Validation of New ITU-R Rain Attenuation Prediction Model over Malaysia Equatorial Region

Abstract

Attenuation due to rainfall is one of the most fundamental constraints on the performance of satellite links above 10 GHz. This work presents the results of rain attenuation measurement using radar data collected from MMD and DIDM, Malaysia. The results were compared with newly improved ITU-R P530-16 and four other selected tropical rain attenuation prediction models. The statistical analysis showed that ITU-R P 530-16 has significantly addressed the problem of rain attenuation underestimation prediction as presented by the older version of the recommendation. Although point accuracy is far-fetched in reality, more improvement is needed on the model so as to address its insufficiency in tropical and equatorial rain attenuation estimation.