The effect of the Earth’s ionosphere represents the single largest contribution to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) error budget and abnormal ionospheric conditions can impose serious degradation on GNSS system functionality, including integrity, accuracy and availability. With the growing reliance on GNSS for many modern life applications, actionable ionospheric forecasts can contribute to the understanding and mitigation of the impact of the ionosphere on our technology based society. In this context, the Ionosphere Prediction Service (IPS) project was set up to design and develop a prototype platform to translate the forecast of the ionospheric effects into a service customized for specific GNSS user communities. To achieve this overarching aim, four different product groups dealing with solar activity, ionospheric activity, GNSS receiver performance and service performance have been developed and integrated into a service chain, which is made available through a web based platform. This paper provides an overview of the IPS project describing its overall architecture, products and web based platform.

The aim of the Ionosphere Prediction Service (IPS) project is to design and develop a prototype platform to translate the prediction and forecast of the ionosphere effects into a service customized for specific GNSS user communities. The project team is composed by Telespazio (coordinator), Nottingham Scientific Ltd, Telespazio Vega Deutschland, the University of Nottingham, the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). The IPS development is conceived of two concurrent activities: prototype service design and development & research activity that will run along the whole project. Service design and development is conceived into four phases: user requirements collection, architecture specification, implementation and validation of the prototype. A sub-activity analyses also the integration feasibility in the Galileo Service center, located in Madrid. The research activity is the scientific backbone of IPS that will provide the models and algorithms for the forecasting products.

holds the position of Project Manager in Telespazio with more than 18 years of technical and managing experience. He is managing EC and ESA projects mostly focused on GNSS evolution and currently he is the coordinator of the Ionosphere Prediction Service programme for EC and the technical coordination of the Galileo PRS navigation performance monitoring tool development for the GSOp (the Galileo Service Operator). He has two degrees in Telecommunication Engineering and Astronautics Engineering and a PHD in Control Systems Engineering. He holds two patents in GNSS technology Stefano Di Rollo received is MSc in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Rome La Sapienza (2008) and a II level specializing master in advanced systems for satellite communication and navigation (2010). From 2012 he was a Navigation System expert at Telespazio serving as system engineer and technical responsible on several projects regarding Galileo KPI monitoring and evolution, ionospheric activity monitoring and development of GNSS-based solutions for several applications. Roberto Ronchini holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering both from Sapienza University of Rome. He is currently employed in Telespazio as a GNSS Research Engineer and Technical Manager, and has been working on many international research projects since 2001. His research interests in GNSS include navigation systems integrity and failure detection, ionosphere monitoring and, more in general, GNSS systems performance modelling and forecast with focus on Civil Aviation and ATM Applications. Angela Aragon-Angel has two degrees in Mathematics and Physics and obtained her Ph.D. in the Aerospace Science and Technology Aerospace Doctoral Program of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2010. She is currently a scientific/technical officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC), Italy. Her working topics range from ionospheric radio occultation to ionospheric modeling for positioning and navigation within the area of GNSS data processing.

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