See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272391049

Design of an Ultrawideband Ionosonde

Article in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters · May 2015

DOI: 10.1109/LGRS.2014.2376035

CITATIONS READS

5 69

5 authors, including:

Guobin Yang Xiao Cui

Wuhan University Wuhan University
44 PUBLICATIONS 196 CITATIONS 14 PUBLICATIONS 33 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Peng Zhu Chunhua Jiang

Wuhan University Wuhan University
15 PUBLICATIONS 52 CITATIONS 23 PUBLICATIONS 63 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

VHF coherent phased array radar View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Xiao Cui on 19 May 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

1042 IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO. 5, MAY 2015

Design of an Ultrawideband Ionosonde

Hengqing Sun, Guobin Yang, Xiao Cui, Peng Zhu, and ChunHua Jiang

Abstract—In this letter, an ultrawideband ionospheric sounding

system was designed for ionospheric research and communica-
tion channel management. The frequency band of this ionosonde
ranges from high frequency to very high frequency. It can be flexi-
bly used at both monostatic and bistatic stations as a GPS receiver
module was integrated. The system design includes three major
components: control system, transmitting system, and receiver
system. The operational parameters, such as frequency, waveform,
and modulation type, can be manually reset. Correlation and
Fourier algorithms are used to obtain a high signal-to-noise ratio
and enlarge the detection range. The typical experimental results
demonstrate that the proposed system can be used to study the
ionosphere effectively.
Index Terms—Digital down conversion (DDC), direct digital
synthesizer (DDS), ionogram, ionosonde, receiver, transmitter,
ultrawideband.
Fig. 1. System block diagram of WSI.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Ionosonde (WSI). The advantages of WSI compared with the
P ROPAGATION of radio waves from extremely low fre-
quency to very high frequency (VHF) is closely affected
by ionospheric conditions [1], and the high-frequency (HF)
old systems are as follows: 1) the operational frequency band
is expanded to VHF; 2) the device is portable, which is module
bands radio (3 to 30 MHz) is widely used for long-distance designed and universal serial bus (USB) based; 3) the system is
communication and broadcasting. The ground-based HF iono- multifunctional as it can be used for ionospheric sounding and
spheric sounding system is widely used for ionospheric routine electromagnetic spectrum monitoring; 4) the radial resolution
monitoring. Nowadays, kinds of modern ionosondes have been is alterable because both the width of the transmitted RF pulse
developed around the world, such as the Digisonde Portable and the sampling rate of the received data can be set by the
Sounder 4 (DPS-4) [2] and the Canadian Advanced Digital user; and 5) the WSI can be used to detect moving targets with
Ionosonde [3]. the utilization of the linear frequency-modulated continuous
Generally, the ground-based ionosonde can implement waveform (LFMCW).
three typical sounding functions: vertical incidence sounding, The structure and design of the WSI are described in detail
oblique incidence sounding, and oblique backscatter incidence in Section II. The theory of signal processing is introduced in
sounding [4]. Over the past decades, much work is dedicated Section III. Two typical ionospheric sounding experiments and
to the ionosphere research at the Ionosphere Laboratory of corresponding results are discussed in Section IV. Section V is
Wuhan University and some ionosondes have been developed dedicated to the conclusion.
[5]–[7]. Traditionally, ionosonde operates at HF band. How-
ever, VHF scattering signals is able to detect natural and arti-
II. I MPLEMENTATION OF THE S YSTEM
ficial ionospheric irregularities [8]. Therefore, it is worthwhile
to expand the operational frequency band of ionosonde to The system block diagram is shown in Fig. 1, which con-
VHF. Thus, it is urgent to develop a new ultrawideband (HF sists of three parts: control channel, transmitting channel, and
and VHF, 2 to 70 MHz) ionospheric sounding system for the receiver channel. The RF signal is generated and emitted from
corresponding study. This new system is called Wuhan Super the transmitting channel. The echo signal is received and trans-
formed in the receiver channel. The transmitting channel and
the receiver channel are both controlled by the control channel.

