Effects of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles on RTK Positioning in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPB) [1] refers the area of electron density depletion during post-sunset to premorning periods.They typically originate at the bottom side of the ionosphere before extending longitudinally along the magnetic field line to high latitudes.The EPB causes abnormal variation of total electron content (TEC) which then affects the GNSS signals and, as a result, degrades the positioning errors.Since the real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning [2] is a widespread cm-level positioning technology, in this work, we aim to study the effects of EPB at low-latitude stations in Thailand.