A Model-Chain to Generate Q/V Band Attenuation Time Series from Short-Term Numerical Weather Predictions at Continental Scale

To minimize the impact of propagation impairments occurring at Ka-band and beyond, satellite communication systems operating at such high frequencies require the implementation of adaptive fade mitigation techniques (FMTs). As beacon measurements are rarely available (especially with the spatial distribution and the time resolution required by FMTs), time series generators represent a key tool for the design stage of such systems. This paper proposes a novel three-module model chain to generate time series of rain attenuation. The first module is a Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model that forecasts meteorological parameters across a continental grid with 9 km × 9 km and 15-min resolution in space and time, respectively. The NWP model outputs feed a radiopropagation model, which produces time series of the attenuation components (gas, clouds and rain). Finally, the rain attenuation is generated ex-novo at a 1-sec sampling rate, by taking advantage of the multisite time-series synthesizer (MTS). Each step of the process is validated against measurements covering a 28-day period.