Investigation of Ka-band satellite communication propagation in equatorial regions

Future satellite communication (SatCom) systems operating at high frequencies (Ka-band and above) are expected to suffer from deep signal fades due to rain, particularly in tropical/equatorial regions. Accurate satellite propagation channel modeling requires the knowledge of radio channel characteristics with respect to the peculiarities of tropical precipitation. The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently funded a Ka-band propagation measurement campaign over Peninsular Malaysia that exploits the Syracuse-3A satellite (beacon frequency 20.245 GHz). The main objective of this campaign is to collect actual propagation Ka-band signal measurements in a heavy rain region with the aim of assessing and improving currently available statistical models of rain fade dynamic as well as evaluating the performance of site diversity and time diversity techniques. Some results relative to first- (i.e. cumulative distribution function of attenuation) and second-order (i.e. fade duration and fade slope) statistics of rain attenuation are reported based on the basis of the simulation using weather radar data, the prediction of the Stratiform convective- Synthetic Storm Technique (SC-SST) model, ITU-R recommendation and comparison of measured statistics from the literature. The discrepancy among the predicted results implies that it is important to validate the accuracy of current radio channel prediction models using actual experimental data. The experimental results of this campaign will eventually be submitted to the International Telecommunication Union-Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) for the benefit of the scientific community, specifically in heavy rain region