Citizen science: Development of a low-cost magnetometer system for a coordinated space weather monitoring

TL;DR

A low-cost magnetometer system is developed for citizen science to monitor space weather and ionospheric disturbances.

Contribution

A low-cost, high-performance magnetometer system is introduced for crowd-sourced space weather monitoring.

Findings

The magnetometer system provides accurate magnetic field measurements with a resolution of ∼3 nT.

Data from the system correlates well with existing magnetometers, validating its scientific utility.

Abstract

As part of Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) project, a low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf magnetometer has been developed to provide quantitative and qualitative measurements of the geospace environment from the ground for both scientific and operational purposes at a cost that will allow for crowd-sourced data contributions. The PSWS magnetometers employ a magneto-inductive sensor technology to record three-axis magnetic field variations with a field resolution of ∼3 nT at a 1 Hz sample rate. The measurement range of the sensor is ±1.1×106 nT) and is valid over a temperature range of −40 °C to +85 °C. Data from the PSWS network will combine these magnetometer measurements with high frequency (HF, 3–30 MHz) radio observations to monitor large-scale current systems and ionospheric disturbances due to drivers from both space and the atmosphere. A densely-spaced magnetometer array, once established, will demonstrate their space weather monitoring capability to an unprecedented spatial extent. Magnetic field data obtained by the magnetometers installed at various locations in the US are presented and compared with the existing magnetometers nearby, demonstrating that the performance is very adequate for scientific investigations.

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