The verification of GNSS tropospheric tomography model in a mountainous area

The GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) has not been developed as a meteorological data source provider, but with a careful and sophisticated processing strategy it might be used as one. The term GNSS tomography refers to the usage of the ray traced GNSS signal as scanning rays in the tomographic model input. The model is divided into a number of voxels. The system is inverted and value of refractivity is obtained. Typically, as in the most of the inverse processing, there is a problem of the undetermined system and as a consequence the cofactor matrix is close to singular. To avoid singularity additional conditions or constrains should be added to the system. Here, additional parameters are derived with the help of the air flow analysis in the Sudety mountains (south-west region of Poland), and special Slant Wet Delay (SWD) trimming procedure. The flow’s synthetic parameters like the Bruint-Väisälä frequency and the Froude number are determined. This way the type of the flow is recognized and the analysis of the impact of orographic barrier has been quantified. The SWDs from the GNSS observations were tested against, SWD from raytracing through the COAMPS model field. The modified GNSS tomography model was tested for the real GNSS observations delivered from the GNSS network Karkonosze located in the Sudety mountains and compared with the COAMPS model. The solution shows a considerable improvement in comparison with plain tomographic model results.     

超精密微牛级微波离子推进技术及其在卫星超精度控制中的应用研究

空间技术的快速发展使得利用空间卫星的编队飞行构建大型空间星座成为可能，在引力波探测、射电望远镜编队、星座组网等任务方面具有重要作用。超精度控制是实现卫星高精度编队飞行的关键技术。推进系统是实现卫星编队长期高度稳定飞行的保证，从而实现内部科学装置的正确运行。不同于常规的推进系统，卫星精密编队超精度控制对推进系统的推力可调范围、分辨率、响应时间、推力的一致性等有着极高的要求。根据卫星精密编队任务需求，对微牛级推进系统的功能及技术要求进行了分析，提出了基于M2微波离子推力器的卫星超精度控制推进系统。阐述了M2超精密微牛级推进系统的关键技术和研究进展，为后续M2推力器在无拖曳控制方面的应用奠定了基础。     

静止轨道卫星通信链路的预算与分析

星地链路计算作为卫星通信的重要技术，是卫星通信系统设计的基础和理论依据，直接决定了卫星通信系统的链路通信质量。由于影响卫星链路的因素很多，设计中存在一处不合理即使得整条星地链路不可用，造成巨大的损失。而且在实际设计中无法做到最理想的链路状态，往往需要在某方面有所取舍，这也是链路计算中的一大难点。基于目前国际通用的链路计算方法，将星地链路上下行拆分，独立计算，综合分析，再结合实际工程经验，分析和计算实际工程案例，针对不同的链路配置给出相应合理的设计方法，可作为静止轨道通信卫星星地链路计算分析的参考。     

GNSS Satellite Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (SAIM) using inter-satellite measurements

Integrity is the ability of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to detect faults in measurements and provide timely warnings to users and operators when the navigation system cannot meet the defined performance standards, which is of great importance for safety of life critical applications. Compared with both Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) and ground based GNSS Integrity Channel (GIC) methods which are widely adopted nowadays, the Satellite Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (SAIM) method can be used to monitor orbit/ephemeris and clock errors, and has advantages in monitoring orbit and clock quality and providing instantaneous responses when faults happen.     

Evaluation and improvement of coastal GNSS reflectometry sea level variations from existing GNSS stations in Taiwan

Global sea level rise due to an increasingly warmer climate has begun to induce hazards, adversely affecting the lives and properties of people residing in low-lying coastal regions and islands. Therefore, it is important to monitor and understand variations in coastal sea level covering offshore regions. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) have been successfully used to robustly derive sea level heights (SLHs). In Taiwan, there are a number of continuously operating GNSS stations, not originally installed for sea level monitoring. They were established in harbors or near coastal regions for monitoring land motion. This study utilizes existing SNR data from three GNSS stations (Kaohsiung, Suao, and TaiCOAST) in Taiwan to compute SLHs with two methods, namely, Lomb–Scargle Periodogram (LSP)-only, and LSP aided with tidal harmonic analysis developed in this study. The results of both methods are compared with co-located or nearby tide gauge records. Due to the poor quality of SNR data, the worst accuracy of SLHs derived from traditional LSP-only method exceeds 1?m at the TaiCOAST station. With our procedure, the standard deviations (STDs) of difference between GNSS-derived SLHs and tide gauge records in Kaohsiung and Suao stations decreased to 10?cm and the results show excellent agreement with tide gauge derived relative sea level records, with STD of differences of 7?cm and correlation coefficient of 0.96. In addition, the absolute GNSS-R sea level trend in Kaohsiung during 2006–2011 agrees well with that derived from satellite altimetry. We conclude that the coastal GNSS stations in Taiwan have the potential of monitoring absolute coastal sea level change accurately when our proposed methodology is used.     

