On the rain attenuation dynamics: spatial-temporal analysis of rainfall rate and fade duration statistics

Knowledge about the dynamic characteristics of rain attenuation is of utmost importance for many applications in terrestrial and satellite communication systems operating at frequencies above 10 GHz. Long-term rain rate statistics and rain rate duration statistics are usually available from meteorological data. In this paper, a spatial-temporal analysis is employed in order to evaluate the rain attenuation power spectrum of a terrestrial/satellite path. The predicted power spectrum is compared with experimental data. Based on the spectral analysis of rainfall rate a method for converting rain rate duration statistics to link fade duration statistics is also proposed. Fade duration statistics are presented for terrestrial and satellite links and compared with available experimental data. The agreement between the predicted results and the experimental data has been found to be quite encouraging. Finally, numerical results are presented for various climatic zones, elevation angles and frequencies. Some very useful conclusions concerning the dynamic properties of rain attenuation for a microwave path are deduced. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.