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The ionosphere plays an important role in satellite navigation, radio communication, and space weather prediction. However, it is still a challenging mission to develop a model with high predictability that captures the horizontal-vertical features of ionospheric electrodynamics. In this study, multiple observations during 2005–2019 from space-borne global navigation satellite system (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) systems (COSMIC and FY-3C) and the Digisonde Global Ionosphere Radio Observatory are utilized to develop a completely global ionospheric three-dimensional electron density model based on an artificial neural network, namely ANN-TDD. The correlation coefficients of the predicted profiles all exceed 0.96 for the training, validation and test datasets, and the minimum root-mean-square error of the predicted residuals is 7.8 × 104 el/cm3. Under quiet space weather, the predicted accuracy of the ANN-TDD is 30%–60% higher than the IRI-2016 at the Millstone Hill and Jicamarca incoherent scatter radars. However, the ANN-TDD is less capable of predicting ionospheric dynamic evolution under severe geomagnetic storms compared to the IRI-2016 with the STORM option activated. Additionally, the ANN-TDD successfully reproduces the large-scale horizontal-vertical ionospheric electrodynamic features, including seasonal variation and hemispheric asymmetries. These features agree well with the structure revealed by the RO profiles derived from the FORMOSAT/COSMIC-2 mission. Furthermore, the ANN-TDD successfully captures the prominent regional ionospheric patterns, including the equatorial ionization anomaly, Weddell Sea anomaly and mid-latitude summer nighttime anomaly. The new model is expected to play an important role in the application of GNSS navigation and in the explanation of the physical mechanisms involved.

The ionosphere plays an important role in satellite navigation, radio communication, and space weather prediction. However, it is still a challenging mission to develop a model with high predictability that captures the horizontal-vertical features of ionospheric electrodynamics. In this study, multiple observations during 2005–2019 from space-borne global navigation satellite system (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) systems (COSMIC and FY-3C) and the Digisonde Global Ionosphere Radio Observatory are utilized to develop a completely global ionospheric three-dimensional electron density model based on an artificial neural network, namely ANN-TDD. The correlation coefficients of the predicted profiles all exceed 0.96 for the training, validation and test datasets, and the minimum root-mean-square error of the predicted residuals is 7.8 × 104 el/cm3. Under quiet space weather, the predicted accuracy of the ANN-TDD is 30%–60% higher than the IRI-2016 at the Millstone Hill and Jicamarca incoherent scatter radars. However, the ANN-TDD is less capable of predicting ionospheric dynamic evolution under severe geomagnetic storms compared to the IRI-2016 with the STORM option activated. Additionally, the ANN-TDD successfully reproduces the large-scale horizontal-vertical ionospheric electrodynamic features, including seasonal variation and hemispheric asymmetries. These features agree well with the structure revealed by the RO profiles derived from the FORMOSAT/COSMIC-2 mission. Furthermore, the ANN-TDD successfully captures the prominent regional ionospheric patterns, including the equatorial ionization anomaly, Weddell Sea anomaly and mid-latitude summer nighttime anomaly. The new model is expected to play an important role in the application of GNSS navigation and in the explanation of the physical mechanisms involved.

The ionospheric delay is of paramount importance to radio communication, satellite navigation and positioning. It is necessary to predict high-accuracy ionospheric peak parameters for single frequency receivers. In this study, the state-of-the-art artificial neural network (ANN) technique optimized by the genetic algorithm is used to develop global ionospheric models for predicting foF2 and hmF2. The models are based on long-term multiple measurements including ionospheric peak frequency model (GIPFM) and global ionospheric peak height model (GIPHM). Predictions of the GIPFM and GIPHM are compared with the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model in 2009 and 2013 respectively. This comparison shows that the root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of GIPFM are 0.82 MHz and 0.71 MHz in 2013 and 2009, respectively. This result is about 20%-35% lower than that of IRI. Additionally, the corresponding hmF2 median errors of GIPHM are 20% to 30% smaller than that of IRI. Furthermore, the ANN models present a good capability to capture the global or regional ionospheric spatial-temporal characteristics, e.g., the equatorial ionization anomaly andWeddell Sea anomaly. The study shows that the ANN-based model has a better agreement to reference value than the IRI model, not only along the Greenwich meridian, but also on a global scale. The approach proposed in this study has the potential to be a new three-dimensional electron density model combined with the inclusion of the upcoming Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) data.

