Low-latitude ionospheric effects on SBAS

Satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) provide augmentation to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) users in three areas: (1) broadcasting accurate corrections to GNSS satellite ephemeris, (2) providing a real-time empirical ionospheric model in the service area, and (3) providing integrity information in the form of estimates of the confidence of the ephemeris corrections and ionospheric delays. Ionospheric effects on SBAS are twofold: (a) the input data used by the SBAS will be affected by ionospheric effects, and (b) the more perturbed the ionosphere is, the more difficult it will be to provide accurate and reliable ionospheric information to the users. The ionosphere at low latitudes presents larger variability and more intense phenomena than at midlatitudes. Therefore, SBAS providing service to low-latitude regions will be more affected than those at other latitudes. From the different low-latitude ionospheric effects, this paper will focus on those having the largest impact on SBAS, which are total electron content temporal and spatial gradients, ionospheric scintillations, and depletions. This paper will present the impact of these effects on EGNOS (European Global Navigation Overlay System), the European SBAS. Although EGNOS can be considered as a midlatitude SBAS, it has to provide coverage down to rather low latitudes, so sometimes low-latitude ionospheric effects are observed in the EGNOS data. It will be shown how EGNOS performs under nominal conditions and how its performance is degraded when low-latitude ionospheric phenomena occur. Real EGNOS data affected by low-latitude ionospheric phenomena will be used.