Point-to-point ray tracing simulator for ionospheric HF propagation

A point-to-point ionospheric ray tracing simulator（PIRTS)is presented，which is especially suitable for the oblique propagation in ionosphere，frequency-selection in HF communication，and similar point-to-point propagation problems.PIRTS integrates Haselgrove equations to trace rays，and the ionosphere propagation environment is specified as three-dimensional grid，which is generated by IRI2007（International Reference Ionosphere 2007)or a true height profile reduced form an ionogram.The geomagnetic field is specified as IGRF11（International Geomagnetic Reference Field 11th ed).Besides，PIRTS can search all the rays which connect the transmitter and receiver，including low angle rays，high angle rays and different rays reflected form different ionized layers.In PIRTS，the simulated vertical ionograms are compared with measured ionograms， and the MUF（maximum usable frequency) computed by PIRTS are also compared with MUFs measured by Xi’an-Putian HF radio links experiment. The difference between these two kinds of comparision is small.Finally，some of application in simulations of oblique iongram by PIRTS are given.