Optimization of ionospheric parameters by means of genetic algorithms

D. D. CARPINTERO; J. JAEN; É. GULARTE

Taoyuan City

Congreso; International Reference Ionosphere 2017 Workshop; 2017

COSPAR

We have developed a new approach towards a new database of the ionospheric parameters foF2 and M(3000)F2. The current databases, used by the IRI model, and based on Fourier expansions, has been built in the 60s from the available ionosondes at that time. The main goal of this work is not only to upgrade the database from new available ionosonde data, but also to reach a better fit to the observed parameters values. To this end we used IRI diurnal/spherical expansions to represent the foF2 variability and computed its coefficients by means of a genetic algorithm (GA). One of the main advantages of this technique is its ability in working with many variables and with unfavorable samples. In order to test the performance we applied the proposed methodology in the South American region with data taken during the years 1958 to 2009. The new GA coefficients provide a global better fit to the observed foF2 than the IRI coefficients. Since the same formulae and the same number of coefficients were used, the overall integrity of IRI´s typical ionospheric feature representation was preserved. We also performed the computation of a third set of coefficients corresponding to days of medium solar activity in order to avoid the interpolation between low and high activities.The same procedure as for foF2 is perfomed to obtain the ionospheric parameter M(3000)F2.