Measuring Total Electron Content with GNSS: Investigation of Two Different Techniques

peer reviewedThe ionosphere widely affects Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications, inducing among others a delay in GNSS measurements. This delay is closely linked to the Total Electron Content (TEC) of the ionosphere, a major parameter which can hence be monitored using GNSS. To this extent, phase measurements are taken as a basis for their lower noise level. Levelling strategies have then to be defined for the phase measurements are obtained with an initial unknown number of cycles called ambiguity. The most common technique, referred to as carrier-to-code levelling, consists in using the differences between code and phase measurements and their average on a continuous set of epochs. This option, chosen at the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) of Belgium to compute TEC for Belgian GPS stations, requires code hardware delays estimation. Another has been proposed which takes benefit from Global Ionospheric Maps (GIMs) to compute a reference TEC used for ambiguity resolution. In order to understand the consequences of using one method or the other, we compare slant TEC data obtained from both techniques for a mid-latitude station (Brussels) during a high solar activity period (2002). We observed large differences (6.8 TECu on average) showing features apparently related to ionospheric and geomagnetic activity. We attribute these observations to a combination of effects originating in code delays estimation, multipath and noise as well as GIMs errors. We try to differentiate between these effects by focusing on several days and satellites. We concentrate for example on days presenting large TEC differences and geomagnetic disturbances simultaneously (or not) or on satellites displaying recurrent patterns on consecutive days. Finally we highlight the impact of the choice of GIMs involved in sTEC calibration. To this extent, we analyse vertical TEC statistics showing a general underestimation from RMI data. The highest bias (5.8 TECu) is obtained for the UPC GIMs used in the second levelling technique

Hybrid power solution modelling based on artificial intelligence

peer reviewedPower electronics become increasingly resourceful as the use of renewable energies increases. Microgrids and active distribution networks include various controllable devices that interact and may create instabilities. This underlines the necessity of modeling complex systems to conduct system-level analyses. As a first step toward tools for modeling inverter-based electrical systems, this paper introduces a model of the HyPoSol system, put in perspective with measurements on the real system. The HyPoSol system consists of a photovoltaic (PV) inverter, a battery, and a three-port converter designed by CE+T Power. To develop a model of the PV inverter, we employed an enhanced polytopic model which uses neural networks as weighting functions. The PV inverter model is combined with a Tremblay’s battery model and a simplified model of the three-port converter. We conduct system-level analyses on the overall representation of the HyPoSol system and compare the results with measurements

Modelling the Ionosphere over Europe: Investigation of NeQuick Formulation

The modelling of the Total Electron Content (TEC) plays an important role in global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) accuracy, especially for single-frequency receivers, the most common ones constituting the mass market. For the latter and in the framework of Galileo, the NeQuick model has been chosen for correcting the ionospheric error contribution. It has been designed to calculate the electron density at a given point of the ionosphere according to the time conditions and the solar activity. This electron density can be integrated along the path from the receiver to the considered satellite to provide the TEC. For Galileo, a parameter Az (“effective ionisation level”) will be provided to the model as solar activity information and will be daily updated by the ground stations. Since NeQuick was chosen for Galileo purpose, a new version of the model has been released. It involves simplifications in the representation of the bottomside as well as a unique formula for a key parameter of the topside formulation previously defined through two equations, each one used for six months of the year. Hence we decided to investigate consecutive improvements and remaining weaknesses of this new formulation. To this extent, we take benefit of various ionosphere data from several European stations (Chilton in UK, Dourbes in Belgium, El Arenosillo and Roquetes in Spain, Pruhonice in Czech Republic) where ionosonde and GPS TEC data are available for different solar activity levels. These data allow us to study NeQuick representation of the ionosphere at mid-latitudes. We investigate the difference between GPS-derived vTEC and corresponding values from NeQuick for the latest years (between solar maximum in 2000 and minimum in 2007) in order to observe the temporal dependencies towards Universal Time, season and solar activity. We use ionosonde data to constrain the model so that we can concentrate on its formulation of the profile only. We especially highlight the improvements from the second version of NeQuick and show the critical importance of the topside formulation

