Ground reflection for low elevations at L- and K-band

Obviously, only satellite-based communication systems can supply aircraft with reliable communications in remote airspace. To cope with the rising requirements on data rates, carrier frequencies above 18GHz are considered nowadays. Generally, at these higher frequencies, the effect of ground originated multipath will be less severe due to the spatial discrimination of employed directional antennas. Nevertheless, for satellites seen at low elevation angles, ground originated multipath will superpose the direct signal. Therefore, investigations into the ground reflected signals at L- and K-band are performed and described in this paper. Measurements were performed for water, meadow, ice, dry and irrigated concrete surfaces. Finally, we provide the right hand circular polarized (RHCP) Fresnel reflection coefficient at L-band while for K-band, we provide the RHCP and left hand circular polarized (LHCP) Fresnel reflection coeffient.