Comparison of GPS derived TEC with the TEC predicted by IRI 2012 model in the southern Equatorial Ionization Anomaly crest within the Eastern Africa region

We have compared the TEC obtained from the IRI-2012 model with the GPS derived TEC data recorded within southern crest of the EIA in the Eastern Africa region using the monthly means of the 5 international quiet days for equinoxes and solstices months for the period of 2012 – 2013. GPS-derived TEC data have been obtained from the Africa array and IGS network of ground based dual-frequency GPS receivers from four stations (Kigali (1.95°S, 30.09°E; Geom. Lat. 11.63°S), Malindi (2.99°S, 40.19°E; Geom. Lat. 12.42°S), Mbarara (0.60°S, 30.74°E; Geom. Lat. 10.22°S) and Nairobi (1.22°S, 36.89°E; Geom. Lat. 10.69°S)) located within the EIA crest in this region. All the three options for topside Ne of IRI-2012 model and ABT-2009 for bottomside thickness have been used to compute the IRI TEC. Also URSI coefficients were considered in this study. These results are compared with the TEC estimated from GPS measurements. Correlation Coefficients between the two sets of data, the Root-Mean Square Errors (RMSE) of the IRI-TEC from the GPS-TEC, and the percentage RMSE of the IRI-TEC from the GPS-TEC have been computed. Our general results show that IRI-2012 model with all three options overestimates the GPS-TEC for all seasons and at all stations, and IRI-2001 overestimates GPS-TEC more compared with other options. IRI-Neq and IRI-01-corr are closely matching in most of the time. The observation also shows that, GPS TEC are underestimated by TEC from IRI model during noon hours, especially during equinoctial months. Further, GPS-TEC values and IRI-TEC values using all the three topside Ne options show very good correlation (above 0.8). On the other hand, the TEC using IRI-Neq and IRI-01- corr had smaller deviations from the GPS-TEC compared to the IRI-2001.     

一种基于元路径拥塞模式挖掘的移动对象位置预测方法

路网上移动对象位置预测是许多位置相关服务的基础。目前移动对象位置预测方法没有充分考虑到轨迹数据中所蕴含的道路拥塞信息,而路网上的道路拥塞状态对移动对象的位置更新会产生巨大影响。提出基于元路径拥塞模式挖掘的方法(Meta-congestion-pattern mining,MCPM)。在离线挖掘阶段,从历史轨迹的频繁路径(元路径)的紧集中挖掘当地的拥塞模式,并对运动模式进行建模,其中采用基于k均值的聚类算法解决数据稀疏性问题。在线预测阶段根据挖掘的拥塞模式和运动模式依概率进行预测。最后通过理论分析和实验验证得出了算法的有效性,与相同条件下的精度预测(WhereNext,WN)方法相比,平均预测准确性提高了近20%,预测时间平均缩短了近50%。     

Thermosphere densities derived from Swarm GPS observations

After the detection of many anomalies in the Swarm accelerometer data, an alternative method has been developed to determine thermospheric densities for the three-satellite mission. Using a precise orbit determination approach, non-gravitational and aerodynamic-only accelerations are estimated from the high-quality Swarm GPS data. The GPS-derived non-gravitational accelerations serve as a baseline for the correction of the Swarm-C along-track accelerometer data. The aerodynamic accelerations are converted directly into thermospheric densities for all Swarm satellites, albeit at a much lower temporal resolution than the accelerometers would have been able to deliver. The resulting density and acceleration data sets are part of the European Space Agency Level 2 Swarm products.To improve the Swarm densities, two modifications have recently been added to our original processing scheme. They consist of a more refined handling of radiation pressure accelerations and the use of a high-fidelity satellite geometry and improved aerodynamic model. These modifications lead to a better agreement between estimated Swarm densities and NRLMSISE-00 model densities. The GPS-derived Swarm densities show variations due to solar and geomagnetic activity, as well as seasonal, latitudinal and diurnal variations. For low solar activity, however, the aerodynamic signal experienced by the Swarm satellites is very small, and therefore it is more difficult to accurately resolve latitudinal density variability using GPS data, especially for the higher-flying Swarm-B satellite. Therefore, mean orbit densities are also included in the Swarm density product.     

面向立方星的相对位姿测量视觉传感器设计

针对立方星在轨服务任务中的近距离相对导航问题，提出一种相对位姿测量视觉传感器设计。为应对空间复杂的光照条件，设计一种具有多层结构的立体靶标，选取波长为850nm的LED灯作为立体靶标的光源。在相机镜头处安装850nm的红外窄带滤镜以提高立体靶标成像质量。为提高视觉传感器的测量精度，提出一种迭代直接求解(iterative direct solution, IDS)的相对位姿估计算法。该算法直接利用立体靶标上的非共面点提供的深度信息获得初始相对位姿，然后引入Haralick迭代算法来优化初始测量结果。搭建六自由度实验平台对该视觉传感器进行性能测试。实验结果表明,该视觉传感器能克服背景光的干扰，且提出的 IDS相对位姿估计算法的精度优于经典的P3P算法和EPnP算法。     

