Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) estimated in Near Real-time (NRT) every 15 minutes from EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) GPS data.
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The Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) (see tutorial) of the ionosphere is estimated in Near Real-Time (NRT) every 15 minutes from the GPS data of the EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) .

The ionosphere above Europe is monitored at the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) in terms of VTEC in NRT every 15 minutes. The monitoring is made using NRT GPS observations of the EPN. Products such as orbits and satellite Differential Code Biases (DCB) are taken from the International GNSS Service (IGS) and from the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE). The receiver DCBs are estimated at the ROB using Rapid Ionex of the IGS as a priori information.

To produce the VTEC maps, the Slant Total Electron Content (STEC) of each satellite-receiver pair are estimated and projected in VTEC at the Ionospheric Piercing Points (IPP) using an ionospheric single thin layer shell approximation located at 450 km (see tutorial). The VTECs at the IPPs are then interpolated in a grid of 0.5°x05° using a spline interpolation. These VTEC maps allow any users located in Belgium to have an estimation in NRT every 15 minutes of the ionospheric delay induced along the signal of the observed satellite.