Manuscript received September 17, 2014; revised November 19, 2014;

accepted November 19, 2014. This work was supported by the National Natural A. Control Channel
Science Foundation of China under Grant 41304127.
The authors are with the School of Electronics and Information, Wuhan As illustrated in Fig. 1, the major design parts of this control
University, Wuhan 430072, China (e-mail: gbyang@whu.edu.cn; shq@whu. system are the USB interface circuit and the time–frequency
edu.cn). synchronization circuit. In multibase ionospheric sounding, the
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. time–frequency synchronization circuit is employed to ensure
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LGRS.2014.2376035 the correctness of echo delay and scattering function.
1545-598X © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
SUN et al.: DESIGN OF AN ULTRAWIDEBAND IONOSONDE
Fig. 2. Timing of three kinds of waveforms. (a) Interpulse coded waveform.
(b) Intrapulse coded waveform. (c) LFMCW waveform.
The USB interface circuit completes the standard USB pro-
tocol and high-speed data link. The GPS receiver provides
standard time information and a very good long-term stability
one-pulse-per-second (PPS) signal. An oven-controlled crys-
tal oscillator (OCXO) provides a stable and low-phase-noise
reference clock signal of 10.000 MHz. The analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) is used to correct the frequency precision by
fine tuning the OCXO. The calibration process about the fre-
quency of the reference clock is a closed-loop process: counts
rise pulse of the reference clock in several PPSs; calculates the
errors between the ideal number and the count number; and then
adjusts the control voltage to tune the OCXO. The frequency
error is calculated per second at first and then per 5 s, 25 s, and
more. After that, the accuracy of the frequency can be improved
from 1, 0.2, to 0.04 Hz, respectively. Generally, the accuracy of
the frequency can satisfy the ionospheric sounding when it is
better than 0.2 Hz.
B. Transmitting Channel
The transmitting system generates the designed waveforms.
The generator is based on a low-power direct digital synthesizer
(DDS) chip. The DDS chip integrated a flexible DDS core
can perform frequency, phase, or amplitude modulation in the
digital domain. Thus, the common modulations of FSK, PSK,
ASK, and LFMCW can be easily implemented. The signal
is processed by a 10-dB preamplifier and a 2- to 70-MHz
bandpass filter (BPF), then amplified to 60 dB to be emitted
by the antenna for sounding.
The biphase coded pulse-train waveforms [9] and LFMCW
[10] are employed in WSI. Fig. 2 shows three waveforms’
timing. clk is the baseband sample clock and its period is Tclk .
U (t) represents the phase modulation code and L is length of
the sequence. un (0 or 1) represents the value of the sequence.
The width Tpls and the spacing Tcd of un can be set to several
Tclk manually. A(t) represents the amplitude (0 or A0 ) of the
1043
Fig. 3. Structure diagram of the receiver channel. (a) Analog RF front-end.
(b) DDC.
waveform. P (t) dedicates the phase (0◦ or 180◦ ) except that
it represents the synchronization clock of LFMCW, as shown
in Fig. 2(c). W (t) describes the analog transmitting waveform
simply, amplitude and phase modulated in Fig. 2(a) and (b) and
frequency modulated in Fig. 2(c). T0 is cycle time of detection
and it is the minimum time of complete probe. fBD represents
the sweep frequency band. Usually, the waveform, as shown in
Fig. 2(a), is used at the stations of oblique incidence sounding
and oblique backscatter incidence sounding. The modulated
code of a 16-bit complementary code is used at the vertical
incidence sounding, and shown as Fig. 2(b). The data process
gain of the pulse autocorrelation will be decreased with the
increasing Doppler shift. Conversely, the echo Doppler shift
does not affect the process gain of the Fourier transform. Thus,
the waveform of LFMCW, as shown in Fig. 2(c), is fitter than
other waveforms for commonly detecting the moving targets,
such as aircraft or missile.
C. Receiver Channel
Receiver channel, as shown in Fig. 3, includes two parts,
i.e., the RF analog front-end and the digital down conversion
(DDC) [11].
The analog front-end, as shown in Fig. 3(a), is designed with
superheterodyne architecture. The RF switch is useful for iso-
lating and attenuating the high power transmitting signal. The
suboctave filter group includes eight BPFs. The preamplifier
is low-noise amplifier for achieving low-system noise figure
(NF). The intermediate frequency (IF) is obtained from the
echo signal (2 to 70 MHz) mixed with the local signal (73.4 to
