Abstract
Knowledge on clear-air effects is of paramount importance to proper link budgeting for optimum communication systems design performances. In this paper, one-year (January - December 2013) tropospheric scintillation data are extracted from the EUTELSAT-36B Ku-band satellite measurements installed at Akure (Lat: 7.17 oN, Long: 5.18 oE, Alt: 358 m) for statistical analysis and the result compared with some established troposphere scintillation models in order to obtain the best prediction model performance for this region. The result shows that even in the absence of rain, tropospheric scintillation shows a strong seasonal effect in this region up to amplitude above 0.92 dB. The scintillation intensity fits better to gamma distribution at a high scintillation level taken into consideration the local meteorological parameters. Models comparison with experimental data also shows that the Karasawa model with the lowest percentage error of about 7% was found to be best fit for predicting propagation impairment relating to be fading at a Ku band frequency in this region. The overall results will provide information on scintillation margin needed for sizing antennas and amplifiers for reliable performance and the average bit-error probability on a scintillation-degraded digital satellite link in this region.
Highlights
The fast growth of technology in the present day cannot be overemphasized
Generalizing signal degradation arising from the clear-air effect may either underestimate or overestimate the link budgeting needed in the design of satellite communication systems
We have estimated and compare the level of troposphere scintillation that could be encountered through the Earth– space links in a tropical climate based on characterization and analysis of time series EUTELSAT-36B Ku-band satellite signal and make a comparison with the existing scintillation prediction models
Summary
The fast growth of technology in the present day cannot be overemphasized. New technological systems are being developed every day to enhance better performance. Aside rain attenuation effect on signal operating at high frequencies (> 10 GHz), tropospheric scintillations have been described as one of the major problems in the link budget design of microwave and millimeter-wave communication systems [4,5,6]. It results in a significant degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (up to several decibels) and their effects increase as the operating frequency increases and the look-angle elevation of the satellite decreases.
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