Solar flares can cause GPS malfunction, say researchers
From: ElectronicsWeekly.com
By: Steve Bush
Strong solar flares cause GPS receivers to malfunction, researchers at Cornell University in New York have discovered.
“If you’re driving to the beach using your car’s navigation system, you’ll be OK,” said Professor Paul Kintner. “If you’re on a commercial airplane in zero visibility weather, maybe not.”
Student Alessandro Cerruti accidentally discovered the effect while operating a GPS receiver at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico where Cornell has a scintillation monitor.
The monitor, assigned to another task, detected the flare which consisted of two events about 40 minutes apart. The first lasted 70s and caused a 40 per cent GPS signal drop; the second lasted 15 minutes and caused a 50 per cent drop.
Results were corroborated through GPS data from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Brazilian Air Force. All the receivers had the same degradation at the same time, regardless of manufacturer.
As the RF bursts which accompany flares are the cause of the problem, there is no technical solution short of boosting satellite output power.
“I think the best remedy is to be aware of the problem and operate GPS systems with the knowledge that they may fail during a solar flare,” Kintner said.
Cornell describes the Arecibo flare as ‘moderate’. “In 2011 and 2012, during the next solar maximum, flares are expected to be 10 times as intense and last much longer, causing signal drops of over 90 per cent for several hours,” said the University.
By: Steve Bush
Strong solar flares cause GPS receivers to malfunction, researchers at Cornell University in New York have discovered.
“If you’re driving to the beach using your car’s navigation system, you’ll be OK,” said Professor Paul Kintner. “If you’re on a commercial airplane in zero visibility weather, maybe not.”
Student Alessandro Cerruti accidentally discovered the effect while operating a GPS receiver at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico where Cornell has a scintillation monitor.
The monitor, assigned to another task, detected the flare which consisted of two events about 40 minutes apart. The first lasted 70s and caused a 40 per cent GPS signal drop; the second lasted 15 minutes and caused a 50 per cent drop.
Results were corroborated through GPS data from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Brazilian Air Force. All the receivers had the same degradation at the same time, regardless of manufacturer.
As the RF bursts which accompany flares are the cause of the problem, there is no technical solution short of boosting satellite output power.
“I think the best remedy is to be aware of the problem and operate GPS systems with the knowledge that they may fail during a solar flare,” Kintner said.
Cornell describes the Arecibo flare as ‘moderate’. “In 2011 and 2012, during the next solar maximum, flares are expected to be 10 times as intense and last much longer, causing signal drops of over 90 per cent for several hours,” said the University.
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