Modeling of ionospheric scintillation

Abstract

A signal, such as from a GNSS satellite or microwave sounding system, propagating in the randomly inhomogeneous ionosphere, experiences chaotic modulations of its amplitude and phase. This effect is known as scintillation. This article reviews basic theoretical concepts and simulation strategies for modeling the scintillation phenomenon. We focused our attention primarily on the methods connected with the random phase screen model. For a weak scattering regime on random ionospheric irregularities, a single phase screen model enables us to obtain the analytic expression for phase and intensity scintillation indices, as well as the statistical quantities characterizing the strength of scintillation-related fades and distortions. In the case of multiple scattering, the simulation with multiple phase screens becomes a handy tool for obtaining these indices. For both scattering regimes, the statistical properties of the ionospheric random medium play an important role in scintillation modeling and are discussed with an emphasis on related geometric aspects. As an illustration, the phase screen simulation approaches used in the global climatological scintillation model GISM is briefly discussed.

Can Numerical Simulations of Equatorial Plasma Bubble Plume Structures be Simplified for Operational and Practical Usage?

“…Conventionally, simulations of scintillation due to ionospheric density irregularities are performed by using the phase-screen model, which replaces a slab ionosphere of finite thickness L with a single thin diffracting phase screen (see, e.g., Rino, 1979a;Cervera & Thomas, 2006;Vasylyev et al, 2022). ) defined as follows:…”

Anisotropic scintillation indices for weak scattering regime

“…The latter can be obtained experimentally by means of correlation analysis of electron density fluctuations and exhibits the power-law dependence on the spatial frequency κ. Such dependence can be modeled by the von Karman function (von Karman, 1948;Vasylyev et al, 2022)…”

“…In Ref. (Vasylyev et al, 2022) we considered the geometric aspects of the scintillation modeling in more consecutive manner and listed the expressions for the scintillation indices in the weak scattering regime assuming the sphericity of the ionospheric shell. The present article provides more details on this treatment of the radio wave propagation in a weakly scattering random medium with the inclusion of spherical geometry of the ionospheric layer and of the Earth surface.…”

Ionospheric Scintillation Models: An Inter-Comparison Study Using GNSS Data

“…• GISM [23][24][25] consists of the NeQuick [26] ionosphere model plus the multiple phase screen (MPS) propagation models to calculate the effects that density irregularities produce in the propagation of electromagnetic waves. It can produce complex time series, and it has been used for most studies assessing ionospheric impact on EGNOS and GALILEO missions [27][28][29][30].…”