Global ionospheric scintillations revealed by GPS radio occultation data with FY3C satellite before midnight during the March 2015 storm

Global observations of S4 amplitude scintillation index by the GPS Occultation Sounder (GNOS) on FengYun-3 C (FY3C) satellite reveal global dynamic patterns of a strong pre-midnight scintillations in F-region of the ionosphere during the St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic super storm of 17–19 March 2015. The observed strong scintillations mainly occurred in the low latitudes, caused by equatorial plasma bubbles. During the main storm phase (March 17), the scintillations were first triggered in the New Zealand sector near 160°E longitudes, extending beyond 40°S dip latitude. They were also enhanced in the Indian sector, but significantly suppressed in East Asia near 120°E longitude and in Africa around 30°E longitude. During the initial recovery phase (March 18–19), the global scintillations were seldom observed in GNOS data. During the later recovery phase (after March 19), the scintillations recovered to the pre-storm level in Indian, African, and American sectors, but not in East Asian and any of Pacific sectors. These results closely correlate with observations of the density depletion structures by the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite, and ground-based instruments. Such consistency indicates reliability of our scintillation sensing approach even in a case-by-case comparison study. The prompt penetration electric field and disturbance dynamo electric field are suggested as the main factors that control the enhancement and inhibition of the scintillations during the storm, respectively.     

前向数据接入方式对导航星座网络通信性能的影响分析

对采用时分多址轮询建链体制的导航星座星间链路网络，为了指导星间链路网络地面前向数据接入的应用，分析了不同地面前向数据接入方式的星-星-地联合数据交互机制及其对网络通信性能的影响，并结合应用代价给出了综合评价和使用建议。以前向数据最快路径接入方式和固定节点接入方式为代表，分析了星间链路网络与地面间星 星 地联合数据交互机制的特点，明确了两种方式下星间链路网络拓扑路由规划策略的制定原则。通过构建Walker 24/3/1导航星座星间链路网络数据处理模型及典型星地运行场景，对两种地面前向数据接入方式仿真分析了星间链路通信容量和传输时延等网络通信性能，比较分析了通信容量及数据拥塞规律，得出前向数据最快路径接入方式相比于固定节点接入方式在通信性能上有较明显优势的结论。最后，综合给出了两种星 星 地联合数据交互机制的应用性评价,同时给出了在通信容量较低且通信时延要求不高、但可靠性要求较高的应用条件下，可适度采用固定节点接入方式的建议。     

一种卫星信道的反馈优化接入机制

提高卫星信道资源利用率，探索高效可行的端站接入机制是卫星通信发展亟待解决的问题之一。当前卫星通信DVB-RCS标准基于带宽预先规划的接入机制与端站随遇接入的需求矛盾凸显，因此提出一套信道反馈优化接入机制，综合考虑各端站数据业务需求，在不改变原有协议信令特征的基础上，探索性地引入谦虚度激励方法，创造性地构造动态协商反馈模型并加以求解，达到提高端站接入数量、满足随遇接入需求、提升信道利用效率、最大化整体带宽通信业务效益的目的。通过试验验证，带宽分配反馈优化机制比传统模式提高近1倍接入率，最大端站数接入时算法耗时约只有0.67s，可为卫星信道使用提供技术参考。     

High temporal resolution global PWV dataset of 2005–2016 by using a neural network approach to determine the mean temperature of the atmosphere

Atmospheric water vapour plays an important role in phenomena related to the global hydrologic cycle and climate change. However, the rapid temporal–spatial variation in global tropospheric water vapour has not been well investigated due to a lack of long-term, high-temporal-resolution precipitable water vapour (PWV). Accordingly, this study generates an hourly PWV dataset for 272 ground-based International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS) stations over the period of 2005–2016 using the zenith troposphere delay (ZTD) derived from global-scale GNSS observation. The root mean square (RMS) of the hourly ZTD obtained from the IGS tropospheric product is approximately 4 mm. A fifth-generation reanalysis dataset of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF ERA5) is used to obtain hourly surface temperature (T) and pressure (P), which are first validated with GNSS synoptic station data and radiosonde data, respectively. Then, T and P are used to calculate the water vapour-weighted atmospheric mean temperature (Tm) and zenith hydrostatic delay (ZHD), respectively. T and P at the GNSS stations are obtained via an interpolation in the horizontal and vertical directions using the grid-based ERA5 reanalysis dataset. Here, Tm is calculated using a neural network model, whereas ZHD is obtained using an empirical Saastamoinen model. The RMS values of T and P at the collocated 693 radiosonde stations are 1.6 K and 3.1 hPa, respectively. Therefore, the theoretical error of PWV caused by the errors in ZTD, T and P is on the order of approximately 2.1 mm. A practical comparison experiment is performed using 97 collocated radiosonde stations and 23 GNSS stations equipped with meteorological sensors. The RMS and bias of the hourly PWV dataset are 2.87/?0.16 and 2.45/0.55 mm, respectively, when compared with radiosonde and GNSS stations equipped with meteorological sensors. Additionally, preliminary analysis of the hourly PWV dataset during the EI Niño event of 2014–2016 further indicates the capability of monitoring the daily changes in atmospheric water vapour. This finding is interesting and significant for further climate research.     

Potential of IRNSS/NavIC L5 signals for ionospheric studies

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed an indigenous system named Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) or NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), that consists of 7 satellites and transmits navigation signal in L and S bands. ISRO, for validation of the system, has installed many IGS (IRNSS/GPS/SBAS) receivers scattered over the Indian region. Using preliminary data from two geographically widely separated stations over India, this paper presents the results on studies on parameters of IRNSS signal quality and discusses how these parameters may be used to study the ionospheric behavior over the Indian region. The results show the importance and advantages of using IRNSS data for such studies.