Study of the Ionospheric Scintillation Radio Propagation Characteristics with Cosmic Observations

The ionosphere has important influences on trans-ionosphere radio propagation. When signals pass through ionospheric irregularities, their amplitude and phase are often attenuated and distorted. In this work, the statistical features of scintillation observed by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites are investigated with Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) data in solar cycle 24. The amplitude scintillation propagation channel is fitted by the Nakagami-m, alpha-mu and kappa-mu models. The performance is evaluated in terms of root mean square error (RMSE), kurtosis and information entropy. The results reveal that the alpha-mu model achieves the best performance in all considered scintillation intensities, while the Nakagami-m model achieves better performance under severe scintillation in the GNSS-LEO propagation channels.

Automated summary

This study investigates the effects of ionospheric irregularities on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite propagation using COSMIC data. The alpha-mu model exhibits the best performance in all considered scintillation intensities.