New Digisonde for research and monitoring applications

TLDR

The Digisonde‑4D retains the core Digisonde design while incorporating fully digital transmitters/receivers and modern RF circuitry and embedded computing, eliminating analog baseband‑RF conversion. The study presents the technical advances of the Digisonde‑4D for research and monitoring applications. Its new hardware and software enable highly flexible, selective measurements, provide full time‑domain samples from all four antennas, shorten ionogram acquisition to seconds via RF‑interference mitigation, and run the ARTIST‑5 autoscaling model to supply real‑time data for ionospheric assimilation. The h′(f) precision‑ranging technique achieves better than 1 km accuracy and can be applied routinely.

Abstract

The new Digisonde‐4D, while preserving the basic principles of the Digisonde family, introduces important hardware and software changes that implement the latest capabilities of new digital radio frequency (RF) circuitry and embedded computers. The “D” refers to digital transmitters and receivers in which no analog circuitry is used for conversion between the baseband and the RF. In conjunction with the new hardware design, new software solutions offer significantly enhanced measurement flexibility, enhanced signal selectivity, and new types of data, e.g., the complete set of time domain samples of all four antenna signals suitable for independent scientific analysis. With the new method of mitigating in‐band RF interference, the ionogram running time can be made as short as a couple of seconds. The h′(f) precision ranging technique with an accuracy of better than 1 km can be used on a routine basis. The 4D model runs the new ARTIST‐5 ionogram autoscaling software which reports in real time the required data for assimilation in ionospheric models. The paper highlights technical advances of the new Digisonde for research and monitoring applications.