Variations of total electron content over high latitude region during the ascending phase of 24th solar cycle

The solar cycle variation and seasonal changes significantly affects the ionization process of earth’s ionosphere and required to be monitored in real time basis for regional level refinement of existing models. In view of this, the present study has been carried out by using the ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) data observed with the help of Global Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC monitoring (GISTM) system installed at Indian Antarctic Research Station, “Maitri” [70°46′00″S 11°43′56″E] during the ascending phase of 24th solar cycle. The daily values of solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) flux (0.1–50?nm wavelength), 10.7?cm radio flux F_10.7 and Sunspot number (SSN) has been taken as a proxy to represent the solar cycle variation to correlate with TEC. The linear regression results revels better correlation of TEC with EUV flux rather than F_10.7 and SSN. Also, the EUV and TEC show better agreement during summer as compared to winter and equinox period. Correlation between TEC and EUV appears significantly noticeable during ten internationally defined quiet days of each month (stable background geophysical condition) as compared to the overall days (2010–2014). Further, saturation effect has been observed on TEC values during the solar maxima year 2014. The saturation effects are more prominent during the night hours of winter and equinox season due to transportation losses manifested by the equator-ward direction of meridional wind.     

Resource Management Coordination with Level 2/3 Fusion Issues and Challenges [Panel Report]

Information fusion system designs require sensor and resource management (SM) for effective and efficient data collection, processing, and dissemination. Common Level 4 fusion sensor management (or process refinement) inter-relations with target tracking and identification (Level 1 fusion) have been detailed in the literature. At the ISIF Fusion Conference, a panel discussion was held to examine the contemporary issues and challenges pertaining to the interaction between SM and situation and threat assessment (Level 2/3 fusion). This summarizes the key tenants of the invited panel experts. The common themes were: (1) Addressing the user in system control, (2) Determining a standard set of metrics, (3) Evaluating fusion systems to deliver timely information needs, (4) Dynamic updating for planning mission time-horizons, (5) Joint optimization of objective functions at all levels, (6) L2/3 situation entity definitions for knowledge discovery, modeling, and information projection, and (7) Addressing constraints for resource planning and scheduling.     

Development of a regional rain retrieval algorithm for exclusive mesoscale convective systems over peninsular India

The present study emphasize the development of a region specific rain retrieval algorithm by taking into accounts the cloud features. Brightness temperatures (T_bs) from various TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) channels are calibrated with near surface rain intensity as observed from the TRMM – Precipitation Radar. It shows that T_b–R relations during exclusive-Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) events have greater dynamical range compared to combined events of non-MCS and MCS. Increased dynamical range of T_b–R relations for exclusive-MCS events have led to the development of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based regional algorithm for rain intensity estimation. By using the exclusive MCSs algorithm, reasonably good improvement in the accuracy of rain intensity estimation is observed. A case study of a comparison of rain intensity estimation by the exclusive-MCS regional algorithm and the global TRMM 2A12 rain product with a Doppler Weather Radar shows significant improvement in rain intensity estimation by the developed regional algorithm.     

Diurnal and seasonal variation of F2-layer ionospheric parameters at equatorial ionization anomaly crest region and their comparison with IRI-2001

Diurnal and seasonal variations of critical frequency of ionospheric F2-region ‘foF2’ and the height of peak density ‘hmF2’ are studied using modern digital ionosonde observations of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest region, Bhopal (23.2°N, 77.6°E, dip 18.5°N), during solar minimum period 2007. Median values of these parameters are obtained at each hour using manually scaled data during different seasons and compared with the International Reference Ionosphere-2001 model predictions. The observations suggest that on seasonal basis, the highest values of foF2 are observed during equinox months, whereas highest values of hmF2 are obtained in summer and lowest values of both foF2 and hmF2 are observed during winter. The observed median and IRI predicted values of foF2 and hmF2 are analyzed with upper and lower bound of inter-quartile range (IQR) and it is find out that the observed median values are well inside the inter-quartile range during the period of 2007. Comparison of the recorded foF2 and hmF2 values with the IRI-2001 output reveals that IRI predicted values exhibit better agreement with hmF2 as compared to foF2. In general, the IRI model predictions show some agreement with the observations during the year 2007. Therefore it is still necessary to implement improvements in order to obtain better predictions for EIA regions.     

Variable Format Radar Receiver Using a SAW Convolver

A technique for receiving radar pulse trains is presented [which can be of a variable format in the sense that they vary from pulse to pulse]. The heart of the receiver is a sufrace ascoustic wave (SAW) convolver. In addition to prsenting experimental results for variable format waveform reception, it is shown that the convolver can easily generate ambiguity functions for virtually any waveform, and specific results for signals such as Barker codes and linear FM (chirp) waveforms are presented.