Capacities of TEC measurements by the low-cost GNSS receiver based on the u-blox ZED-F9P for ionospheric research

A prototype of a low-cost GNSS receiver assembled on base of the u-blox ZED-F9P module is described in the paper. The original low-cost GNSS receiver (OGNSS-R) allows made the parallel registration of 184 channels in the entire frequency range (1176 ÷ 1610 MHz) of the main GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou) and recording raw data of carrier-phase, pseudorange (code) and signal strength measurements. The obtained data processing allows to calculate the slant total electron content (TEC), TEC variations and other most popular TEC-based indices of ionospheric activity. The comparative studies of these parameters and similar parameters obtained by simultaneous measurements on the professional geodetic GNSS receiver Trimble Alloy (KZN2 station of the IGS network) were preformed. The analysis showed the median value of the signal strength at the L1 frequency for the KZN2 station are 8% higher than that at the low-cost GNSS receiver based on the u-blox ZED-F9P module (KZN2–48.75 dBHz; OGNSS-R – 45dBHz). For the L2 frequency that difference is less than 2% (KZN2–49.4 dBHz; OGNSS-R – 48.5 dBHz). The median levels of relative slant TEC and TEC-based indexes of the ionospheric activity obtained by the Trimble Alloy receiver at KZN2 station are 25÷50% lower than for the u-blox ZED-F9P receiver. Thus, the using of starter kits such as the simpleRTK2b debug board based on the u-blox ZED-F9P module described in the paper, is really actual for creating a permanent network of GNSS-stations and/or for carrying out field measurements in experimental campaigns.