Research on low-cost navigation receiver for BDS ionospheric scintillation monitoring and impact assessment in UAVs

Ionospheric scintillation represents a critical factor affecting the positioning accuracy and signal stability of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). However, dedicated ionospheric scintillation monitoring equipment currently available on the market is costly. To achieve real-time, accurate, and low-cost monitoring of ionospheric scintillation and assessment of its impacts, this paper presents a BDS ionospheric scintillation monitoring and impact assessment method based on low-cost receivers. The system employs a ZED-F9P high-precision GNSS module coupled with a Raspberry Pi microprocessor to construct the hardware platform, utilizing Python and RTKLIB for data acquisition, preprocessing, and automated calculation of the amplitude scintillation index S_4 . Through a laboratory hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform, comparative analysis between the low-cost receiver and professional ionospheric scintillation monitor receiver (ISMR) was conducted. Results demonstrate high temporal consistency between the S_4 curves monitored by both systems, with a root mean square error (RMSE) of only 0.048, validating the feasibility of the low-cost receiver in terms of scintillation monitoring accuracy and stability. Furthermore, navigation performance assessment under scintillation conditions based on the precise point positioning (PPP) method reveals significant increases in carrier phase residuals during scintillation events, confirming the effectiveness of the system’s ionospheric scintillation monitoring capability. The results of this study can provide technical support for the construction of a low-cost and scalable space weather monitoring network.