Technical Article

The ionosphere prediction service prototype for GNSS users

¹ Nottingham Geospatial Institute, University of Nottingham, Triumph Road, Nottingham NG7 2TU, United Kingdom
² Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via di Vigna Murata 605, 00143 Rome, Italy
³ University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via Cracovia 50, 00133 Rome, Italy
⁴ Telespazio, Via Tiburtina 965, 00156 Rome, Italy
⁵ SpacEarth Technology, Via di Vigna Murata 605, 00143 Rome, Italy
⁶ European Commission, DG GROW, Galileo programme, Avenue d'Auderghem 45, 1040 Bruxelles, Belgium
⁷ European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) Directorate for Space, Security and Migration, Via E. Fermi 2749, 21027 Ispra, Italy

^* Corresponding author: sreeja.veettil@nottingham.ac.uk

Received: 12 April 2019
Accepted: 11 October 2019

Abstract

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.