基于相对最值点的最小二乘直线检测方法

为了解决传统目标检测中遇到的检测速度慢、精度低等问题，本文提出一种新的图像特征——相对最值点，并依据相对最值点提出一种新的最小二乘直线检测的方法。该方法首先搜索Canny边缘的闭合包络，并寻找闭合包络的相对最值点。包络上相邻相对最值点之间长度满足阈值要求的即为疑似直线的两端点，进而利用最小二乘拟合方法获得该疑似直线的拟合方差，最后利用拟合方差与拟合直线长度之比作为直线判定的标准用来检测出图像中的直线。实验表明，本方法与传统方法如PPHT直线检测、LSD直线检测方法等相比，检测直线的精度更高，检测速度更快。     

Analysis of the data processing strategies of spherical harmonic expansion model on global ionosphere mapping for moderate solar activity

Spherical harmonic (SH) expansion is widely used to model the global ionosphere map (GIM) of vertical total electron content (VTEC). According to the impact of different data processing methods of the SH expansion model on the VTEC maps, we specifically performed comprehensive analysis in terms of the data sampling rate, the time resolution, the spherical harmonic degree, and the relative constraint. One month of GPS data (January in 2016) from the International GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Service (IGS) network in a moderate ionospheric activity period at the descending phase of Solar Cycle 24 was processed. To improve the computational efficiency of the daily GIM generation, the data sampling rate of 5?min was recommended allowing the GIM precision loss within 0.10 TECU (total electron content unit). The global VTEC map could be better represented in temporal and spatial domains with higher time resolution and higher spherical harmonic degree, especially at low latitude bands and in the southern hemisphere. The GIM precision improvement was about 10.91% for 1-h and about 15.15% for 0.5-h compared with the commonly used 2-h time resolution. The use of spherical harmonic degree 17 or 20 instead of 15 could improve the precision by 3.19% or 6.06%. We also found that an optimal relative constraint had to be found experimentally considering both the GIM precision and the GIM root mean square (RMS) map.     

Evaluation of the IRI-2016 and NeQuick electron content specification by COSMIC GPS radio occultation,ground-based GPS and Jason-2 joint altimeter/GPS observations

We examined performance of two empirical profile-based ionospheric models, namely IRI-2016 and NeQuick-2, in electron content (EC) and total electron content (TEC) representation for different seasons and levels of solar activity. We derived and analyzed EC estimates in several representative altitudinal intervals for the ionosphere and the plasmasphere from the COSMIC GPS radio occultation, ground-based GPS and Jason-2 joint altimeter/GPS observations. It allows us to estimate a quantitative impact of the ionospheric electron density profiles formulation in several altitudinal intervals and to examine the source of the model-data discrepancies of the EC specification from the bottom-side ionosphere towards the GPS orbit altitudes. The most pronounced model-data differences were found at the low latitude region as related to the equatorial ionization anomaly appearance. Both the IRI-2016 and NeQuick-2 models tend to overestimate the daytime ionospheric EC and TEC at low latitudes during all seasons of low solar activity. On the contrary, during high solar activity the model results underestimated the EC/TEC observations at low latitudes. We found that both models underestimated the EC for the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere regions for all levels of solar activity. For low solar activity, the underestimated EC from the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere can compensate the overestimation of the ionospheric EC and, consequently, can slightly decrease the resulted model overestimation of the ground-based TEC. For high solar activity, the underestimated EC from the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere leads to a strengthening of the model underestimation of the ground-based TEC values. We demonstrated that the major source of the model-data discrepancies in the EC/TEC domain comes from the topside ionosphere/plasmasphere system.     

TEC differences for the mid-latitude ionosphere in both sides of the longitudes with zero declination

Based on measurements of ground-based GPS station network, differences of the mid-latitude ionospheric TEC in the east and west sides of North America, South America and Oceania have been analyzed in this paper. Results show that for nearly all seasons from 2001 to 2010 and in both sides of the longitudes with zero declination, there exist systematic differences for the mid-latitude ionospheric TEC in the regions mentioned above and the features of these differences markedly depend upon the local time but less depend upon seasons and the level of solar activity. Theory analysis shows that the longitude variations of both declination and zonal thermospheric winds are one of important factors to cause differences of the mid-latitude ionospheric TEC in both sides of the longitudes with zero declination.     

Time-series analysis of GPS measurements for long-span bridge movements using wavelet and model prediction techniques

This study aims at assessing the safety behavior of the Incheon long-span bridge using high rate (10?Hz) geodetic monitoring global positioning system (GPS). The time series of wavelet spectrum analysis is utilized to assess the dynamic behavior of the bridge. The coefficients and model errors of the time series autoregressive-moving average (ARMA) model are used to evaluate the movement performances of the bridge. The results show that: (i) the accuracy of GPS measurements to extract the dynamic behavior of the bridge is 97.27% when compared with the design results. (ii) the behavior of the bridge is within the safety limits of the bridge design with minimum observed changes for the historical GPS measurements in time and frequency domains, the mean deflection of bridge deck is 8.26?mm and frequency changes of bridge is 0.004?Hz compared with the design results. (iii) the time series analysis of the wavelet spectrum and ARMA model coefficients can be used to detect the significant frequency changes and study the rigidity of the bridge performance, respectively; and the both methods are found to be suitable techniques to estimate the performance changes of the GPS measurements in the time and frequency domains during the monitoring time period.