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We propose a dense network of dual-mission HF radars costing 95% less than contemporary radar nodes. Our nodes simultaneously probe the ionosphere and relay data. Each radar node will cost $200 for standard resolution/bandwidth nodes and $400 for high resolution/bandwidth nodes. This is a price point that citizen scientists and primary school science classes can build and deploy. The radar nodes work together as an infrastructure-less self-organizing network, transmitting pseudonoise waveforms hundreds of kilometers in the shortwave radio bands. The waveforms simultaneously measure atmospheric characteristics and contain data relayed through the mesh to other nodes or to internet destinations.
Each radar node contributes to:
- improving ionospheric models via measurements as an alternate or complement to GNSS TEC measurements
- 4-D imaging of the Earth’s atmosphere/ionosphere
- data relay from isolated sites (e.g. flood alarm, tracking animals)
- Solar storm impact detection and quantification
Hysell, Milla, Vierinen "A multistatic HF beacon network for ionospheric specification in the Peruvian sector" describes a 3-site system comprised of one dual-frequency transmitter using similar coding at 1/2 Watt, and two receiver sites, all synchronized via GPS. One of the key factors noted in the work was the immense oversampling of the received signal, implying that a much more modest SDR might be used.
Initial experiments show that the CPU & PLL on the Raspberry Pi 3 may be capable of transmitting HF radar waveforms with sufficient spatial resolution to resolve interesting atmospheric disturbances. Implicit in that is the ability for the Raspberry Pi 3 to transmit medium-bandwidth data over HF.
The open-source radar system will be documented and described sufficient for a “Hackaday” type article enabling citizen scientists and school teachers to build and deploy their own.
The PiRadar system has two primary functions
- data transceiver-long range (> 100 km) broadband HF data. One-way or two-way to end nodes, mesh relay in the middle.
- ionospheric radar-probe with range resolution of 1-25km depending on PiRadar model.