A fast ray tracing algorithm in the ionosphere

Based on the Haselgrove ray equation,the fast 3-D ray tracing of the short wave in the ionosphere is realized.In accordance with the geometrical relationship of the ray with the earth and the ionosphere,the method for calculating the parameters of the ray under the ionosphere is presented.According to the variation of electron concentration gradient with the height and the self-adapting Runge-Kutta method,a method for automatically changing integral step along the ray is described.For a QP ionosphere model,the comparison of the accuracy and speed between the fast 3-D ray tracing and the analytic ray tracing is discussed,the result shows that the fast 3-D ray tracing improves the speed an order of magnitude while the accuracy maintained.