Assimilation of space-based STEC into the NeQuick topside in the frame of the MuSE project

The mitigation of ionospheric effects on radio waves is a critical issue for applications utilizing trans- ionospheric signals such as GNSS navigation, GNSS related augmentation systems (e.g. EGNOS and WAAS). The reconstruction of the ionosphere and plasmasphere is a powerful tool to provide link specific ionospheric corrections. Especially the description of the topside part of the ionosphere and plasmasphere could be improved. As a part of the DFG Priority Program 1788 “DynamicEarth”, the project MuSE aims at the development of a topside ionosphere-plasmasphere model, which is capable to assimilate various measurements and exploits especially the measurements of the low Earth orbiters of ESA’s Swarm mission. In this presentation we outline different realizations of the ensemble Kalman filter for ionosphere/plasmasphere reconstruction, which are under development within the project. We discuss possibilities to regularize the underlying ill-posed inverse problem including the utilization of the NeQuick model within the reconstruction procedure. Furthermore, we present results of the estimated electron density and total plasmasphere electron content. Errors and inconsistencies in the assimilated data can dramatically decrease the quality of the reconstructed results and pose a serious problem for all data driven approaches. We outline possible approaches to overcome this problem. Finally, open issues and next steps of the project are pointed out.     «

The mitigation of ionospheric effects on radio waves is a critical issue for applications utilizing trans- ionospheric signals such as GNSS navigation, GNSS related augmentation systems (e.g. EGNOS and WAAS). The reconstruction of the ionosphere and plasmasphere is a powerful tool to provide link specific ionospheric corrections. Especially the description of the topside part of the ionosphere and plasmasphere could be improved. As a part of the DFG Priority Program 1788 “DynamicEarth”, the...     »