An Assessment of the Application of In situ Ion-Density Data from DMSP to Modeling of Transionospheric Scintillation
Abstract
Modern military communication, navigation, and surveillance systems depend on reliable, noise free transionospheric radio frequency channels. They can be severely impacted by small scale electron density irregularities in the ionosphere which cause both phase and amplitude scintillation. Basic tools used in planning and mitigation schemes are climatological in nature and thus may greatly over and under estimate the effects of scintillation in a given scenario. This report describes the first year of an investigation into the feasibility of using in situ observations of the ionosphere from the USAG DMSP satellite to calculate estimates of irregularity parameters which could be used to update scintillation models in near real-time. Methods for calculating estimates of the height-integrated irregularity strength parameter (CkL) from DMSP SSIES data are described, and the results of parametric studies of the effects of errors or uncertainties in both the observed quantities and the methods used to calculate the estimates of CkL are presented. Keywords: Ionosphere; Ionospheric Scintillation; Radiowave Scintillation; Defense Meteorology Satellite Program.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 15, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA188919
Entities
People
- James A. Secan
Organizations
- Northwest Research Associates