Eliminating negative VTEC in global ionosphere maps using inequality-constrained least squares

Currently, ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations of the International GNSS Service (IGS) are distributed unevenly around the world. Most of them are located on the mainland, while only a small part of them are scattered on some islands in the oceans. As a consequence, many unreasonable zero values (in fact negative values) appear in Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) of European Space Agency (ESA) and Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) IONEX products, especially in 2008 and 2009 when the solar activities were rather quiet. To improve this situation, we directly implement non-negative physical constraints of ionosphere for global ionosphere maps (GIM) with spherical harmonic functions. Mathematically, we propose an inequality-constrained least squares method by imposing non-negative inequality constraints in the areas where negative VTEC values may occur to reconstruct GIM models. We then apply the new method to process the IGS data in 2008. The results have shown that the new algorithm efficiently eliminates the unwanted behavior of negative VTEC values, which could otherwise often be seen in the current CODE and ESA GIM products in both middle and high latitude areas of the Southern Hemisphere (45°S∼90°S) and the Northern Hemisphere (50°N∼90°N). About 64% of GPS receivers’ DCBs have been significantly improved. Finally, we compare the GIM results between with and without the inequality constraints, which has clearly shown that the GIM result with inequality constraints is significantly better than that without the inequality constraints. The inequality-constrained GIM result is also highly consistent with the final IGS products in terms of root mean squared (RMS) and mean VTEC.     

基于北斗三号的长基线共视时间比对

卫星导航共视时间比对一直是远距离时间比对的重要方法之一。使用我国最新发射的北斗三号全球导航卫星,基于中科院国家授时中心（NTSC）和捷克光电研究院（TP）各自的时间产生和保持系统,开展了中捷北斗三号长基线共视时间比对试验。本文对中捷两站各自的北斗卫星可视数及其卫星高度角情况进行了统计分析,利用Vondark滤波对时间比对结果进行了降噪处理,最后将北斗三号共视时间比对结果与北斗二号及GPS共视时间比对结果进行了比较。结果表明：北斗三号在当前全球组网阶段中捷共视可视卫星数比北斗二号还少的情况下,其共视时间比对精度达到1.16ns,较北斗二号提升约19%,与GPS更为接近。     

拦截高速目标的比例与反比例导引捕获区分析

针对拦截高速目标的作战特点,分析了比例导引(PN)与反比例导引(RPN)的捕获区。首先,通过分析拦截弹与目标的相对运动关系,推导得到了顺轨和逆轨的零控拦截条件,此条件由目标和拦截弹的速度前置角以及二者速度比确定;其次,以拦截弹和目标速度前置角为坐标系,推导得到了PN以及RPN捕获区以及各自导航比设置范围。PN的捕获区由逆轨零控拦截条件以及与其相切且斜率为1/(N-1)的两条直线构成,RPN的捕获区由顺轨零控拦截条件以及与其相切且斜率为1/(-N-1)的两条直线构成;然后,利用函数对称性将PN与RPN捕获区转换到同一坐标区间,得到了相同条件下RPN捕获区要大于PN捕获区的结论;最后,开展了四种情形下的仿真,验证了本文捕获区分析的合理性及有效性。     

A review of friction stir joining of SiCp/Al composites

SiCp/Al composites have excellent comprehensive properties and have been widely used in aerospace, automotive industry and other fields. Due to the huge difference in performance between SiC particles and matrix alloys, traditional fusion welding methods are difficult to meet the join requirements of SiCp/Al composites. Friction stir joining (friction stir welding), as a solid phase joining process, has been proved to be a new technology with fine prospect in joining SiCp/Al composites compared with fusion welding process. Although some progress has been made in recent years, there are still full of challenges. In this paper, the research status of friction stir joining of SiCp/Al composites in recent years is expatiated, including the weldability of SiCp/Al composites, the macrostructure and the microstructure of joints, mechanical properties of joints, and tool wear and monitoring. Furthermore, the existing challenges of friction stir joining of SiCp/Al composites are summarized and the future development directions are prospected.     

An inter-comparison of zenith tropospheric delays derived from DORIS and GPS data

Doppler Orbitography Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) techniques are similarly affected by propagation delays in the neutral atmosphere (troposphere) and hence make use of similar data processing strategies for reducing this effect. We compare Zenith Tropospheric Delays (ZTDs) estimated from 52 DORIS and GPS station pairs co-located at 35 sites over the 2005–2008 period. We find an overall systematic negative mean bias of −4 mm and a median bias of −2 mm, with a large site-to-site scatter and especially stronger biases over South America, potentially linked to remaining problems related to the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) in the current DORIS data processing. The standard deviation of ZTD differences is in the range 4–12 mm over the globe (8 mm on average), with larger values located in the southern hemisphere. The spatial variability of differences is consistent with previous work but remains largely unexplained. DORIS is shown to be much less sensitive to instrumental changes than GPS (only the switch from Alcatel to Starec antenna at Toulouse is detected as an offset of −4 mm in the ZTD time series). On the opposite, discontinuities and spurious annual signals are found in the GPS ZTD solutions. A discontinuity of +5 mm is found on 5 November 2006, linked to the switch from relative to absolute GPS antenna models used in the data processing. The use of modified GPS antennas (e.g. at GODE) or improved antenna models is shown to reduce the spurious annual signal (e.g. from 5 mm to 2 mm at METS). Overall, the agreement between both techniques is good, though DORIS shows a significantly larger random scatter. The high stability and good spatial and temporal coverage make DORIS a potential candidate technique for meteorology and climate studies as long as reasonable time averaging can be applied (e.g. differences are reduced from 8.6 to 2.4 mm with 5-day averages) and no real-time application is considered. This technique could be considered as a potential contributor to Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) for climatology.     

