Toulouse
France 43.6°N / 1.5°E / 214 m
S4 index (GPS CA)
σΦ index (GPS L1)
Trans-ionospheric radio signals of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) like GPS, GLONASS, and GALILEO may suffer from rapid and intensive fluctuations of their amplitude and phase caused by small-scale irregularities of the ionospheric plasma. This phenomenon, which is called radio scintillation, can strongly disturb or disrupt the signal transmission. For technical applications it is useful to derive and to provide the well accepted S4 and σΦ indices describing the amplitude/ intensity and the phase fluctuation of a received signal, respectively. For that purpose the DLR operates several GNSS high-rate receivers in Europe providing the necessary receiver-satellite-link specific amplitude and phase information, cf. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2014020dx.doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2014020.
Location and coordinates of Toulouse GNSS high-rate receiver operated within DLR’s Experimentation and Verification Network (EVnet)
| Station location | Abbreviation in filename | Evnet ID | Latitude / Longitude / Height |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toulouse/France | to | msto01 | 43.6°N / 1.5°E / 214 m |
Product Specification
| Specification | Description |
|---|---|
| External parties | The GNSS receiver stations are hosted by Swedish Institute of Space Physics, SUPAERO Laboratory of Electronics and Physics, the Universidad de La Laguna, and the German Aerospace Center. |
| Data providers | GNSS stations are part of DLR’s experimentation and verification network (EVnet) |
| Input data | 50 Hz GPS phase and amplitude measurements |
| Input sampling rates | 50 Hz |
| Reliability of data source | Cycle slip detection is conducted as preprocessing step for σΦ |
| Region of sensors | Europe |
| Spatial resolution | Computation of scintillation indices at the location of the GNSS stations |
| Temporal resolution | 1 min |
| Time information | UTC Time |
| Reference coordinate system | ECEF coordinate system with WGS84 reference ellipsoid |
| Algorithms | The S4 index is the coefficient of variation of the squared amplitude. The σΦindex describes the standard deviation of the phase measurements. |
| File format | ASCII |
| ASCII file format | 1 > "GPS Week," 2 > "GPS TOW - End of epoch," 3 > "GPS PRN" 4 > S4 based on L1/CA 5 > σΦ in radian |