COMPARISON OF PREDICTED ATTENUATION OF SATELLITE RAIN ATTENUATION DISTRIBUTION IN MALAYSIA AND HUNGARY

R. Singliar(1), J. Bit(1), J. Din(2), A. R. Tharek(2) Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Broadband Infocommunication Systems Goldmann Gyrgy tr 3, Budapest, H-1111, Hungary, tel: (+36 1) 463-2769, fax: (+36 1) 463-3289 E-mail: roberto@docs.mht.bme.hu, bito@docs.mht.bme.hu Wireless Communication Centre Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia E-mail: jafri@fke.utm.my, tharek@fke.utm.my) Abstract - Satellite communication has several advantages compared to the terrestrial radio systems. Rain attenuation is one of the most fundamental limitations to the performance of millimetre wave radio systems. For the design of communication systems with a required availability statistical knowledge of propagation effects is essential. This paper presents a comparison study of rain attenuation distribution of satellite communication channels based on terrestrial rain attenuation measurement. Results are calculated for several locations in Hungary and Malaysia, where rain attenuation time series measurement data is available. INTRODUCTION This contribution presents results from measurements made in Hungary and in Malaysia carried out on a number of 38 GHz feeder links. Comparison of rain attenuation statistics under significantly different climatic conditions will be highlighted in the present contribution. Presented is the transformation method to transform terrestrial rain attenuation time series to satellite rain attenuation time series. Our aim is to examine the applicability of the proposed transformation method to derive statistics required for system design. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM To investigate wave propagation phenomena a rain attenuation and weather data measurement system was established in Hungary and Malaysia [5]. The countrywide measurement system in Hungary is able to collect data on precipitation and path attenuation of a large number of millimetre wave feeder links of cellular mobile systems with different length, frequency band and polarization at different locations in Hungary. The received relative IF level data, sampled every second, are collected from a number of point-to-point millimetre wave links located at different sub-climatic regions. To be able to determine the relationship between the rain attenuation and rain intensity, meteorological stations are installed at the particular locations of the investigated links and meteorological data is collected together with the path attenuation data. The rain intensity distribution between these two countries is very different because Hungary belongs to the rain zone H (temperate zone) and Malaysia to the zone P (tropical climatic zone). Figures 12 are showing the rain maps for both countries. In this contribution the investigation is concentrated on the 38 GHz band links as shown in Table 1. Table 2 presents the geographical
(2) (1)

parameters of the locations in both countries with the terrestrial link parameters (length, polarization) and the ITU recommended rain intensity exceeded in 0.01% of the time [2]. Table 3 shows the effective path length and elevation of the investigated hypothetical satellite links. Table 4 shows the transponder parameters of the 3 investigated satellites.
7

130 110 105 140 130 120 110 105 115

KL 110

120

135

KT

125

Latitude(North)

125

100 125 115 115 120

1 100 101 102 103 104 105

Longitude(East)

Fig. 1. Rain Rate Contour Map at 0.01% of the time in Peninsular Malaysia

Fig. 2. Rain Rate Map at 0.01% of the time in Hungary

Tab. 1. Investigated 38 GHz links in different part of Hungary and in Malaysia

Site name/ Notation Johor / MA01 Pcs / HU36 Miskolc / HU45 Gyr / HU52

Latitude [degree] 1.45N 46.05N 48.07N 47.41N

Longitude [degree] 103.75E 18.15E 20.50E 17.40E

Altitude Length Pol. [m] [m] 1 301.32 H 610 1690 V 130 1520 V 110 2970 V

Rain Zone P H H H

ITU-R0.01 [mm/h] 120 34.8 34.6 34.8

Tab. 2. Effective path length and elevation of the investigated satellite links

Site name Johor Pcs Miskolc Gyr

Length [m] / Elevation [degree] HotBird 6 (13E) Eutelsat W5 (70.5E) Measat 2 (148E) 6405.4 / 51.3 7.9452 / 38.99 4444.7 / 36.78 9207.5 / 16.8 5301.4 / 34.33 10127.6 / 17.17 5286.3 / 35.36 11340.6 / 15.65
Tab. 3. Parameters of the investigated satellite transponders