Ionospheric scintillations at Guilin detected by GPS ground-based and radio occultation observations

The occurrence of ionospheric scintillations with S4 ? 0.2 was studied using GPS measurements at Guilin, China (25.29°N, 110.33°E; geomagnetic: 15.04°N, 181.98°E), a station located near the northern crest of the equatorial anomaly. The results are presented for data collected from January 2009 to March 2010. The results show that nighttime amplitude scintillations only took place in February and March of the considered years, while daytime amplitude scintillations occurred in August and December of 2009. Nighttime amplitude scintillations, observed in the south of Guilin, always occurred with phase scintillations, TEC (Total Electron Content) depletions, and ROT (Rate Of change of TEC) fluctuations. However, TEC depletions and ROT fluctuations were weak during daytime amplitude scintillations, and daytime amplitude scintillations always took place simultaneously for most of the GPS satellites which appeared over Guilin in different azimuth directions. Ground-based GPS scintillation/TEC observations recorded at Guilin and signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) measurements obtained from GPS-COSMIC radio occultation indicate that nighttime and daytime scintillations are very likely caused by ionospheric F region irregularities and sporadic E, respectively. Moreover, strong daytime amplitude scintillations may be associated with the plasma density enhancements in ionospheric E region caused by the Perseid and Geminid meteor shower activities.     

A global survey of COSMIC ionospheric peak electron density and its height: A comparison with ground-based ionosonde measurements

With a network of ground-based ionosondes distributed around the world, the ionospheric peak electron density and its height measured by FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites in terms of GPS radio occultation technique are extensively examined in this article. It is found that, in spite of the latitude, the mean values of the peak electron density measured by COSMIC satellites are systematically smaller than those observed by ground-based ionosondes. The discrepancy between them is dependent on the latitude, namely, it is small in low and mid-latitudes and large in high-latitude region. Moreover, statistical analysis shows that the slopes of the regression line that is best fitted to the scatter diagram of occultation-retrieved peak electron density (ordinate axis) versus ionosonde-observed peak density (abscissa axis) are universally less than one. This feature is believed to be the result of path average effect of non-uniform distribution of the electron density along the GSP ray during the occultation. A comparison between COSMIC-measured peak height and ionosonde-derived peak height hmF2 indicates that the former is systematically higher than the latter. The difference in the two can be as large as 20% or more in equatorial and low-latitude regions. This result implies that the peak height hmF2 derived from the virtual height through true height analysis based on Titheridge method seems to underestimate the true peak height. The correlation between COSMIC and ionosonde peak electron densities is analyzed and the result reveals that correlation coefficient seems to be dependent on the fluctuation of the occultation-retrieved electron density profile. The correlation will be higher (lower) for the electron density profiles with smaller (larger) fluctuations. This feature suggests that the inhomogeneous distribution of the electron density along the GPS ray path during the occultation plays an important role affecting the correlation between COSMIC and ionosonde measurements.     

The geomagnetic solar flare effect identified by SIIG as an indicator of a solar flare observed by GOES satellites

This paper studies the efficiency of geomagnetic solar flare effects (gsfe) in X solar flare detection; so during the period 1999–2007 a comparison between solar flare (sf) observed by satellites of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) programme and gsfe published by the Service International des Indices Geomagnetiques (SIIG) is made.     

50吨级氢氧火箭发动机的设计与研制

系统性地回顾了长征五号运载火箭芯一级50t级氢氧火箭发动机YF-77的设计与研制历程。通过分析氢氧发动机的特点以及国内外氢氧发动机的发展现状,阐述了国内新一代运载火箭研发的技术路线和50t级氢氧火箭发动机的研制背景;对50t级氢氧火箭发动机的总体技术方案及其特点进行了分析与总结,并在此基础上对发动机主要组件的技术方案及其特点开展分析;对发动机热试车情况、可靠性验证情况和故障排除情况进行了分析;对50t级氢氧火箭发动机的研制情况、技术特点进行了总结,并对国内氢氧发动机和液氧/甲烷发动机的发展进行了展望。     

一类隔离驱动电路的“剩余驱动”问题

讨论直流变换器中将脉宽调制器（PWM）输出与受控MOS管栅极连接的一类开关驱动电路.专注于分析它在PWM电路关闭后对栅极产生的驱动信号,被命名为＂剩余驱动＂.描述这类剩余驱动的电气特性,说明它对变换器造成的危险,提出改进这类驱动电路以消除这些危险的4种方法.