Proposal for an ELF Radar of D-Region Ionospheric Anomalies Analyzed using a 3-D Geodesic FDTD Model of the Earth-Ionosphere Waveguide

This paper proposes a novel extremely low frequency (ELF: 3 - 300 Hz) radar for locating and characterizing ionospheric anomalies within ~100 km of the Earth's surface. Employing a well-characterized controlled ELF source (as opposed to natural sources having a random occurrence and random properties), the proposed radar could provide continuous, inexpensive monitoring capabilities of the ionosphere within ~100 km of the Earth's surface. For this study the recently developed three-dimensional (3D) geodesic whole-Earth electromagnetic wave propagation model based upon the finite difference time domain (FDTD) solution of Maxwell's equations is used