There are remarkable ionospheric discrepancies between space-borne (COSMIC) measurements and ground-based (ionosonde) observations, the discrepancies could decrease the accuracies of the ionospheric model developed by multi-source data seriously. To reduce the discrepancies between two observational systems, the peak frequency (foF2) and peak height (hmF2) derived from the COSMIC and ionosonde data are used to develop the ionospheric models by an artificial neural network (ANN) method, respectively. The averaged root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of COSPF (COSMIC peak frequency model), COSPH (COSMIC peak height model), IONOPF (Ionosonde peak frequency model) and IONOPH (Ionosonde peak height model) are 0.58 MHz, 19.59 km, 0.92 MHz and 23.40 km, respectively. The results indicate that the discrepancies between these models are dependent on universal time, geographic latitude and seasons. The peak frequencies measured by COSMIC are generally larger than ionosonde's observations in the nighttime or middle-latitudes with the amplitude of lower than 25%, while the averaged peak height derived from COSMIC is smaller than ionosonde's data in the polar regions. The differences between ANN-based maps and references show that the di

The ionospheric delay is of paramount importance to radio communication, satellite navigation and positioning. It is necessary to predict high-accuracy ionospheric peak parameters for single frequency receivers. In this study, the state-of-the-art artificial neural network (ANN) technique optimized by the genetic algorithm is used to develop global ionospheric models for predicting foF2 and hmF2. The models are based on long-term multiple measurements including ionospheric peak frequency model (GIPFM) and global ionospheric peak height model (GIPHM). Predictions of the GIPFM and GIPHM are compared with the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model in 2009 and 2013 respectively. This comparison shows that the root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of GIPFM are 0.82 MHz and 0.71 MHz in 2013 and 2009, respectively. This result is about 20%-35% lower than that of IRI. Additionally, the corresponding hmF2 median errors of GIPHM are 20% to 30% smaller than that of IRI. Furthermore, the ANN models present a good capability to capture the global or regional ionospheric spatial-temporal characteristics, e.g., the equatorial ionization anomaly andWeddell Sea anomaly. The study shows that the ANN-based model has a better agreement to reference value than the IRI model, not only along the Greenwich meridian, but also on a global scale. The approach proposed in this study has the potential to be a new three-dimensional electron density model combined with the inclusion of the upcoming Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) data.

There are remarkable ionospheric discrepancies between space-borne (COSMIC) measurements and ground-based (ionosonde) observations, the discrepancies could decrease the accuracies of the ionospheric model developed by multi-source data seriously. To reduce the discrepancies between two observational systems, the peak frequency (foF2) and peak height (hmF2) derived from the COSMIC and ionosonde data are used to develop the ionospheric models by an artificial neural network (ANN) method, respectively. The averaged root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of COSPF (COSMIC peak frequency model), COSPH (COSMIC peak height model), IONOPF (Ionosonde peak frequency model) and IONOPH (Ionosonde peak height model) are 0.58 MHz, 19.59 km, 0.92 MHz and 23.40 km, respectively. The results indicate that the discrepancies between these models are dependent on universal time, geographic latitude and seasons. The peak frequencies measured by COSMIC are generally larger than ionosonde's observations in the nighttime or middle-latitudes with the amplitude of lower than 25%, while the averaged peak height derived from COSMIC is smaller than ionosonde's data in the polar regions. The differences between ANN-based maps and references show that the discrepancies between two ionospheric detecting techniques are proportional to the intensity of solar radiation. Besides, a new method based on the ANN technique is proposed to reduce the discrepancies for improving ionospheric models developed by multiple measurements, the results indicate that the RMSEs of ANN models optimized by the method are 14–25% lower than the models without the application of the method. Furthermore, the ionospheric model built by the multiple measurements with the application of the method is more powerful in capturing the ionospheric dynamic physics features, such as equatorial ionization, Weddell Sea, mid-latitude summer nighttime and winter anomalies. In conclusion, the new method is significant in improving the accuracy an