Rapid Regional Ionospheric Profiling (R-RIP)

"A key requirement for Air Force battle management, communication and navigation is the ability to accurately and rapidly determine electron density profiles as they affect global communications. Ground-to-ground and ground-to-air global communicationschannels traverse the ionosphere and are affected by ionospheric conditions. Having an accurate and easily assessable method to determine the conditions of the ionosphere is a particularly important requirement in the region between 45 degrees north andsouth, the most populous region of Earth. In phase I of this project, we successfully proved the concept of a Rapid Regional Ionosphere Profiling System (R-RIPS). In this phase II effort, we propose to extend this capability to develop the RapidIonospheric Profiling System for Equatorial and Mid-Latitude (RIPS-EM). Current proven and validated first principles physical models of the ionosphere are too cumbersome and slow to be run in an operational sense to meet the requirement. However, HighDimensional Model Representation (HDMR) techniques innovatively and accurately map the input-output relationships of these models with orders-of-magnitude improvement in computational speed. These techniques were used in Phase I of this effort to create aprototype Fully Equivalent Operational Model (FEOM) which mapped the input-output relationships of the ionospheric component of the Integrated Space Weather Prediction Model (ISM), a global thre