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Radio Wave Propagation

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5 views15 pages

Radio Wave Propagation

Uploaded by

1si21ec050
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Radio wave propagation

Radio wave propagation


• Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves when they
are transmitted, or propagated from one point on the Earth to
another, or into various parts of the atmosphere.

• Radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection,


refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization and scattering.
ATMOSPHERIC LOSSES
• Multiple losses occur due to the Earth‟s atmosphere.
• Losses maybe because of the adverse weather conditions or
because of the energy absorption done by the various gases
present in the atmosphere.
• Weather related losses are called “atmospheric attenuation”.
Absorption losses are called “atmospheric absorption”.
• At various frequencies, different components of atmosphere
cause impairments to the radio wave signals.
• Example: water vapour at 22.3 GHz and oxygen (O2) at60 GHz
• Formula for absorption loss is:
[AA] = [AA]90 cosec θ ,Where θ is the elevation angle , [AA]90 is
the absorption loss in decibels at an elevation angle of 90o at the
earth station.
• A fading phenomenon, which causes the radio waves to focus
and defocus because of the differences in the atmospheric
refraction index is called “atmospheric scintillation”.
Figure 4.1: Layers of Earth’s atmosphere
94
IONOSPHERE EFFECT
• Ionosphere is one of the layers in the Earth‟s atmosphere. It is
situated between 90 kms to 400 kms above the surface of the
Earth. All the communication signals between satellites and
earth stations have to pass through this layer
• This layer contains free electrons which are charged due to
solar radiation. These ions are not uniformly distributed across
the ionosphere, but move together across the ionosphere in
clusters.
• Such clusters are called clouds of electrons or “travelling
ionosphere disturbances”. When signals pass through such
electron clouds, fluctuations are caused
• Electron clouds are created when accelerated charged
particles disturb stray electrons already floating in the
atmosphere.
• These stray electrons can be photo-electrons from
synchrotron radiation or electrons from ionized gas molecules
and have adverse effect on the signals passing through them
especially if the density of these clouds is high.
• The other effects seen on the signal also includes scintillation,
absorption, propagation delay, dispersion, and
frequencychange and polarization rotation.
• These effects decrease as the frequency increases.
Absorption
• Electromagnetic waves are absorbed in the atmosphere
according to wavelength. Two compounds are responsible for
the majority of signal absorption: oxygen (O2) and
water(H2o).
• It is seen for frequencies at 22 GHz due to water, and at 63
GHz due to oxygen. The concrete amount of water vapour and
oxygen in the atmosphere normally declines with an increase
in altitude because of the decrease in pressure.
• Propagation Delay
• Propagation delay is the time required for a signal to travel from the
sender to the receiver measured in microsecond
• For satellites using geostationary orbits, the round trip from the
ground to the satellite and back can be of the order of a quarter of a
second.
• Dispersion: Here the signals are distributed over a wide area
• Scintillation: it is the variation in the amplitude, phase, polarization,
angle of arrival of radio waves. They are caused by the irregularities
in the ionosphere which change with time.
• The major effect of Ionosphere scintillation is the fading of signal
which may last for several minutes.
• Fading of signal is the major effect o ionosphere scintillation. The effect of
fading can sometimes be very severe and may last upto several minutes.
• RAIN ATTENUATION
• The rate at which the rain water would get accumulated in a
rain gauge in the area of interest is called rain rate. Rain
attenuation is a function of rain rate. It is calculated in
percentage time.
• Example: Rain rate of 0.001 percent means the rain rate
would exceed by 0.001 percent of a year and it is be denoted
as R0.001.
• Percentage time is denoted as p and rain rate as Rp
• Specific attenuation α is given by:
α = a Rb dB/km Where a and b depend upon frequency and
polarization.
• Total attenuation, denoted by A is given by:
A = α L dB Where L is the effective path length of the signal
through rain.
Path length through rain

Here, Ls -> Slant Height and it depends upon


the antenna angle of elevation θ and rain
height.
hR -> Rain Height at which freezing occurs.
LG -> Horizontal projection of Ls
Thus effective path length L is given by:
L = Ls rp
Where rpis the reduction factor of percentage
time p andLG
That is; LG = Lscos El
Other impairments:
• Due to the low water content in them, rain, ice and
hail have a little effect on attenuation. Attenuation
can be caused by clouds but generally its effect is
comparatively low

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