In this work, a modified ITU-R model that maximizes the slant-path reduction, increases elevation angle and as a result, minimizes the rain attenuation has been developed. Attenuation losses are predominant phenomena in any signal propagation. These losses are more severe in wireless propagation, in which communication satellite is categorized. Various factors, such as rain attenuation, cloud attenuation, tropospheric scintillation, ionospheric scintillation, water vapour attenuation, rain and ice depolarization, contribute to these losses in different magnitude depending on the frequency of the signal propagation. In Satellite communication propagation above 10GHz, eg ku-band, Rain is the most outstanding contributor to the major signal impairment. ITU-R has put up models for predicting and/or reducing individual causes of propagation impairment. However, the existing ITU-R model for rain attenuation is “static” meaning that the modeling parameters of the ground stations are referenced to the longitude of the space segment. This, however, does not optimize the goal of reducing the slant-path, increasing the elevation angle and consequently reducing the rain attenuation efficiently. In this paper, rain attenuation is calculated using Modified ITU-R rain attenuation model. The outputs of the work are used to calculate the rain attenuation and comparison are made with the existing ITU-R model. The result shows that the proposed modified ITU-R model achieves significant improvement in rain attenuation reduction.

Full text: IJEIR-1303_final.pdf