Concept for Ionospheric Scintillation Mitigation

for Professional GNSS in Latin America

Dr. B. Bougard, Septentrio Satellite Navigation NV.
On behalf of the CIGALA consortium
The CIGALA project has received Community research funding under the EU Seventh Framework Program, and is carried out

A FP7 collaborative project

between:

Leading European manufacturer of high-end multi-frequency GNSS

equipment for precise positioning, time transfer and attitude
determination applications

Key player in GNSS for aviation in Europe with a great knowledge

on managing EC and 7th FP International Activities in Latin America
Top ranked UK Center of Excellence in GNSS/Galileo Research and
Application (GRACE)
Most important scientific institution in Italy devoted to studies in
geophysics, seismic and volcanic hazards
One of the most prominent Brazilian groups in Geodesy and GNSS
application areas (GEGE)
Brazilian SME providing services and consultancy in the field of
Geographic Information Systems, Cartography, and Geodesy.
Petrobras, the Brazilian National Oil Company
Funded under:

ESA EESW 2010

Supervised by:

(c) CIGALA Consortium

Objective : Mitigating IS threat on

professional GNSS in Latin America

When the solar winds come around, youd better

hang onto your GNSS receiver, not your hat.
J. Kunches, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

Outline

The CIGALA project

Objective
Motivation

The CIGALA activities

Scintillation Modelling
Measurement Campaign
Mitigation development
Septentrio Scintillation monitor

First Results

Septentrio Scintillation monitor validation

Scintillation climatology in Sao Paulo State, Brazil

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

IS directly affects GNSS operations

Increased reliance on GNSS, especially by
countries with large territorial coverage
GNSS Satellite

Plasma
perturbations

TEC

Ionosphere

signal
fluctuations

GNSS Receiver
ESA EESW 2010

Annual global market for

by 2020

Safety-critical
GNSS
of 300bn
applications

high resolution land surveying can be

delayed
airborne and marine operations postponed
offshore drilling/production operations
impact
cancelled
SBAS impacted for long periods of time

Consequences
User disappointment and financial loss
Threat for adoption of Galileo and
Precise positioning
EGNOS
(c) CIGALA Consortium

The CIGALA Project

Objective: Understand the cause and implication of IS
disturbances at low latitudes, model their effects and
develop countermeasure techniques through:

The focus on one of the regions most affect by IS (Brazil)

The research of the underlying causes of IS and the development of

state-of-the-art models capable of predicting signal propagation and

tracking perturbations
Field measurement via the deployment in close collaboration with
local academic and industrial partners of multi-frequency multiconstellation Galileo-capable measurement station to collect data in
order to support model development
The design and implementation of novel IS mitigation techniques in
state-of-the-art GNSS receivers
Field testing the mitigation techniques, leveraging the same
partnership as during the measurement campaign.

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

CIGALA targets one of the most

critical regions

Large countries such as Brazil take full advantage from

GNSS for navigation and high precision DGPS, RTK and
PPP applications (surveying, precision agriculture, )
Equatorial region one of the most affected
Latin America badly hit in the past
CIGALA fosters strong
local partnership in
Latin America
In particular in Brazil
Addresses both commercial
and academic participation
Credit: NASA

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

Model development and model improvement
Scintillation Modeling
Analytical Models (e.g. Fremouw and Rino, Iyer et al, Aarons)
Climatological models: WAM (Wernik Alfonsi Materassi) model

Disadvantages/inadequacy of analytical models

Limitations of climatological models (such as WBMOD and GISM)

The way forward: synergy between WAM and analytical models

Use of in-situ satellite measurements to feed WAM

Use of ground-based stations data to feed analytical model
Match both the outputs to have information on IS at global and regional scale

Strongly reliable only over the region of the stations providing the input data
Strongly reliable on global scale less useful on regional scale

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

Measurement campaign

To feed the proposed improvements in scintillation

and receiver tracking models, CIGALA will deploy a
data collection system in Brazil

Six measurement stations will be deployed

Episodic campaigns to account
for different applications
Including experiments involving
real off-shore operations
in liaison with Petrobras
Stations re-occupied for validation
of new algorithms in iterative
ESA process
EESW 2010
(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

The measurement stations

ESA EESW 2010

Septentrio latest Ax3 all signals, all

constellations OEM receiver

Best-in-class phase noise based on state-ofthe-art OCXO

Up to 100Hz signal phase and intensity

output for all satellites

Rugged waterproof housing with RS232, USB,

Ethernet interface and internal logging

Specific GUI and logging tool for TEC and

scintillation indices monitoring

(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

Understand of Impact on receiver and
Development of Mitigation

Moderate levels of scintillation introduce errors in GNSS

positioning
These can be dealt with by suitable error modelling algorithms

Severe scintillation however may lead to LoL

RAIM techniques to exclude affected SV from solution
Advanced tracking techniques to minimize LoL probability

