Tec Calibration to Detect Equatorial Plasma Bubbles With Single Frequency GNSS Data

Abstract

This study investigates the feasibility of employing a straightforward method for real-time Total Electron Content (TEC) determination based on single frequency GNSS data. TEC values derived from GNSS single frequency data was compared to dual frequency TEC estimative, revealing close agreement, with discrepancies of around ±2.5 TECU. The expected noisier nature of single frequency data is attributed to overall noise and multipath effects. However, despite the inherent code noise from the single frequency GNSS combination, the proposed method was efficient for mapping ionospheric plasma bubbles. The proposed calibration method emerges as an efficient tool for real-time mapping of ionospheric plasma bubbles, offering advantages over global-scale ionospheric models.