Frequency [GHz] Polarization

HotBird 6 19.842 Horizontal

Eutelsat W5 12.708 Horizontal

Measat 2 12.594 Vertical

TRANSFORMATION METHOD To transform terrestrial rain attenuation time-series of a certain link into satellite attenuation time series we developed a transformation method [4]. In the following is briefly described the method of data transformation. The proposed transformation model includes frequency, polarization and

link length scaling in order to provide an indispensable tool when reliable satellite rain attenuation time-series are needed. k L A (t )(1+ LT d0 ) T AS (t ) = S S T 1+ LS d0 kT LT

(1)

where kS, kT, S, T ITU-R recommended parameters according to frequency band, polarization and elevation [3], AS (t) is the transformed rain attenuation time series of the satellite link, AT (t) is the measured rain attenuation time series of the terrestrial link, LS is the slant path length of the satellite link, LT is the length of the terrestrial link, d0 is the reduction factor. ( h h ) (2) LS = R S for 5 sin (3) d 0 = 35exp(0.015R0.01 ) (4) hR = 5 0.075( 23) for > 23 for 0 < < 23 (5) hR = 5 where hR is the effective rain height, hS is the altitude of the station, is the elevation angle of the antenna, R0.01 is the rain intensity exceeded in 0.01% of the time, is the latitude of station. RESULTS
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CCDF of Rain Attenuation

Terrestrial HotBird HotBird ITU Eutelsat Eutelsat ITU

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CCDF of Rain Attenuation

Terrestrial Eutelsat Eutelsat ITU Measat Measat ITU

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0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

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Attenuation [dB]

Fig. 3. CCDF of rain attenuation for the link in Miskolc

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Fig. 4. CCDF of rain attenuation for the link in Johor

10
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CCDF of Rain Attenuation

Terrestrial HotBird HotBird ITU Eutelsat Eutelsat ITU

CCDF of Rain Attenuation

Terrestrial HotBird HotBird ITU Eutelsat Eutelsat ITU

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Attenuation [dB]

Fig. 5. CCDF of rain attenuation for the link in Pcs

Fig. 6. CCDF of rain attenuation for the link in Gyr

Figures 3-6 are presenting the complement cumulative distribution functions (CCDF) of rain attenuation for each location. We can depict CCDF of rain attenuation of the terrestrial (black) and hypothetical satellite links. From the ITU [1] calculated CCDF curves are also presented. Please obtain that Eutelsat W5 satellite is used for calculation of all hypothetical links, so we can compare the rain attenuation from the same satellite in both countries. We can obtain that the rain attenuation is much higher in Malaysia. For example the rain attenuation in Malaysia for the satellite Eutelsat W5 was at least 60 dB in 0.01% of the time. The ITU CCDF curves are relative good to fit to the CCDF curves of the hypothetical satellite links. For location Johor the ITU curves are fitting quite well in the probability range from 101 to 10-2 while for Miskolc from 101 to 10-3. For the other 2 locations the fitting is relative good in the range from 101 to 10-1. Figure 7 shows the schematic presentation of an Earth-space path with the parameters to be input to the attenuation prediction process.

Fig. 7. Schematic presentation of an Earth-space path

CONCLUSION Results of measurements on millimeter wave radio links taken in Malaysia and Hungary (rather different from the point of meteorology) are presented. The applicability of the proposed transformation method has been investigated. Differences between the used prediction method in the Hungarian data and the Malaysian data can be obtained. We can draw the conclusion that the proposed transformation method is relative good to transform the Malaysian and some Hungarian terrestrial links. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was carried out in the framework of the Malaysian Hungarian RADMAHU project and the IST FP6 IP BROADWAN No 001930. REFERENCES
[1] ITU-R Recommendation P.618-8, Propagation data and prediction methods required for the design of Earthspace telecommunication systems, ITU, Geneva, 2003. [2] ITU-R Recommendation P.837-4, Characteristics of precipitation for propagation modelling, ITU, Geneva, 2003. [3] ITU-R. Recommendation P.838-2, Specific attenuation model for rain for use in prediction methods, ITU, Geneva, 2003. [4] R. Singliar, J. Bit, Comparison of Satellite and Terrestrial Rain Attenuation Statistics based on terrestrial Measurement, in press ESTEC 2005 Conference, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, November 2005. [5] M. Karim, M. R. Isla, J. Din, A. R. Tharek, "Comparison of various horizontal reduction factor models with rain attenuation measurements in Malaysia", AP2000, Davos, Switzerland, April 2000.