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Distinguishing ionospheric scintillation from multipath in GNSS signals using geodetic receivers

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Abstract

Ionospheric scintillation is an important phenomenon affecting GNSS positioning accuracy. Scintillation parameters, S4 and σφ, are usually used to characterize scintillation in amplitude and phase, respectively. S4 and σφ can be contaminated by multipath effects in certain circumstances. Similarly, the multipath parameter (MP) can also be affected by scintillation. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish whether an increase in the scintillation parameters and MP is caused by scintillation or multipath. However, it is important to know the type of interference to apply appropriate mitigation measures. It is known that the multipath effect is periodic as compared to scintillation if the receiver location is fixed. Based on this peculiar feature, this article proposes to use parameters MP, S4, σφ and the rate of change of total electron content index (ROTI) characterize the receiver station surroundings so that multipath and scintillation effects can be distinguished. The Global Positioning System (GPS) data for two one-month records at two pairs of low-latitude stations, namely SAO0P-SJCU and SJCU-SJCE, located in Sao Paulo, Brazil, were used to generate elevation layered plots and parameter values against elevation and azimuth (PEA) plots for each satellite on each day. The second station was used as a reference for validating the conclusion. The results provide evidence that the proposed methodology can identify all multipath, scintillation and hybrid (of multipath and scintillation) events using scintillation indices and identify some multipath, scintillation and hybrid events using MP and ROTI. For hybrid events below 30° elevation, this methodology is not effective.

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Data Availability

The GNSS data at the SJCU and SJCE stations were provided by Projects CIGALA and CALIBRA which can be accessed from https://ismrquerytool.fct.unesp.br/is/ismrtool/retrieval/download_ismr.php?lan=en. The GNSS data at the SAO0P station were provided by INGV which can be accessed from http://www.eswua.ingv.it/index.php/data-access-and-policy/download-tools. The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the University of Nottingham Ningbo China Faculty of Science and Engineering for provision of a Ph.D. scholarship (17053FOSE) to C.L. as well as further support through a new researchers grant to N.A.S.H. and C.M.H. Monitoring stations from the network were deployed in the context of the Projects CIGALA and CALIBRA, both funded by the European Commission (EC) in the framework of the FP7-GALILEO-2009-GSA and FP7–GALILEO–2011–GSA–1a, respectively, and FAPESP Project Number 06/04008-2, and now it is maintained by the INCT GNSS NavAer, with financial support of CNPq (Grant 465648/2014-2), FAPESP (Grant 2017/50115-0) and CAPES (23038.000776/2017-54). We acknowledge eSWua system (www.eswua.ingv.it) owned by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and operated by the Upper Atmosphere Physics and Radiopropagation group for providing data from SAO0P station. This project was further supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20200664) and Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and Geodesy, Ministry of Education, Wuhan University (No. 20-01-09)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, 315100, China

    Chendong Li & Nicholas A. S. Hamm

  2. School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

    Craig M. Hancock

  3. Nottingham Geospatial Institute, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2TU, UK

    Sreeja Vadakke Veettil

  4. NASG Key Laboratory of Land Environment and Disaster Monitoring, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Dongsheng Zhao

  5. School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Dongsheng Zhao

  6. Departamento de Cartografia, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Presidente Prudente, Brazil

    João F. Galera Monico

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  1. Chendong Li
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Correspondence to Nicholas A. S. Hamm.

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Li, C., Hancock, C.M., Vadakke Veettil, S. et al. Distinguishing ionospheric scintillation from multipath in GNSS signals using geodetic receivers. GPS Solut 26, 150 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-022-01328-x

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