October 21st, 2015 – Physical preparation and specific training to deal with the Antarctic environment: these are some of the activities that Nicola Linty of the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications of the Polytechnic of Turin has been subjected to prior his departure for Antarctica. Linty leaves with an expedition of National Antarctic Research Program with the participation of researchers from different countries. The arrival at the Brazilian base of “Comandante Ferraz” – EACF – in the Antarctic is expected by the end of October, after about 4-5 days of travel between air travel and ice divide. The researcher’s task will be to install and monitor sophisticated and innovative measuring devices, made with the support of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center in Ispra, for the project “Demostrator for GNSS Research and Applications for the Polar Environment” (demoGRAPE), coordinated by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino and the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella. The instrumentation will allow to process signals with innovative algorithms that are not normally implemented on existing commercial receivers. This will therefore allow to derive atmospheric parameters useful to study the phenomenon of ionospheric scintillation. This phenomenon creates a disturbance on the signal transmitted by the satellites that can compromise systems positioning, satellite communication and related applications such as, for example, the delicate operations of air navigation. The disorder arises as a result of abnormalities that occur in the ionosphere, and the phenomenon is often observed in the polar regions where electromagnetic interference – caused by solar storms – is more intense and frequent, as evidenced by the appearance of the Northern and Southern lights. (Red)
