Photogrammetric satellite service prediction in a roadside tree shadowing environment

The photogrammetric satellite service prediction method is an efficient way to predict the signal fading for land mobile satellite service (LMSS) and low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite personal communications system (S-PCS) in typical mobile user environments. Most of the work so far has been applied to urban areas, where satellite-Earth paths are either clear or blocked by building, mountains or other solid objects. To validate the feasibility of using photogrammetric satellite service prediction method in predominantly rural environments, where paths are either clear or shadowed by trees, a series of environmental pictures has been taken near Ottawa, Canada in 1995 and used to generate simulated fading time series for that environment. The photogrammetrically derived propagation statistics are compared with measurements taken along the same roads in 1982 and 1983. Our results show that the satellite service prediction method gives a good prediction of fading in the shadowed environment.