The effect of collisions in ionogram inversion

The results of this paper demonstrate that the effect of collisions on the group refraction index is small, when the ordinary ray is considered. If, however, in order to improve the performance of a system for automatic interpretation of ionograms, the information contained in ordinary and extraordinary traces is combined, the effect of collisions between the electrons and neutral molecules should be taken into account for the extraordinary ray. The magnitude of these differences is generally very small and must be compared with the resolution in the virtual vertical height of the ionosonde, resolution which is typically of the order of few kilometers.