Nequick2 Model Behaviour for Global Ionospheric Delay Mitigation During Solar Cycle-24

Abstract The ionospheric delay is the major current source of potential range delay for single-frequency GNSS users. Different ionospheric delay mitigation methods have been developed to mitigate the ionospheric delay effects for single-frequency users. The NeQuick is a quick-run ionospheric electron density model particularly designed for trans-ionospheric propagation applications developed at the Aeronomy and Radio propagation Laboratory of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy. NeQuick2 is the latest version of the NeQuick ionosphere electron density model. NeQuick model been used by the European Space Agency (ESA) European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) project for assessment analysis and has been adopted for single-frequency positioning applications in the frame work of the European satellite navigation system (Galileo). NeQuick2 model adopted modifications related to the modeling of the F1 layer peak electron density, height and thickness parameter. Also, a new formulation of the shape parameter k has been adopted. This paper presents a global study for the behavior of the modified NeQuick2 model. The zenith ionospheric range delay correction by the model has been assessed using the highly accurate IGS-Global Ionospheric Maps (IGS-GIMs) for two different-latitude stations (Aswan, Egypt) (low-latitude) (24.1o N) and (Helsinki, Finland) (high-latitude) (60.2o N). The study was carried out during current solar cycle-24 over three different months that each of them reflects a different state of solar activity. It can be concluded that NeQuick2 model globally presents overestimation for ionospheric delay for quiet and medium ionospheric activity states respectively, while the model presents underestimation for high activity state of the ionosphere layer.