141.4 MHz) and then filtered by an IF filter. The type of the IF
filter is a crystal filter that has a good attenuation of image fre-
quency and noise. The frequency center of the IF is 71.4 MHz,
and the passband is −80 to 80 kHz.
The DDC structure is shown in Fig. 3(b). A 16-bit ADC chip
and a sample clock of 10.00 MHz are used. In WSI, the DDC is
implemented in field-programmable gate array (FPGA), which
is low cost and convenient to be reset. The DDC module
1044
Fig. 4. Filter response of DDC.
consists of a numerically controlled oscillator, mixer, cascade
integrator comb (CIC) filter, and finite impulse response (FIR)
filter. If the total decimation of DDC was 128, the sample of in
phase (I) and quadrature (Q) baseband data will be 78.125 kHz.
Compared with the old system [7], the decimation value of CIC
could be set to any integer from 8 to 64 by the user.
III. S IGNAL P ROCESSING P ROCEDURE
The signal processing procedure in WSI consists of the ana-
log and digital signal process. For the analog signal, the major
part is the modulation process in the transmitting channel and
the signal conditioning in the RF front-end. The digital signal
process includes DDC in the device and pulse compression or
matched filtering process in the computer.
A. Analog Signal Processing
In the transmitting system, the two-level PSK modulation
and the amplitude ramp-up and ramp-down function of the DDS
chip are applied to generate the transmitting signal, as shown in
Fig. 2(a) and (b).
In the RF front-end, the relationship between the receiver
sensitivity, frequency bandwidth, and the NF is represented in
Smin = kT0 Br F0 . (1)
Smin (W) represents the receiver sensitivity. k = 1.38 ×
10−23 J/K is the Boltzmann constant. T0 = 290 K is the stan-
dard noise temperature. Br (Hz) represents the noise bandwidth
of the receiver. F0 is the NF.
If the units of the receiver sensitivity, the noise bandwidth,
and NF are set to be dBm, MHz, and dB, (1) can be changed to
Smin[dBm] = −114 + 10 log10 Br[MHz] + F0[dB] . (2)
In WSI, Br = 0.08 MHz, F0 = 10 dB, and Smin = −115 dBm.
The input power range of ADC is −75 to 15 dBm at 70 MHz.
In order to achieve maximum linear dynamic range, the total
analog gain must be around 40 dB.
B. Digital Signal Processing
Quadrature demodulation is implemented in the FPGA, as
shown in Fig. 3(b). The simulation result of the magnitude-
frequency response of the DDC is shown in Fig. 4.
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO. 5, MAY 2015
Due to the use of the periodic m-sequence or complementary
code, which has an ideal impulse autocorrelation function to
modulate the transmitting waveform, the target distance or
ionospheric channel impulse response will be obtained after
having been pulse compressed or match filtered. For example,
a ninth-order m-sequence is used and its length L is 511, the
pulse compression data process gain (Gpc , dB) is represented
by (3). However, L is replaced with the number of sample
per sweep cycle to calculate the data process gain in LFMCW
condition
Gpc = 10 log10 L = 10 log10 511 = 27 dB. (3)
With repetition detection, the target speed or the ionospheric
channel scattering function can be obtained by using the Fourier
transformation at the same distance [5], [12]. The Fourier
transform process gain (GFFT , dB) in (4) is similar as before,
and it is determined by the total number of repeat cycles (Nrc )
GFFT = 10 log10 Nrc . (4)
The length of one cycle time of sounding (T0 , s), as shown in
Fig. 2, determines the maximum Doppler frequency (Fd , Hz)
1
Fd = . (5)
2T0
In addition, the Doppler resolution (Fmin , Hz) is calculated in
Fd
Fmin = . (6)
Nrc
IV. T YPICAL E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
Here, two initial results achieved by WSI are demonstrated,
which are vertical incidence sounding and oblique incidence
sounding.
A. Vertical Incidence Sounding
The WSI works at HF-band to accomplish vertical incidence
ionospheric sounding. Biphase intrapulse coded waveform by a
16-bit complementary code was used, as shown in Fig. 2(b). At
this sounding condition, Tpls = 2Tclk = 25.6 μs, Tcd = 16Tpls ,
T0 = 320Tpls , and the frequency was from 2 to 20 MHz with
a step of 50 kHz. A routine observation is carried out at
Leshan City (29.6 N, 103.75 E), Sichuan Province. Fig. 5(a)
shows an ionogram obtained at 09:30 Beijing Time (BJT).
Several parameters can be obtained from the ionogram, for
example, the virtual height of E, F1, and F2 layers (h E ≈
105 km, h F1 ≈ 240 km, h F2 ≈ 310 km); the critical fre-
quency about the ordinary echo wave (fo E ≈ 3 MHz, fo F1 ≈
4.4 MHz, fo F2 ≈ 7.55 MHz); and the critical frequency about
the extraordinary echo wave (fx E ≈ 3.7 MHz, fx F1 ≈ 5 MHz,
