Sparse reconstruction algorithm for the computerized ionospheric tomography

A tomographic method is presented for obtaining ionospheric image with highly sparse measurements. The proposed method is based on the sparsity constraint which is applicable to general ionospheric conditions. The ionosphere electron density profile can be reconstructed with high resolution even when the TEC measurements are severely insufficient and the signal-noise ratio is rather low, while the traditional ionospheric tomography algorithms failed. Compared with the traditional ionospheric tomography method the sparsity-constraint method can provide an image with high resolution in both horizontal and vertical directions with less observation data. The algorithm is tested using simulations of ionospheric structures with actual GPS observation geometry. These simulations demonstrate the effectiveness in detecting and reconstructing ionospheric height and density fluctuations.