Grigori M. Khmyrov

Exploring Digisonde Ionogram Data with SAO-X and DIDBase

A comprehensive suite of software tools for ionogram data analysis and archiving has been developed at UMLCAR to support the exploration of raw and processed data from the worldwide network of digisondes in a low-latency, user-friendly environment. Paired with the remotely accessible Digital Ionogram Data Base (DIDBase), the SAO Explorer software serves as an example of how an academic institution conscientiously manages its resident data archive while local experts continue to work on design of new and improved data products, all in the name of free public access to the full roster of acquired ionospheric sounding data.

The ARTIST 5

Version 5 of the Automatic Real-Time Ionogram Scaler with True height (ARTIST), an intelligent system developed at UMLCAR for extraction of ionospheric specification data from Digisonde ionograms, entered its operational phase in May 2007. Version 5 implements the classic ARTIST techniques re-vamped for modern computers and programming environments, as well as new approaches developed to strengthen the ARTIST performance. This paper describes progress in the ionogram autoscaling research at UMLCAR that has culminated into release of the ARTIST 5 software.

Advancing Digisonde Technology: the DPS-4D

A new ionosonde, the Digisonde model DPS-4D, replaces the aging DPS-4. Faster computer hardware and operating systems together with digital transmitters/receivers provide unprecedented measurement flexibility, data precision, and signal processing gain. The novel features in this latest Digisonde are discussed and explained.

The SAOXML 5: New Format for Ionogram-Derived Data

A new format for the unified data exchange between ionosonde data producers and users of ionogram-derived characteristics is introduced, dubbed SAOXML 5 to reflect its heritage in the previous Standard Archiving Output (SAO) format version 4 and a general-purpose computer language XML commonly used for data exchange. The SAOXML 5 specification shall serve as the reference for development of input and output interfaces for the software projects that read and write ionogram-derived data. The paper discusses motivation for introducing new format and outlines basic principles of its design and use.

Intelligent Resident Archive for RPI Level 2 Data

A resident archive for Level 2 dataset (derived and expert-annotated products) of the radio plasma imager (RPI) on NASA IMAGE spacecraft has been operated at UMLCAR since 2001. The archive provides a much needed, publicly available annotation service for the voluminous collection of RPI data whose interpretations become available to the wave instrument community. Both human and automatically generated annotations are stored in the database server at UMLCAR, remotely accessible over the Internet for both data retrieval and submission of the annotations. Available annotations can be used for the content-based data retrieval of only relevant measurements by non-expert users. The paper discusses implementation details of the Level 2 interactive data archive.

Intelligent Image Prospecting System for Image/RPI Mission

The radio plasma imager (RPI) onboard NASAs IMAGE spacecraft has acquired over 1.2 million plasmagrams, images of remote sensing of the Earths magnetosphere. Plasmagram archive is a classic-example dataset posing unrealistic demands of manual labor in order to analyze each collected image for useful features. We present an intelligent data prospecting system based on a bio-plausible model of the pre-attentive vision whose purpose is to draw attention of human analysts to the most interesting data. Presence of weak signatures in the RPI plasmagrams makes this dataset an excellent testbed for sensitive image prospecting techniques. We discuss our progress to date.