Real-time monitoring and prediction of ionospheric electron content by means of GPS

GPS can be used for high-precision, real-time monitoring of variations in the ionospheric total electron content (TEC), which is important for the ionospheric delay correction to single-frequency GPS receivers, the monitoring of ionospheric activities, and the study of the regularities of solar activity. The establishment of the Shanghai Comprehensive GPS Application Network provides real-time monitoring of the ionospheric variations in the Yangtze River delta region with valuable data. By using continuous observational data from dual-frequency GPS receivers, nearly real-time monitoring and prediction of the ionospheric total electron content of this region is achieved with internal and external agreements and accuracy of 30-minute extrapolation better than 0.4m.