Improving capabilities of broadband differential satellite navigation systems via radio occultation technology

The existent satellite system for radio occultation monitoring the Earth’s neutral atmosphere and ionosphere (COSMIC) provides data to consumers in the regions with limited possibilities of constructing dense measurement networks (e.g., in the World Ocean area). A forthcoming increase of LEO small spacecrafts and the deployment of new satellite radio navigation systems will result in a pronounced increase in the efficiency of radio occultation method and its space resolution. As a result, the Space-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) broadband differential system will become global, or the quality of corrections delivered to single-frequency consumers of individual systems, e.g., the Augmentation and Monitoring System, will be improved. Therefore, the methods for processing and analyzing obtained radio occultation data should be improved. A simple method to reconstruct the electron density profile at radio occultation points, based on the total electron content measurement on the satellite–satellite path and the IRI-type ionospheric model has been proposed. The method needs initial information, it does not require refraction measurements, and it is free of the assumption that the ionosphere is spherically stratified in the occultation region. Verification of the proposed method based on data for 121 radio occultation cases across Europe in May 2013 demonstrated good agreement with the vertical sounding data.