Extension of existing models for evaluating site diversity performance for rain fade mitigation

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Stafford, James | Terril, Nathan

Affiliations: ITT Industries, Advanced Engineering and Sciences, 45145 Research Place; Ashburn, VA 20147, USA Tel.: +1 703 858 4177, Fax: +1 703 858 4110; E‐mail: {james.stafford;nathan.terril}@itt.com

Abstract: Site diversity is an important means of improving availability for Earth‐space systems with low propagation margins. Current site diversity models, such as the ITU‐R model, are empirically derived from diversity gain measurements. This paper presents an improved site diversity model that allows for unbalanced margins between each site, longer baseline distances, and the direct incorporation of local statistics through the statistical parameters of a two‐component model.

Journal: Space Communications, vol. 18, no. 1-2, pp. 79-84, 2002