PROGRAM: 3-3

Title:

Abstract:

International Heliophysical Year (IHY; 2007-2009) has a remarkable impact to the space and earth electromagnetism research and society. For Malaysian perspectives, it acts as a spiral point to the expanding of space weather-related researchers. The research activities involve installation of real-time Magnetic Data Acquisition System of Circum-pan Pacific Magnetometer Network, i.e. MAGDAS/CPMN for space weather study and application, which was deployed for the International Heliophysical Year (IHY; 2007-2009). In addition to MAGDAS system, to understand the characteristics of lower ionospheric layer (60-150 km) during space weather events, a multi-frequencies data acquisition monitoring platform has been developed. VLF (3 – 30 kHz) normally used for long distance communication which use lower ionospheric layer as reflection medium during long wave propagation (S. N. A. Ahmad et.al., 2015) . The variation of this layer due to space weather events influences the performance of received signal at the receiver stations (M. Indira Devi et.al., 2008 and T.Afifah et.al., 2016) . Several types of VLF-UHF antenna (Dipole, Loop and Yagi-Uda) have been developed to monitor the frequencies within these ranges.

To date, the developed VLF receiver system in Malaysia located at UPSI, UKM and Banting are able to capturethe transmitted signal from several VLF transmitter located at NWC, Australia (21.8S, 114.2W) in frequency 19.8 kHz, 3SB, China (39.26N, 103.20E) in frequency 20.6 kHz, JJI, Japan (32.09N, 130.83E) in frequency 22.2 kHz and VTX, India (08.23N, 77.45E) in frequency 18.2 kHz. All the receiver stations require good maintenance mechanisms to ensure all the equipment at the site stations are working and sending their real-time data to the dedicated server (Nur Ain Zakaria et.al., 2017). The parallel data transmission system has been developed to transfer data from VLS receiver to the computer and as well as transfer data between computer and remote server. This system integrates interaction between VLF receiver equipment and embedded systems which open many distributed network of devices that can be communicated for data transferring.

We are in the process of expanding the number of receiver station in Malaysia and maybe abroad with a good international collaboration in future. Our working group is also planning to explore the possibilities to provide open access data to all interested research communities in the spirit to stimulate the human capital development in the area of Space and Earth Electromagnetism.

Acknowledgements:

We acknowledge Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris (UPSI) and National Space Agency of Malaysia for their support in providing locations and technical support. This work is financially supported by Fundamental Research Grant Projects, FRGS (Code No.600- RMI/FRGS 5/3(140/2014), Exploratory Research Grant Scheme, ERGS (600- RMI/ERGS 5/3 (81/2012)) and Sultan Mizan Antarctic Research Foundation, YPASM (Code No. YPASM/RGrant/12-2014/JLD.1 (23)). We also would like to thank International Center for Space Weather and Education (ICSWSE), Kyushu University, Japan and MAGDAS team for the excellent researchcollaborations.

References:

M. Indira Devi, I. Khan, and D. N. Madhusudhana Rao. (2008) A Study of VLF Wave Propagation characteristic in the earth-ionosphere Waveguide, Earth Planets and Space, 60, pp 737-741.S. N. A. Ahmad , M. H. Jusoh, F. A. M. Kasran , M. Abdullah, B. Veenadhari , T. Uozumi , S. Abe , A. Yoshikawa and M. G. Cardinal, (2015), Variations of ULF and VLF During Moderate Geomagnetic Storm At Equatorial Region, (pp. 256-261), International Conference on Space Science and Communication (IconSpace), Langkawi, Malaysia.

Nur Ain Zakaria , Mohamad Huzaimy Jusoh , Siti Zuriaty Ahmad Zaidi and Zairi Ismael Rizman (2017), Development Of Space Weather Monitoring Platform For Space And Earth’s Electromagnetism Observation, ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 12(10) pp 3308-3311.

T.Afifah , F.Ramli , S.N.A.Ahmad, M.H.Jusoh, (2016), Daytime and Nighttime Variations of VLF Signal During Quiet Period, (pp. 55-58) IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE), Langkawi, Malaysia.