Miniature devices shed light on satellite interference

The Northern Lights occur when electrically charged solar winds collide with plasma clouds at altitudes of 80–500km. Turbulent conditions found within plasma clouds during the Northern Lights can reflect or completely block radio signals being sent to and from satellites.

Tore André Bekkeng, the Oslo University research fellow responsible for developing the electronics and producing the algorithms, told The Engineer: ‘The instrumentation we have developed uses four miniaturised cylindrical probes to measure electron density within plasma clouds.’

The device — dubbed ‘m-NLP’ — measures electron density at a rate of 7kHz so that scientists can get a closer look at what is happening within the plasma cloud.

‘It is an improvement on previous instrumentation, because it gives the absolute electron density at 1m spatial resolution, compared with… the kilometre scale,’ said Bekkeng. ‘By having measurements of absolute electron density down to metre scale, we can for the first time see the smallest thinkable structures in the ionosphere, which is the height region where the Northern Lights occur.