Towards an Improved Single-Frequency Ionospheric Correction: Focus on Mid-Latitudes

The modelling of the Total Electron Content (TEC) plays an important role in global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) accuracy, especially for single frequency receivers, the most common ones constituting the mass market. For the latter and in the framework of Galileo, the NeQuick model has been chosen for correcting the ionospheric error contribution. It has been designed to calculate the electron density at a given point of the ionosphere according to the time conditions and the solar activity. This electron density can be integrated along the path from the receiver to the considered satellite to provide the TEC. For Galileo, a parameter Az (“effective ionisation level”) will be provided to the model as solar activity information and will be daily updated by the ground stations. In order to reach the ionosphere error correction level objective (70% or 20 TECu whichever is larger), the model itself as well as its use for Galileo are investigated. Different situations have to be considered: different latitude regions (space conditions), different hours, seasons and years (time conditions) and specific phenomena appearance (magnetic storms, Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances – TIDs). In addition the results can be compared to different data sets among which GPS slant or vertical TEC (sTEC or vTEC) measurements, Global Ionospheric Maps, ionosonde profiles, topside soundings but also other ionosphere models results such as IRI. In our comparison process, we take benefit of various ionosphere data from several European stations (Chilton in UK, Dourbes in Belgium, El Arenosillo and Roquetes in Spain, Pruhonice in Czech Republic) where ionosonde and GPS TEC data are available for different solar activity levels. These data allow us to study NeQuick representation of the ionosphere at mid-latitudes. We investigate the difference between GPS-derived vTEC and corresponding values from NeQuick for the latest years (between solar maximum in 2000 and minimum in 2007) in order to observe the temporal dependencies towards Universal Time, season and solar activity. On the one hand, we use ionosonde data to constrain the model so that we can concentrate on its formulation of the profile only. We especially highlight the improvements from the latest (second) version of NeQuick and show the critical importance of the topside formulation. On the other hand, we analyse the model residual errors for the same situations computing vTEC through the Galileo algorithm

Comparison of GPS-derived vTEC over Cyprus with NeQuick Model

This paper presents a comparison of ionospheric vertical total electron content (vTEC) values evaluated from Nicosia (35.1 N, 33.4 E) ground-based GPS station in Cyprus and the corresponding predictions with the latest version of the NeQuick model during periods of low (2008), and high (2001) solar activity for different seasons. According to the study the NeQuick predictions generally underestimate vTEC values during high solar activity periods and overestimate vTEC values during low solar activity periods

Ionosphere Modelling Based on the NeQuick Model and GNSS Data Ingestion

As for other GNSS, the ionospheric effect remains one of the main factors limiting Galileo accuracy. For single frequency users, this contribution to the error budget will be mitigated by a global algorithm based on the NeQuick model. This quick-run empirical model provides flexible solutions for combining ionospheric information obtained from various systems, from GNSS to ionosondes and topside sounders thanks to which NeQuick has been designed. Hence it constitutes an interesting simulation tool not only serving Galileo needs for mitigation of the ionospheric effect but also widening the use of new data available thanks to the future European system. NeQuick provides the electron density as a function of location, time and solar activity. Thanks to numerical integration, the total content in free electrons of the ionosphere (Total Electron Content, TEC) can be deduced as well as the ionospheric propagation delay depending linearly on TEC on satellite-to-receiver path. The model is particularly suited to be used within an optimization procedure called ingestion. In this framework, an “effective ionization level” Az plays the role of the solar activity input in order to fit a specific dataset. For Galileo single frequency operation, daily Az values will be computed from slant TEC measurements performed within the ground segment. In this study, we perform slant TEC ingestion for a dozen of locations around the world where both an ionosonde and a GPS receiver are installed. These collocated instruments allow us to compare measured and modelled vertical TEC in different ways showing for example global statistics or dependence towards latitude. We analyze such results for the year 2002 (high solar activity level) giving an interesting insight in the situation we could observe when Galileo reach its Full Operation Capability, during the next solar maximum