Development of ground-based ELF/VLF receiver system in Wuhan and its first results

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• 作者：Yanping Chen^a ; Guobin Yang^a ; ^{gbyang@whu.edu.cn" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Binbin Ni^a ; ^{bbni@whu.edu.cn" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Zhengyu Zhao^a ; Xudong Gu^a ; Chen Zhou^a ; Feng Wang^b
• 关键词：ELF/VLF receiver system ; Magnetic loop antenna ; Analog front-end ; FPGA and USB ; VLF transmitter signals ; Tweek atmospherics
• 刊名：Advances in Space Research
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：1 May 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：57
• 期：9
• 页码：1871-1880
• 全文大小：3177 K

文摘

A new digital low-frequency receiver system has been developed at Wuhan University for sensitive reception of low-latitude broadband Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) and Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio waves originating from either natural or artificial sources. These low-frequency radio waves are useful for ionospheric remote sensing, geospace environment monitoring, and submarine communications. This paper presents the principle and architecture of the system framework, including magnetic loop antenna design, low-noise analog front-end and digital receiver with data sampling and transmission. A new structure is adopted in the analog front end to provide high common-mode rejection and to reduce interference. On basis of field programmable gate array (FPGA) device and Universal Serial Bus (USB) architecture, the digital receiver is developed along with time keeping and synchronization module. The validity and feasibility of the self-developed ground-based ELF/VLF receiver system is evaluated by first results of experimental data that show the temporal variation of broadband ELF/VLF wave spectral intensity in Wuhan (30.54 °N, 114.37 °E). In addition to the acquisition of VLF transmitter signals at various frequencies, tweek atmospherics are also clearly captured to occur at multiple modes up to n = 6.