: A PoLaRx5S scintillation monitoring receiver data were acquired from the R&E Hub of CBIT, Gandipet, Hyderabad, Telangana State-500075. Receiver data are available from the corresponding author based on reasonable requests.
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