fx F2 ≈ 8.2 MHz). The variations of h F2 and fo F2 in a week
(from April 14 to 20, 2014) are shown in Fig. 5(b), and these
ionospheric parameters vary daily, according to sunrise and
sunset. Sometimes, the environmental electromagnetic interfer-
ence was severe or the ionosphere itself was unusual. Then, we
cannot get h F2 and fo F2 from ionograms. Fig. 5(b) shows the
case, where the data are discontinuous at some time.
SUN et al.: DESIGN OF AN ULTRAWIDEBAND IONOSONDE
Fig. 5. Results of vertical incidence sounding experiment. (a) Ionogram of
vertical incidence sounding (29.6 N, 103.75 E. 9:30 BJT, April 16, 2014).
(b) Variation of h F2 and fo F2 in a week.
Fig. 6. Results of oblique incidence sounding experiment.
B. Oblique Incidence Sounding
The oblique incidence sounding needs more than two
systems working at different locations. Fig. 6 illustrates a
bistatic experiment result obtained at 07:35 BJT, 6, April 2013
in Hainan province. The transmitter station was located at
Dongfang City (18.85 N, 108.65 E), and the receiver station
at Sanya City (18.28 N, 109.45 E). The waveform, as shown in
Fig. 2(a), coded by ninth-order m-sequence, was implemented
in this experiment, Tpls = 4Tclk , Tcd = Tpls , T0 = 511Tpls ,
Nrc = 512, and the frequency is from 29 to 47 MHz with a
step of 500 kHz. Fig. 6 shows the Doppler shift calculated by
View publication stats
1045
the WSI. The echo at around 105 km was the direct wave, and
the echo at 500 km was from the ionospheric heterogeneous
body. The echo at 100 to 150 km was an airplane as the
Phoenix International Airport (18.3 N 109.42 E) located on
the line between the transmitter station and receiver station. The
variations of distance and Doppler frequency (30 Hz to −30 Hz)
indicate the movement of an airplane.
V. C ONCLUSION
The design and implementation of the HF and VHF band
radar for ionospheric research is described in this letter. The
vertical incidence sounding, oblique backscatter sounding, and
oblique sounding can be achieved with different waveforms.
Furthermore, the integrated GPS receiver made the WSI work
in monostatic and bistatic modes. Three types of sounding
waveforms is available in the DDS-based transmitting system.
Except for the aforementioned sounding waveform, a simple
tone and a general modulated signal can be easily generated.
The receiver channel with an analog front-end and DDC has the
advantage of simple stable structure, low noise, and wide dy-
namic range. The daily and typical sounding results show that
the WSI satisfies the ionosphere research and target detection.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the editor for their comments
and suggestions, which were very helpful for improving the
manuscript.
R EFERENCES
[1] K. C. Yeh and C. H. Liu, “Radio wave scintillations in the ionosphere,”
Proc. IEEE, vol. 70, no. 4, pp. 324–360, Apr. 1982.
[2] B. W. Reinisch et al., “Advancing digisonde technology: The DPS-4D,”
in AIP Conf. Proc., 2008, vol. 974, no. 1, pp. 127–143.
[3] F. Becker-Guedes et al., “The ionospheric response in the Brazilian sector
during the super geomagnetic storm on 20 November 2003,” in Ann.
Geophys, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 863–873, 2007.
[4] N. Xiong, C. Tang, and X. Li, Eds., Introduction to Ionospheric Physics.
Hubei, China: Wuhan Univ. Press, 1999, pp. 364–396.
[5] G. Chen, Z. Zhao, G. Zhu, and S. Shi, “The Wuhan ionospheric sounding
systems,” IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 748–751,
Oct. 2009.
[6] S. Shi, Z. Zhao, F. Su, and G. Chen, “A low-power and small-size HF
backscatter radar for ionospheric sensing,” IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens.
Lett., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–508, Jul. 2009.
[7] H. Sun et al., “The hardware design of a new ionospheric sound-
ing system,” IEICE Electron. Exp., vol. 11, no. 9, 2014, DOI:
10.1587/elex.1120140249.
[8] P. Fialer, “Field-aligned scattering from a heated region of the
ionosphere—Observations at HF and VHF,” Radio Sci., vol. 9, no. 11,
pp. 923–940, Nov. 1974.
[9] M. Yao et al., “A novel radar waveform for monostatic ionosonde,” IEEE
Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 39–43, Jan. 2011.
[10] F. G. Geroleo and M. B. Pearce, “Detection and estimation of LFMCW
radar signals,” IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. 48, no. 1,
pp. 405–418, Jan. 2012.
[11] Z. Ma, B. Wen, H. Zhou, and L. Bai, “CIC filter theory in DDC and
implementation by using FPGA,” Wuhan Univ. J. Natural Sci., vol. 9,
no. 6, pp. 899–903, 2004.
[12] Y. Ming, C. Gang, Z. Zhengyu, W. Yuhao, and B. Bo, “A novel
low-power multifunctional ionospheric sounding system,” IEEE Trans.
Instrum. Meas., vol. 61, no. 5, pp. 1252–1259, May 2012.