Statistics of Terrestrial Fixed Service Interference in the Aeronautical SATCOM Channel

The increasing demand for in-flight connectivity via satellite communications and the use of unmanned aircraft beyond line of sight pose the requirement for additional allocations in the non-exclusive Ka band satellite spectrum. This is to be decided by the International Telecommunications Union at the World Radio Conference 2019. With the terrestrial fixed service being the dominant interference source of the incumbent radio services in the Ka band satellite downlink, we simulate radio frequency interference due to emissions from multiple sources into an aeronautical receiver. Based on a specified reference scenario, we provide first order interference statistics for different flight altitudes. To this end, we approximate the sample probability density distributions of exhaustive interference scenario simulations using a log skew normal distribution to provide an analytical expression of probabilities for frequency coordination and system design.