Abstract
Rain constitutes a major limitation to the performance and use of terrestrial and satellite communication systems with operational frequencies greater than 10 GHz. The situation gets further complicated by fast fluctuations in the received signal amplitude due to in homogeneities in atmospheric weather conditions; a phenomenon known as amplitude scintillation. The concurrent evaluation of the two phenomena guarantees a better fade margin determination for the planning of radio communication over any location. This work employs 3 years of in-situ measurement of temperature, humidity, rainfall rate and rainfall amount for the estimation of tropospheric amplitude scintillation and rain specific attenuation over Akure (7.17° N, 5.18° E, 358 m) South West Nigeria. Davis vantage pro weather station at 1-min integration time was used for the measurement and the ITU models for rain specific attenuation (ITU-R P.838-3) and amplitude scintillation (ITU–R 618-13) were employed for the estimation. Time series and statistical analyses of the phenomena show that rain attenuation is the more prominent cause of signal degradation at Ku-band frequencies. Nevertheless, the need to make an extra fade margin allowance of about 0.25 dB due to amplitude scintillation fade subsists to forestall any loss of synchronization on the link. Also, a 3-parameter power-law expression developed for estimating amplitude scintillation fade from rain attenuation performed excellently well, as indicated by average root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.002151 and 0.8747, respectively.
Highlights
The propagation impairments of radio wave signals whose frequencies exceed 10 GHz are predominantly caused by the tropospheric constituents that spread between the Earth’s surface and an altitude of about 10–20 km, the vertical extent being lowest at the temperate and highest in the tropical regions (Matricciani et al 1996; Adediji and Ajewole2010; Fuwape et al 2016)
Studies on propagation impairments in Nigeria have skewed favorably in the direction of rain attenuation, since it is the predominant cause of signal degradation at ultrahigh frequencies (UHF) and above in this region
No study has been reported on the concurrent evaluation of rain attenuation with amplitude scintillation
Summary
The propagation impairments of radio wave signals whose frequencies exceed 10 GHz are predominantly caused by the tropospheric constituents that spread between the Earth’s surface and an altitude of about 10–20 km, the vertical extent being lowest at the temperate and highest in the tropical regions (Matricciani et al 1996; Adediji and Ajewole2010; Fuwape et al 2016). The propagation impairments of radio wave signals whose frequencies exceed 10 GHz are predominantly caused by the tropospheric constituents that spread between the Earth’s surface and an altitude of about 10–20 km, the vertical extent being lowest at the temperate and highest in the tropical regions The major factors affecting earth–space paths in the frequencies above 10 GHz include impairment by atmospheric gases, cloud, rain and tropospheric scintillations (Karasawa et al 1988; Karasawa and Matsudo 1991; Akinwumi et al 2018). Studies on propagation impairments in Nigeria have skewed favorably in the direction of rain attenuation, since it is the predominant cause of signal degradation at ultrahigh frequencies (UHF) and above in this region.
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