IEEE GNSS-IR High School Physics Project

The hardware in this project was base on the work by Fagundes, M.A.R., Mendonça-Tinti, I., Iescheck, A.L. et al. An open-source low-cost sensor for SNR-based GNSS reflectometry: design and long-term validation towards sea-level altimetry. GPS Solut 25, 73 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01087-1

Overview

The goal of this project is to build a simple, effective, low-cost GNSS-IR system to monitor environmental changes. This project is currently being piloted at some high schools in New Zealand. The project aims to give high school students hands-on experience with GNSS-IR technology, it's application in real-world environments, how the physics behind GNSS-IR works and how to analyze GNSS-IR data.

In 2025, we have:

Had students learn from experts in the field through webinars and workshops
Students developed and built a power system for the GNSS-IR hardware
Learn how to select suitable locations for GNSS-IR data collection
Students deploy hardware to collect GNSS-IR data
Monitored snow depth changes at Snow Farm, Wānaka, New Zealand

Quick Links

Hardware

We have a hardware build tutorial and parts list available through our documentation site: https://ajayacst.github.io/gnss-ir-docs/v1.0.0/build-tutorial.html

Running the Data Processing Software

The data parsing and processing software has been written in Python, translated from MATLAB code by Dr. Delwyn Moller. The main files you will need are located in the python folder.

To get started you will need to install the required Python packages. You can do this using pip:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Data should be placed inthe data folder, then run the python script matlab_translate.py to process the data. The data that should be processed is defined in the script at line 10:

files_path = data_path.rglob("2505*.LOG")

Simply change the string "2505*.LOG" to match the files you want to process. In this instance it will process all files starting with "2505" and ending with ".LOG".

For more detailed instructions on how to use the data processing software, please see the Software Guide.

Contributing

We welcome contributions from anyone interested in GNSS-IR technology and its applications. If you would like to contribute, please fork the repository and submit a pull request with your changes.

25 November 2025