High-latitude aeronautical radio prediction service

The HARP service aims at improving communications between commercial aircraft and air traffic control centres in remote areas such as the Polar regions, the North Atlantic and the Pacific, where the VHF ground infrastructure does not exist. The service focuses on the needs of the airline industry operating trans-polar and oceanic routes by providing nowcasting and forecasting information on HF communication signal strength for route planning in order to improve the efficiency and safety of operations. The target market includes airlines operating polar routes and the various Air Traffic Control organisations. HARP uses real-time solar X-ray and energetic particle flux measurements from the NOAA GOES satellites to predict maps of HF radio wave absorption. Global navigational satellite systems such as Galileo and GPS are also used to map the total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere.