Machine Learning Approach for Prediction of Ionospheric Irregularities on ROTI Index over the Northern Anomaly Crest in Egypt during Solar Cycle 24

This paper reports the prediction results of the ionospheric irregularities represented by the ROTI index close to the equatorial ionization anomaly’s Northern peak. A feedforward backpropagation Neural Network (NN) approach is implemented using a time series Nonlinear Autoregressive approach with Exogenous inputs (NARX). We used the data from a dual frequency GPS-SCINDA station located at Helwan (geographic coordinates of 29.86°N, 31.32°E, and MLAT of 29.94°N) in Egypt. To allow the model to be independently tested during varying levels of solar activities, we collected a 5-minute resolution of ROTI data for the solar cycle 24 from 2009 to 2017. The factors that influence the development of ionospheric irregularities are involved in the established model representing the diurnal and seasonal variations as well as solar and geomagnetic activity parameters. To support learning, we included IRI-foF2 and IRI-hmF2 parameters in the input layer neurons to improve the model learning about the behavior of the ionospheric F layer. The results show that the NN-ROTI values precisely match the GPS-ROTI values with an RMSE of 0.106 TECU/min and a prediction efficiency of 95%. The predicted values are highly correlated with the originals, with a regression of 0.89. Furthermore, the irregularities were more prevalent during the equinox months than during the solstice months. It is also observed that predicted NN-ROTI values in all seasons have RMSEs less than 0.03 and 0.05 TECU/min for the low and high solar activity, respectively. The results also showed a clear correlation between solar activity and the occurrence percentage of ionospheric irregularities indicating a solar cycle dependency. The prediction values of the NN-ROTI occurrence % demonstrated a remarkable correlation with the observed GPS-ROTI occurrence % across SC24.