On April 20, 2020, Researchers from Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), Navi Mumbai, an autonomous Institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India (GOI), have developed a global model to predict the ionospheric electron density with larger data coverage- a crucial need for communication and navigation. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) replicate the processes in the human brain (or biological neurons) to solve problems such as classification, clustering, pattern recognition, linear & nonlinear data fitting and time series prediction.

Key Points:

• Dr. V. Sai Gowtam, with his research supervisor, Dr. S. Tulasiram from IIG, has developed a new Artificial Neural Networks based global Ionospheric Model (ANNIM) using long-term ionospheric observations to predict the ionospheric electron density and the peak parameters.
• The researchers developed a neural network-based global ionospheric model by using database consisting of nearly two decades of global Digisonde (an instrument that measures real-time on-site electron density of the ionosphere by sending the radio frequency pulses), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation and topside sounders observations.
• Day number, Universal Time, latitude, longitude, F10.7 index (responsible for Photo-ionization), Kp (represents the disturbed space weather conditions), magnetic declination, inclination, dip latitude, zonal and meridional neutral winds were taken as inputs in the study.
• The target (output) of ANNs is the electron density as a function of altitude for any given location and time. The data was trained with the ANNs using high-performance computers at IIG to develop the ANNIM.