The first results of monitoring observations of a meteor echo at ISTP SB RAS EKB radar: algorithms, validation, statistics

TL;DR

This paper details the development and validation of algorithms for automatic meteor echo detection and parameter estimation using ISTP SB RAS EKB radar data, confirming meteor origin and reconstructing neutral wind velocities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel real-time detection algorithm based on direct signal fitting and demonstrates its effectiveness through validation and statistical analysis of meteor echoes.

Findings

Detected meteor signals are confirmed to be from meteor trails via aspect sensitivity analysis.

The algorithm successfully reconstructs neutral wind velocities from radar data.

The detection system has been operational continuously since late 2016.

Abstract

The paper presents the implementation of algorithms for automatic search for signals scattered at meteor tracks based on the ISTP SB RAS EKB radar data. The algorithm is divided into two phases - the detection of a meteoric echo and the determination of its parameters. In general, the algorithm is similar to the algorithms used for specialized meteor radars, but uses direct fitting of received signal quadrature components by a model when finding the parameters of meteor trail. Based on the analysis of maximum of the Geminid meteor shower 13.12.2016 the aspect sensitivity of the scattered signals detected by the algorithm was shown . This proves that the detected signals correspond to scattering by irregularities elongated with the direction to the radiant of the meteor shower. This also confirms that the source of signals detected by the algorithm are meteor traces. In this paper, we solve the inverse problem of reconstructing the vector of the neutral wind velocity from the radar data by the weighted least-squares technique. A comparison of the roses of horizontal neutral winds obtained in the model of two-dimensional (horizontal) wind and three-dimensional wind is made. Their similarity is shown and expected predominance of the zonal component over the meridional one is shown too. The implemented algorithm allows us to process the scattered signals in the real time. The detection algorithm has started its continuous operation at the ISTP SB RAS EKB radar at the end of 2016.