Collaborative Research: A New Ground-magnetometer for inner Magnetospheric Array Geospace Studies (iMAGS)

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Space weather refers to the dynamics of the Earth's space environment due to solar disturbances that directly impact technological systems such as satellite navigation and communication systems, power grids, and ground-and-aircraft-based HF radio communication. There are significant variations in space weather effects depending on latitude, local time, and longitude. These variations have not been well studied due to sparsity of ground-based instrumentation. Severe space weather is a natural hazard with significant impact to global society (e.g., aircraft, communications, satellite systems, power grids). According to a Lloyd's of London report on Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid (2013), "simulations of extreme geomagnetic storms suggest that the total human population at risk of extended [power] outage... ranges between 20-40 million in the at-risk areas, with durations of 16 days up to 1-2 years". This project will (1) develop a new generation of low-cost ground-based magnetometer instrumentation, (2) develop a unified operation and maintenance approach of existing American sector magnetometers, and (3) enable the exploration of small and meso-scale ionospheric disturbances and currents by creating a network of dense closely-spaced arrays of magnetometers. This will enable better understanding of the natural hazard from space weather, lead to better predictions, and allow for better preparedness with an infrastructure for advanced warnings of changes in the space weather environment. This award is co-funded by the Magnetospheric Physics and Prediction of and Resilience against Extreme Events (PREEVENTS) programs.This project will develop a new research quality, low-cost and low-power ground magnetometer to rejuvenate and revitalize existing ground-magnetometer arrays. The new Magneto-Inductive magnetometer technology has been developed for small satellites with support from NASA and this proposal requests funds to leverage this technology to develop, build, test, deploy and analyze data from a new ground based sensor package. The UM Ground Magnetometer currently has a resolution of about 1 nT and a noise floor of about 5 pT/root(Hz) @ 1 Hz and draws less than 100 mW including a GPS receiver for time stamping, and a microcontroller. A "smart-power-cycling" integrated wireless communication system (WiFi, Cellular or Iridium modems) enables the system to be stand alone and run on batteries and solar panels even in high-latitude auroral zone stations. The instruments will be deployed in a meridional chain augmenting or replacing MEASURE and SAMBA magnetometers in the American sector to remote sense the plasmapause, study ULF wave propagation and small-scale current systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.