An hybrid neuro-wavelet approach for long-term prediction of solar wind

Abstract

Nowadays the interest for space weather and solar wind forecasting is increasing to become a main relevance problem especially for telecommunication industry, military, and for scientific research. At present the goal for weather forecasting reach the ultimate high ground of the cosmos where the environment can affect the technological instrumentation. Some interests then rise about the correct prediction of space events, like ionized turbulence in the ionosphere or impacts from the energetic particles in the Van Allen belts, then of the intensity and features of the solar wind and magnetospheric response. The problem of data prediction can be faced using hybrid computation methods so as wavelet decomposition and recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Wavelet analysis was used in order to reduce the data redundancies so obtaining representation which can express their intrinsic structure. The main advantage of the wavelet use is the ability to pack the energy of a signal, and in turn the relevant carried informations, in few significant uncoupled coefficients. Neural networks (NNs) are a promising technique to exploit the complexity of non-linear data correlation. To obtain a correct prediction of solar wind an RNN was designed starting on the data series. As reported in literature, because of the temporal memory of the data an Adaptative Amplitude Real Time Recurrent Learning algorithm was used for a full connected RNN with temporal delays. The inputs for the RNN were given by the set of coefficients coming from the biorthogonal wavelet decomposition of the solar wind velocity time series. The experimental data were collected during the NASA mission WIND. It is a spin stabilized spacecraft launched in 1994 in a halo orbit around the L1 point. The data are provided by the SWE, a subsystem of the main craft designed to measure the flux of thermal protons and positive ions.