Quasicubic-segmented ionospheric model

A method is presented of fitting quasicubic (QCS) automatically to measured electron-density profiles of the ionosphere. Any number of layers and valleys which occur in the ionosphere may be represented by this model, where the parameters are found by fitting to actual data points. The approach is similar to that adopted for the quasiparabolic segment (QPS) model which has been developed in recent years and applied to a variety of ionospheric-propagation studies. The new model has been developed as an improvement to the QPS model, particularly when power calculations are required. The QCS model, like the QPS model, has analytic solutions for a number of ray quantities in the ionosphere and so can be used to study the same range of propagation phenomena as can be studied using the QPS model