Rain attenuation prediction in tropical regions using site diversity technique

Abstract

Rain attenuation is the main cause for the loss of signals throughout sending or reception over earth’s atmosphere. Moreover raindrops converts the direction of the signal. Rain attenuation changes with change in the frequency and change in the rain rate. As the prediction of rainfall in tropical regions is difficult, design of a terrestrial satellite link without attenuation is a big challenge. In order to design such links, it is essential to predict the attenuation caused by the rain at different frequencies for different rain rates with respect to the regions where the link is to be established. One of the most significant job to examine the impact of rain on the function of the terrestrial microwave link and to estimate the link size required to compensate for this negative impact. This paper presents the analysis of different Rain attenuation prediction models and derives the results for each model with respect to elevation angle. The measured values are compared with the standard ITU-R rain attenuation prediction models. All the observed values can be used to apply site diversity technique and the attenuation value is reduced using site diversity technique.