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

First Results: CIGALA monitor

validation
Spirent no scintillation

Spirent synthetic scintillation

(Cornell model)
GSV

3000
2500

PxS vs. GSV (phi60)

2000
1500
1000
500
5.085

3000

5.09

5.095

5.1

5.105

LockTime

5.11

5.115

5.12
5

x 10

PolaRxS

2500
2000

PxS vs. GSV (S4)

1500
1000
500
5.085

5.09

5.095

5.1

5.105

LockTime

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

5.11

5.115

5.12
5

x 10

First Results: Scintillation

climatology at PP
Thr=0.25

Thr=0.
1

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

22.12S, 51.41W
SCINTMON receiver (L1)
Jan 1st, 2009 to Oct 31st,
2009
09002100 UT (LT=UT-3)

First Results: Scintillation

climatology at PP
Thr=0.25

Thr=0.
1

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

22.12S, 51.41W
SCINTMON receiver (L1)
Jan 1st, 2009 to Oct 31st,
2009
09002100 UT (LT=UT-3)

Conclusion

The CIGALA project aims at mitigating the

fundamental threat that IS constitutes for
professional GNSS applications in Latin
American market.

L.A. market comes in 6th position in total GNSS

ESA EESW 2010

revenue with a potential for 25bEUR from 2015

on.
L. A. ranks as 5th largest addressable market
for hydrographic and land surveying
applications with a share comparable to North
America
L.A. belongs to the top-3 in amount of offshore
rig, an important consumer of GNSS solutions.

Knowledge and IP that the project will

generate, will provide Europe with a strong
competitive advantage in that market.
Septentrio is expecting to leverage CIGALA
technical results in its products

(c) CIGALA Consortium

Thank you!

Project contact: bruno.bougard@septentrio.com

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

Backup

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

CIGALA is timely

IS effects exacerbate at high solar activity

Galileo Full Operational Capability (FOC) planned for
same period of time
Galileo in principle vulnerable to IS (same frequency
band as GPS), but receivers not yet tested
If Galileo signal proven superior, it would be a great
asset for usage in Latin America.
No robust receiver yet in the market
Efforts to make Galileo and EGNOS accepted/adopted
in Latin America at initial stage

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

Model development and model improvement

State of the art for GNSS relies

mainly on GPS L1, L2(P) signals
and receivers
What about L2C, L5?
How Galileo signals are affected
by IS?

Modeling IS essential to
develop counter-measures

ESA EESW 2010

GPS scintillation event associated with

sudden TEC changes (Brazilian
receiver)
Kintner and Ledvina, ASR (35)2005, 788-811

(c) CIGALA Consortium

What CIGALA will bring

Measurement sites

Presidente Prudente
Macae (Petrobras)
Porto Alegre
San Jose dos Campos
Palmas
Manaus

The aim is to ensure a significant

sampling of data representing the real
conditions of the ionosphere and
scintillation occurrence
Experimental data will be complemented by simulated data from a state-of-the-art
Spirent signal simulator and field data from the past solar maximum
ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium

CIGALA monitor is based on Septentrio

latest multi-frequency OEM receiver
(AsteRx3)
Multi-frequency
L1, L2, L5, E5a/b/AltBoc

Easy to integrate

Multiple interfaces (RS232, USB, Ethernet)

Compact form factor
2.8W Power Consumption
Compact and detailed Septentrio Binary Format output (SBF)

ESA EESW 2010

Multi-constellation
GPS, GLO, GAL (all signals)
SBAS
136 Channels
Up to 100Hz meas.
Robust, highly customizable
tracking (Lock+)
APME for multi-path mitigation
Raw data output (code and phase,
signal intensity)
10MHz ref in/out, xPPS

(c) CIGALA Consortium

Backward compatible ISMR file

format

One record per minute and per satellite

Includes TEC, S4, CCD, Phixx, scintillation

1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540300,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,
1462,540360,

indices and spectral slope

Includes GLONASS and Galileo
Includes L2 and L5 frequency bands

11,00000074, 27,15,48.2,
10,00000074,232,29,48.2,
23,00000074,232,68,48.2,
17,00000074,152,15,48.2,
1,00000074,344,23,48.2,
2,00000074, 17,45,48.2,
15,00000074, 85,37,48.2,
24,00000074,170,47,48.2,
8,00000074,308,16,48.2,
11,00000074, 27,15,48.0,
10,00000074,232,30,48.0,
23,00000074,231,68,48.0,
17,00000074,152,15,48.0,
1,00000074,344,23,48.0,
2,00000074, 17,45,48.0,
15,00000074, 85,37,48.0,
24,00000074,170,46,48.0,
8,00000074,309,16,48.0,

