Radio telescope array for passive ionospheric remote sensing
AssigneeThe Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
InventorJoseph Helmboldt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A radio telescope array is provided for tracking radio sources that are essentially infinitely stable and resilient transmitters. The radio telescope array may be implemented with just a few antennas in different applications, such as an ionospheric density gradiometer or an imaging scintillometer. Data received at the radio telescope array may be utilized for various purposes, for example, to analyze ionospheric variations, study bursts of radio emission or monitor cosmic objects.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- a digital backend comprising:
- a bias-t unit;
- a first software-defined radio and a second software-defined radio, each being communicatively connected to the bias-t unit and a reference clock;
- a processing unit configured to be coupled to the first software-defined radio and the second software-defined radio;
- and
- a first antenna and a second antenna, each being communicatively coupled with the digital backend and configured to receive visibility data by tracking a plurality of radio sources.
A method for analyzing ionospheric data, comprising:
- processing visibility data of a plurality of radio sources received at a low-band, sparse radio telescope array to generate time-averaged data;
- performing fringe stopping to generate fringe-stopped data based on the time-averaged data;
- performing confusion mitigation of the fringe-stopped data to generate confusion-corrected data;
- generating postage stamp images based on the confusion-corrected data;
- determining source properties for the sources using the postage stamp images;
- and
- outputting ionosphere analysis data based on the source properties.
A method for baseline imaging, comprising:
- obtaining time-averaged data that is derived from visibility data of a plurality of radio sources received at a low-band, sparse radio telescope array;
- performing data selection based on the time-averaged data;
- performing non-fringing interference mitigation on unflagged time-averaged data to generate mitigated data;
- generating a sky intensity image based on a sky position of each source and the mitigated data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.