1. http://sites.google.com/site/siddataanalyzer
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Project Summary
Hundreds of schools around the world, coordinated by Stanford’s Solar
Center, are engaged in hunting solar flares using a low cost device called
SID monitor. Our school, Liceo Scientifico-Tecnologico "Vallauri" in
Fossano (Italy), is one of those (Italy-10 in the SID Stanford database)
How does the SID monitor work?
The Sun is not a quiet star. Every now and then it produces bursts of
energy called solar flares. When this radiation reaches the Earth, it
disturbs the ionosphere which is essential to radio signals propagation,
causing a SID, a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance.
The SID monitor is a device which records the intensity of a signal coming
from a VLF radio station (VLF = Very Low Frequency) which is normally
employed in communication with submarines. This signal has a
characteristic daily pattern, but when a Sun flare occurs, a more or less
pronounced peak pops up on the graph. Needless to say, not every
disturbance comes from the Sun. For a reliable identification of a flare it is
therefore necessary to compare the SID monitor data with the X-ray flux
data coming from NASA's GOES satellites.
Stanford's SID Monitor
The problem
The signals recorded by the SID monitor, however, are often very
disturbed by background noise, therefore weak flares can be difficult to
identify; besides that, a complex procedure is required to compare data
recorded by the schools with those coming from observations by GOES
satellites, the ultimate reference point in the identification of disturbances
coming from the Sun.
Research

2. disturbed by background noise, therefore weak flares can be difficult to
identify; besides that, a complex procedure is required to compare data
recorded by the schools with those coming from observations by GOES
satellites, the ultimate reference point in the identification of disturbances
coming from the Sun.
Research
In our project we have tackled these problems using a mathematical
technique called "empirical mode decomposition" (EMD) through which a
data set can be decomposed into a finite and often small number of
"intrinsic mode functions" (IMFs).
After the decomposition, we were able to identify the functions associated
with background noise and eliminate them.
To achieve this result, we have designed an experiment in which we
produce "artificial flares" (don't worry, there's no danger!). Despite the fact
that we have a significant amount of data collected from 2008 to 2011, we
wanted to control the flare parameters (duration and amplitude) and study
their effect on the individual signal components.
To clarify the principles of this technique, we have produced a sound
transposition of the signal (sonification), which proves how accurate the
EMD is.
The final product
Thanks to the results obtained in this project, we were able to write a
program, called SidDataAnalyzer, which decomposes the SID monitor
signal, "cleans" it from noise and produces a variety of graphical
representations of our data, superimposed to graphs of X-ray flux from
NASA satellites. We believe that our product can be of great help to all of
the schools that work with Stanford SID monitors and that's why we are
going to distribute this software for free.
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