Scintillation-Hardened GPS

A Communications, Navigation, and Networking reConfigurable Testbed (CoNNeCT) experiment is proposed to improve the performance of GPS during geomagnetic storms. There are two primary sources of degradation during a geomagnetic event – loss of phase coherency by the receiver and abrupt path delay changes due to total electron content (TEC). By monitoring the degradation at the ISS instead of the Earth's surface, better modeling and subsequently better mitigation of the effects will be achieved. A scintillation-hardening receiver is proposed to improve the accuracy and reliability during geomagnetic storms.

GPS is essential for many science packages. As additional monitoring of climate change occurs, many of the science and monitoring packages will be deployed in upper latitudes susceptible to geomagnetic storms. Scintillation-hardened GPS will increase the reliability and accuracy of these remote instrument packages. The scintillation hardening is also applicable to lower frequency satellite communications, which is also utilized for remote sensing packages.

Commercial GPS receivers will benefit greatly with increased resistance to geomagnetic storms. Although the population living in the upper latitudes in general will benefit from increased reliability and accuracy, the energy sector has the most urgent need for the improvement. International collaboration necessitates commercial, non-ITAR products that provide safety-of-life accuracy necessary for protecting human life and fragile environmental ecosystems. As increasing numbers of companies and countries converging upon the Arctic energy reserves, reliability and positioning accuracy become increasingly important.

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