Technical Article

The effects of solar radio bursts on frequency bands utilised by the aviation industry in Sub-Saharan Africa

¹ South African National Space Agency, Hermanus, South Africa
² IRSOL Istituto Ricerche Solari “Aldo e Cele Daccò”, Università della Svizzera Italiana, via Patocchi 57, CH-6605 Locarno, Switzerland

^* Corresponding author: smckee@sansa.org.za

Received: 28 November 2021
Accepted: 26 January 2023

Abstract

Solar radio bursts have been associated with a number of disruptions in avionic systems. The objective of this work is to develop solar radio burst interference thresholds which account for the technical specifications of aviation-related instrumentation, instrument operating frequencies as well as industry stipulated error tolerances. Solar radio bursts are suggested to be potentially hazardous when exceeding these calculated thresholds. Particular attention is paid to the radio altimeter, an important component in aviation safety. The thresholds suggested in this work for VHF communication, GPS navigation receivers and radio altimeter frequencies are; 10², 10³, and 10⁴ sfu respectively. Solar radio burst interference (for solar radio bursts above 10⁴ sfu) is shown to result in large errors (64–251 m) in the altitude estimates for the Frequency Modulated Continuous Waves (FMCW) radio altimeter simulated in this work.