ESA EESW 2010

0.029,
0.049,
0.039,
0.039,
0.030,
0.041,
0.029,
0.029,
0.031,
0.028,
0.045,
0.039,
0.037,
0.030,
0.042,
0.029,
0.030,
0.032,

0.000,
0.030,
0.007,
0.006,
0.000,
0.012,
0.000,
0.000,
0.000,
0.000,
0.022,
0.000,
0.000,
0.000,
0.014,
0.000,
0.000,
0.000,

0.017,
0.026,
0.023,
0.020,
0.018,
0.019,
0.017,
0.016,
0.017,
0.016,
0.019,
0.018,
0.017,
0.017,
0.019,
0.016,
0.017,
0.018,

0.023,
0.032,
0.029,
0.026,
0.024,
0.025,
0.023,
0.022,
0.023,
0.022,
0.024,
0.023,
0.022,
0.022,
0.024,
0.022,
0.022,
0.022,

0.028,
0.036,
0.033,
0.030,
0.029,
0.030,
0.028,
0.028,
0.029,
0.028,
0.030,
0.029,
0.028,
0.029,
0.030,
0.028,
0.028,
0.028,

0.028,
0.036,
0.033,
0.030,
0.029,
0.030,
0.029,
0.028,
0.029,
0.029,
0.031,
0.031,
0.030,
0.030,
0.032,
0.029,
0.029,
0.030,

0.028,
0.036,
0.034,
0.031,
0.029,
0.030,
0.029,
0.028,
0.029,
0.030,
0.031,
0.031,
0.030,
0.030,
0.032,
0.030,
0.030,
0.030,

2.397,
-3.606,
-5.799,
-1.774,
-2.851,
-1.537,
-4.356,
-5.024,
-1.904,
2.446,
-3.654,
-5.799,
-1.734,
-2.863,
-1.521,
-4.354,
-5.017,
-1.926,

0.071,
0.066,
0.073,
0.056,
0.061,
0.168,
0.062,
0.053,
0.054,
0.048,
0.047,
0.074,
0.073,
0.055,
0.059,
0.052,
0.062,
0.069,

18.811, 0.042,
13.851,-0.031,
7.283, 0.004,
18.259, 0.010,
16.669,-0.041,
10.215,-0.019,
9.643, 0.008,
8.872, 0.012,
17.773,-0.001,
18.906, 0.060,
14.184,-0.022,
6.616, 0.005,
17.887, 0.019,
15.289,-0.029,
9.843,-0.012,
11.167, 0.007,
10.205, 0.017,
17.764, 0.004,

(c) CIGALA Consortium

18.830, 0.044,
14.099,-0.026,
5.559,-0.003,
19.839, 0.014,
17.002,-0.032,
10.976,-0.024,
10.691, 0.002,
8.882, 0.023,
19.134,-0.002,
18.744, 0.038,
13.899,-0.027,
7.006, 0.003,
19.591, 0.008,
15.365,-0.043,
8.758,-0.018,
11.852,-0.000,
9.482, 0.025,
18.354, 0.001,

18.782, 0.055,
14.384,-0.021,
7.273, 0.013,
19.230, 0.006,
16.412,-0.035,
10.329,-0.014,
10.748,-0.002,
9.082, 0.023,
17.611, 0.006,
19.020, 0.052,
13.575,-0.021,
6.473, 0.005,
19.468, 0.007,
15.641,-0.035,
9.605,-0.017,
12.414, 0.010,
8.596, 0.017,
17.802, 0.002,

19.934, 0.033, 3581,0, 3578,37.5,

14.061,-0.032, 4210,0, 4202,37.6,
5.864,-0.006,11894,0,11888,37.6,
19.458, 0.006,22381,0,22376,37.7,
17.973,-0.036, 3761,0, 3752,37.5,
10.548,-0.021, 2981,0, 2977,37.6,
11.128, 0.007,29080,0,29072,37.7,
9.253, 0.024,17000,0,16994,37.7,
18.916, 0.002,10137,0,10130,37.6,
18.954, 0.049, 3641,0, 3638,37.6,
14.460,-0.017, 4270,0, 4262,37.6,
8.339, 0.010,11954,0,11948,37.7,
18.697, 0.012,22441,0,22436,37.7,
15.774,-0.034, 3821,0, 3812,37.6,
9.615,-0.015, 3041,0, 3037,37.6,
10.929, 0.006,29140,0,29132,37.7,
9.205, 0.026,17060,0,17054,37.7,
19.268, 0.002,10197,0,10190,37.6,

0.8
1.5
1.3
1.1
0.9
1.1
0.9
0.8
0.9
0.8
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
1.2
0.8
0.9
0.9

What CIGALA will bring

The data repository

ESA EESW 2010

(c) CIGALA Consortium