The ionosphere — the region of geospace spanning from 60 to 1000 kilometers above the Earth — impairs the propagation of radio signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with its electrically charged particles. This is a problem for the ever higher precision required by these systems — both in research and for applications such as autonomous driving or precise orbit determination of satellites. Models of the ionosphere and its uneven, dynamic charge distribution can help correct the signals for ionospheric delays, which are one of the main error sources in GNSS applications. Researchers have presented a new model of the ionosphere, developed on the basis of neural networks and satellite measurement data from 19 years. In particular, it can reconstruct the topside ionosphere, the upper, electron-rich part of the ionosphere much more precisely than before. It is thus also an important basis for progress in ionospheric research, with applications in studies on the propagation of electromagnetic waves or for the analysis of certain space weather events, for example.
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Source: ScienceDaily