Communication Experiments and Analysis Based on the Plasma Sheath Channel Simulation System

Abstract

Both static and dynamic plasma sheath can lead to communication interruption because of its severe impact on the electromagnetic waves. To evaluate the influence of plasma on the performance of communications, previous researches give a method of static and dynamic plasma sheath generation in the ground experiment system. In this paper, a communication experiment is designed and conducted based on the plasma sheath channel simulation system. The theoretical analysis gives out two bounds for carrier frequency on the propagation of signals in the plasma. The dynamic bound explains how the phase shift fluctuation affects the performance of communication in dynamic plasma. In the experiments, QPSK, 4FSK and 16FSK signals are transmitted simultaneously by using the FDM method. The bit error rate is calculated to evaluate the performance of communication. The theoretical prediction matches up well with the experimental results. The results of the experiments make great contributions to the study of communications in the static and dynamic plasma sheath channels.