Fade durations in satellite-path mobile radio propagation

Fades on satellite to land mobile radio links are caused by several factors, the most important of which are multipath propagation and vegetative shadowing. Designers of vehicular satellite communications systems require information about the statistics of fade durations in order to overcome or compensate for the fades. Except for a few limiting cases, only the mean fade duration can be determined analytically, and all other statistics must be obtained experimentally or via simulation. This report describes and presents results from a computer program developed at Virginia Tech to simulate satellite path propagation of a mobile station in a rural area. The simulator was developed using 869 MHz balloon data provided by Wolfhard Vogel of the University of Texas at Austin and was tested using helicopter data provided by Wolfhard Vogel and Julius Goldhirsh of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. It generates rapidly-fading and slowly-fading signals by separate processes that yield correct cumulative signal distributions and then combines these to simulate the overall signal. This is then analyzed to yield the statistics of fade durations.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1986

Author dc:creator

• Schmier, Robert Gordon

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/91053

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/91053