A Comprehensive Review of the Site Diversity Technique in Tropical Region: Evaluation of Prediction Models Using Site Diversity Gain of Greece and India

Fazdliana Samat,Nasharuddin Zainal,Aduwati Sali,Mandeep Jit Singh

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3100363

Fazdliana Samat, Nasharuddin Zainal + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2021.3100363

Copy DOI

Abstract

The satellite signal deteriorates as it propagates from the source to the ground antenna on the surface of the earth. While some losses involving the amplitude and energy of the signal are unavoidably recovered due to the long slant path through the atmosphere, the impairment due to precipitation, especially rain, can be mitigated. Site diversity is one of the ways to obtain a less rain-attenuated signal, simply by preparing the other site to receive a link similar to that of the main site. Dual site diversity is common in practice with a site separation distance of at least a rain cell extent. This article presents an overview of the site diversity concept and a description of all parameters involved regarding the factor that contributed to the gain, which has been used as a performance metric to measure the effectiveness of a site diversity scheme. A detailed assessment of the capability of the gain prediction model is presented using site diversity experimental data conducted in two different climatic groups, namely, Greece in a temperate region and India in a tropical climatic region. The models involved in the evaluation were the ITU-R, Hodge, and Panagopoulos models, which were validated using temperate regional data, and the Semire and Yeo models, which were validated using tropical regional data. The observations of model behavior revealed that the Semire and Yeo models of the tropics were consistent with the measured gain obtained from India and Greece, respectively; thus, this demonstrated that the direction of future prediction models should consider both climates in the validation process.

Highlights

Wireless networks have begun to be necessities for populations in recent decades
This article brings the main issue in developing an site diversity gain (SDG) prediction model that is related to the parameters that contributed to the SDG
The other issue that has been highlighted is that the set of validation data used to compare each of the models in the literature, that may consist of unbalanced parameters in terms of site separation distance employed by the list of data, giving unjustice assessment to some of the models being evaluated

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Wireless networks have begun to be necessities for populations in recent decades. The capacity and capability of the network are growing to meet the demand of consumers with the emerging trend of handheld devices. The rain inducedattenuation becomes more severe during heavy rain, which is more common in the tropical region than in the temperate region [8] Some mitigation techniques, such as power control and adaptive waveforms, are not effective because they induce interference, and in some conditions, there is a need to request permission from consumers to possibly reduce the bit rate [9]–[11], which can cause further delay, compromised data quality, misleading content, and user dissatisfaction, especially in broadcasting industries or during the transmission of vital messages in the case of disasters. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive view of the site diversity concept and to reveal multiple past site diversity experiments conducted in tropical regions Those experiments’ discussions are concerning the effects of four parameters that contribute to the value of the SDG, which include the site separation distance, link frequency, antenna elevation angle, and baseline orientation angle.

SITE DIVERSITY IN THE LITERATURE

Findings

CONCLUSION