SuperDARN: An Established, International, Ground Based Data System

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network is an international collaboration that uses High Frequency (HF) Radars to study the Ionosphere. In 1996 a document called "The Principal Investigators Agreement", established a framework that allowed the many diverse partners to share both software and data, and to agree on a common operating schedule that for the first time allowed global simultaneous observation of the Ionosphere in both the northern and southern hemisphere. As the original developer of the HF Radar Design, and the princicpal driving force in the establishment of the SuperDARN community, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has become one of the leading institutions within the group. APL has responsibility for maintaining the SuperDARN data system. This includes the assimilation of Data from the northern hemisphere radar sites, the maintenance of the online data archives and real-time data system, and the development and distribution of the SuperDARN operational and analyis software. Since the signing of the Principal Investigators Agreement in 1996, the SuperDARN community has dealt with the unique problems of dealing with a ground based array of instruments located in remote locations around the world and the problems of dealing with a diverse group of international users from a variety of institutions and backgrounds.