Rain Attenuation Prediction at Different Time Percentages for Ku, K, and Ka Bands Satellite Communication Systems over Nigeria

Abstract

This paper evaluates the influence of rainfall on propagated signal at different time exceedance percentages of an average year, over the climate zones of the country. Specifically, it demonstrates critical and non critical signal fade or signal outage time exceedance (0.001% to 1%) for Ku, K, and Ka-band systems in an average year. The study was carried out using meteorological data made available by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) over a period of 10 years (2009–2018). The four climate zones in the country were represented by five (5) locations; Maidugiri (warm desert climate), Sokoto (tropical dry climate), Port Harcourt (tropical monsoon climate), Abuja and Enugu (tropical savanna climate). The parameters were simulated into the International Telecommunications Union Recommended (ITU-R) models for rain attenuation over the tropics and results presented using MatLab and Origin Lab. Results of Ku band propagations showed that only locations in the tropical savanna and tropical monsoon climates experienced total signal outage for time percentage exceedance equal to or below 0.01% for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. At K band propagations, the five locations showed to have experienced signal outage at time exceedance equal to and below 0.01%, almost same was recorded for the Ka-band propagation. It was also observed that horizontal and vertical polarization of signal had slightly different rain attenuation values for the studied bands at the five locations, with horizontal polarization having higher values than vertical polarization.

Keywords

• propagation
• time exceedance
• rain attenuation
• frequency band
• polarization