Guo Kai, Liu Yang, Zhao Yan, Wang Jinling
School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
Collaborative Innovation Center of Geospatial Technology, Wuhan 430079, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 Jan 12;17(1):137. doi: 10.3390/s17010137.
Ionospheric scintillation has a great impact on radio propagation and electronic system performance, thus is extensively studied currently. The influence of scintillation on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is particularly evident, making GNSS an effective medium to study characteristics of scintillation. Ionospheric scintillation varies greatly in relation with temporal and spatial distribution. In this paper, both temporal and spatial characteristics of scintillation are investigated based on Macquarie Island's GNSS scintillation data collected from 2011 to 2015. Experiments demonstrate that occurrence rates of amplitude scintillation have a close relationship with solar activity, while phase scintillation is more likely to be generated by geomagnetic activity. In addition, scintillation distribution behaviors related to elevation and azimuth angles are statistically analyzed for both amplitude and phase scintillation. The proposed work is valuable for a deeper understanding of theoretical mechanisms of ionospheric scintillation in this region, and provides a reference for GNSS applications in certain regions around sub-Antarctica.
电离层闪烁对无线电传播和电子系统性能有很大影响，因此目前受到广泛研究。闪烁对全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）的影响尤为明显，使GNSS成为研究闪烁特性的有效媒介。电离层闪烁在时间和空间分布上变化很大。本文基于2011年至2015年在麦夸里岛收集的GNSS闪烁数据，研究了闪烁的时间和空间特征。实验表明，幅度闪烁的发生率与太阳活动密切相关，而相位闪烁更可能由地磁活动产生。此外，还对幅度和相位闪烁与仰角和方位角相关的闪烁分布行为进行了统计分析。所提出的工作对于更深入理解该区域电离层闪烁的理论机制具有重要价值，并为亚南极地区某些区域的GNSS应用提供了参考。
