Matt Downs’s scientific contributions

The ionosphere's electron density is a critical factor in long-distance communication and sky-wave propagation, directly affecting signal transmission quality. Accurate prediction of the ionosphere’s state is crucial for understanding signal perturbations and estimating key parameters for improved transmission. Space weather impacts on trans-ionospheric technological systems are well-documented. This study presents a web application that visualizes global day-to-day electron density variations using the NeQuickG model. Additionally, it analyzes hop data from ground-based HAM radio networks at various wavelengths (e.g., 10 m and 20 m) alongside electron density measurements obtained from space-based probes on the International Space Station (ISS). The electron density variations for 2017 are comprehensively represented. Optimization techniques are proposed to generate a denser, spatially-resolved ionospheric electron density map by employing a probabilistic approach to estimate the optimal weight function, minimizing error variance in areas with sparse data. This work emphasizes developing user-friendly metrics for amateur radio operators and the civil aviation sector. The web-based application has potential as an enhanced visualization tool for space weather forecasting. **The project, titled "Fellowship of the Ionosphere," was a Global Finalist in the 2022 NASA Space Apps Challenge, which saw over 31,400 participants from 162 countries and territories, with 5327 teams submitting more than 3000 projects. As a Global Finalist, this project was ranked among the top 35 submissions.

Ionospheric electron density plays a significant role in long-distance communications and sky-wave propagation. Prediction of the accurate state of the ionosphere is necessary to understand the accurate signal perturbations thereby estimating the critical parameters for better signal transmission. The space weather impacts on such trans-ionospheric technological systems are evident. In this work, a web application is developed to represent the global day-today electron density variations from the NeQuickG model. Also, the ground-based HAM radio broadcast network hop data with different wavelengths (eg. 10 m and 20 m) and simultaneous top-side electron density with space-based International Space Station (ISS) probe data from floating point measurement units are examined. The electron density variations for the year 2017 are clearly represented. Optimization techniques are necessary to frame a denser spatial grid-based ionospheric electron density map from all the observations. It is essential to estimate the optimal weight function that can distribute the observation influence over empty grid bins with minimum error variance through a probabilistic approach. User-understandable metrics development exclusively for Amateur radio operators and civil aviation sectors is focused. In the near future, the developed web-based application could serve as a better visualization platform for space weather forecasting. * This work is published in Space Weather Workshop: The Meeting of Science, Research, Applications, Operations, and Users. CPAESS, Boulder, Colorado (CO), United States, April 19, 2023. URL https://cpaess.ucar.edu/abstract-sww-2023/evaluation-global-ionospheric-tec-using-simultaneous-observations-amateur-radio

Ionospheric electron density plays a significant role in long-distance communications and sky-wave propagation. Prediction of the accurate state of the ionosphere is necessary to understand the accurate signal perturbations thereby estimating the critical parameters for better signal transmission. The space weather impacts on such trans-ionospheric technological systems are evident. In this work, a web application is developed to represent the global day-today electron density variations from the NeQuickG model. Also, the ground-based HAM radio broadcast network hop data with different wavelengths (eg. 10 m and 20 m) and simultaneous top-side electron density with space-based International Space Station (ISS) probe data from floating point measurement units are examined. The electron density variations for the year 2017 are clearly represented. Optimization techniques are necessary to frame a denser spatial grid-based ionospheric electron density map from all the observations. It is essential to estimate the optimal weight function that can distribute the observation influence over empty grid bins with minimum error variance through a probabilistic approach. User-understandable metrics development exclusively for Amateur radio operators and civil aviation sectors is focused. In the near future, the developed web-based application could serve as a better visualization platform for space weather forecasting. * This work is published in Space Weather Workshop: The Meeting of Science, Research, Applications, Operations, and Users. CPAESS, Boulder, Colorado (CO), United States, April 19, 2023. URL https://cpaess.ucar.edu/abstract-sww-2023/evaluation-global-ionospheric-tec-using-simultaneous-observations-amateur-radio

Ionospheric electron density plays a significant role in long-distance communications and sky-wave propagation. Prediction of the accurate state of the ionosphere is necessary to understand the accurate signal perturbations thereby estimating the critical parameters for better signal transmission. The space weather impacts on such trans-ionospheric technological systems are evident. In this work, a web application is developed to represent the global day-to-day electron density variations from the NeQuickG model. Also, the ground-based HAM radio broadcast network hop data with different wavelengths (eg. 10 m and 20 m) and simultaneous top-side electron density with space-based International Space Station (ISS) probe data from floating point measurement units are examined. The electron density variations for the year 2017 are clearly represented. Optimization techniques are necessary to frame a denser spatial grid-based ionospheric electron density map from all the observations. It is essential to estimate the optimal weight function that can distribute the observation influence over empty grid bins with minimum error variance through a probabilistic approach. User-understandable metrics development exclusively for Amateur radio operators and civil aviation sectors is focused. In the near future, the developed web-based application could serve as a better visualization platform for space weather forecasting. This project, Fellowship of the Ionosphere, is a Global Finalist in the 2022 NASA Space Apps Challenge. NASA Space Apps 2022 had 31,400+ registered participants from 162 counties and territories, with over 3000 submissions from 5327 teams. Global Finalists are ranked as one of the top 35 projects from all submissions.

Introduction: Web Application which prepares and displays electron density from an API on a 2D globe. This project started as NASA Space Apps hackathon Calling All Radio Enthusiasts! challenge. The aim of the “Calling All Radio Enthusiasts” challenge is to make use of observations from ground-based HAM network and space-based ISS broadcasts. The data ingestion of these both could possibly provide a good solution in the prediction of space weather events priorly. Project structure: Application consists of multiple parts: 1) api - backend application responsible for serving ionospheric data in JSON format (uses FastAPI framework / Python) 2) app - frontend application written in React / Typescript 3) pipeline - data pipeline for processing multiple ionospheric sources (multiple languages, but mostly Python and Matlab) ham - processing data from HAM radio reporting network (WSPR) iss - processing data from FPMU onboard International Space Station model - processing NeQuickG model data package - "packaging" above sources to be used by API (changing resolution, renaming columns) 4) scripts - additional features and scripts Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm visualization in Python.