On the Use and Performance of New Galileo Signals for Ionospheric Scintillation Monitoring over Antarctica

Irregularities in the ionosphere cause Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals to experience fluctuations in amplitude and phase called scintillations. Given the global and permanent availability of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, they have become one of the preferred methods to monitor ionosphere activity. With the coming completion of new GNSS systems like the European Galileo, which is to be interoperable and compatible with GPS, a greater number of signals will be available for monitoring purposes. In this paper we present initial results on the use of new signals, namely GPS L5 and Galileo E1b and E5a, for scintillation monitoring at a base station in Antarctica. Our results show that Galileo signals can be exploited and easily integrated with GPS measurements. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the flexibility and configurability of software receivers, new Galileo signals provide a substantial update of the monitoring capability of already deployed GPS hardware.