Analysis of Tropical Attenuation Statistics using Synthetic Storm for Millimeter-Wave Wireless Network Design

H. Mahmudah1,2, A. Wijayanti1,2, A. Mauludiyanto1, G. Hendrantoro1, A. Matsushima3 Department of Electrical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Kampus ITS Sukolilo, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia, Email: gamantyo@ee.its.ac.id Electronics Engineering Polytechnic Institute of Surabaya-ITS Kampus ITS, Keputih-Sukolilo, Surabaya-60111, Indonesia, Email: haniah@eepis-its.edu, ariw@eepis-its.edu Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Kumamoto University 2-39-1 Kurokami, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan, Email: matsua@cs.kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Abstract Results of rain attenuation statistics measurement in Surabaya using an optical disdrometer is reported. Rain attenuation statistic obtained simulation of the synthetic storm technique applied to the rain rate time series measurements closely with results obtained from ITUR P.530-10 for outage probabilities 0.01-0.1%. For an outage probabilities less than 0.01 % that predicted by SST have large rain attenuation than ITU-R P.530-10. The simulation results show that the incident direction of storm velocity and the assumption link location, influence rain attenuation statistic. Index Terms Rain Attenuation, Synthetic Storm Technique
3 2 1

I. INTRODUCTION Rain attenuation is major factor limiting the reliability of both terrestrial and earth to satellite links operating at frequencies above 10 GHz [1]. Therefore, the statistics of rain attenuation are important for design of terrestrial millimeter-wave communication system. Many studies have been carried out to develop methods for prediction of rain attenuation according to data point rain rates. The Synthetic Storm Technique (SST) generates rain attenuation statistics using magnitude and direction of storm translation velocity to convert time records of point rain rates to spatial distribution along the path. Kannellopolous and Kafetzis have reported predicting rain attenuation single links on terrestrial paths using SST in Athens [2]. Fontan et all reported that synthesized rain rate time-series converted into attenuation using synthetic storm technique at 40 GHz satellite link measured in Wessling [3]. Kannellopolous et al have reported long term simulated annual/seasonal and diurnal rain attenuation statistics on 12 GHz for hypothetical satellite links [4]. The high-order statistics of rain attenuation, such as fade slope statistics, fade duration statistics, rain frequency scaling factor and site diversity gain, can be

useful for the design of control algorithm for Fade Mitigation Techniques (FMT) that are required to compensate attenuation [5]. In addition, the rain attenuation generated through SST simulation was successfully used to calculate the long term rain attenuation exceedance probability distributions, both annual and diurnal and long term statistic and probabilities of service interruption useful to assess the quality and unavailability [6]. This paper presents the simulation results for calculating rain attenuation statistics exceedance probability using synthetic storm technique. Rain rates are measured by an optic disdrometer on the building of Electrical Engineering Department in ITS Surabaya (713' S, 11243' E). The region is characterized by heavy tropical rainfall, especially in the November-March period. The point rain rates are converted into rain attenuation along a hypothetical path using magnitude and direction of wind velocity obtained from the weather office in Surabaya. We look at structures of single links with various orientations. We assumed that the first link location is oriented East-West. The other links are respectively angularly shifted by 450, 900, 1350 and 1800 with respect to the first link. The length of each link is 1-3 km. The results of SST prediction are compared with ITU-R P.530-10 recommendation [7]. II. SYNTHETIC STORM TECHNIQUE The calculation of SST uses the average wind velocity (v) and direction of the velocity (). The links configuration is shown in Fig.1.
North Storm (v, )

L1 East

LN

Fig.1.

System configuration of links

978-1-4244-1980-7/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE.

In the figure, LN are the length of the N-th link shifted by angle counter clockwise from the East. The magnitude of storm velocity must consider location of link and direction of storm. The storm incident direction have input angle , and magnitude of storm velocity (v). Then the storm velocity along any link can be given as follow

Location Link 00 Link 450 Link 900 Link 1350 Link 1800

vr =

v cos 90 0

(1)

( (

))

Table 1. Number of sample SST Number of rain attenuation 1 km 2 km 3 km 5685 6080 6465 5533 5804 6074 5314 5421 5526 5584 5915 6243 5685 6080 6465

Probability[Rain Attenuation > absis](%)

Where v is the storm velocity, is the storm incident direction and is the angular separation of links. The parameter of measurement are time sampling of disdrometer, magnitude and direction of storm velocity which is used for calculating unit cell distance along the path as follows [2]

10

SST 0o SST 45o 10

0

SST 90o SST 135o SST 180o ITU-R

L = v r .T

(2)

10

-1

where T is the sampling time of disdrometer. We can calculate the rain attenuation of each link given by [2]

10

-2

A(n) = aR(bn m ) Lm
m =0

N 1

(3)
10
-3

10

20

30

40 50 60 Rain Attenuation (dB)

70

80

90

where a and b are the constants given from ITU-R.P.838 recommendation for 30 GHz vertically polarized radio waves [8]. III. MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS

Fig.2.

Complementary cumulative distribution of rain attenuation at 1 km

The results of SST are compared with prediction based on ITU-R P.530-10 recommendation using rain rate measurements in Surabaya, Indonesia [7]. B. Analysis The result of SST for links with angular shift from 00 to 1800 can be compared with ITU-R P.530-10. Figure 2 show that the outage probabilities between 0.1% and 0.01% we obtain rain attenuation from SST close with rain attenuation in ITU-R P.530-10. For outage probabilities less than 0.01%, the SST has large rain attenuation than ITU-R P.530-10. The rain attenuation from SST for angular separation links 00 and 1800 has the same rain attenuation. On the other hand the links with angular separation 450 and 1350 have rain attenuation very close, and for an angular separation 900 the rain attenuation are larger than the others. Similar calculation was done for rain attenuation using SST compared with ITU-R P.530-10 for link lengths 2 km and 3 km shown in Figure 3 and 4 respectively. Fig.3 and 4 displays that outage probabilities less than 0.01 % where SST have large rain attenuation than ITU-R P.530-10.

A . Measurement System The measurement system includes an optic disdrometer Parsivel connected to the PC. The rain rates data obtained from the disdrometer present statistics reliable set of rain rate time series (rain events) recorded at Electrical Engineering Department in ITS, Surabaya. Rain rates measured from December 2006 until March 2007. The wind velocity measurements are obtained from a weather office in Surabaya. The disdrometer is located within the zone of high spatial correlation of wind measurements, which is 15 km around the weather office [9], which justifies the use of wind velocity measurements in our SST study. For this study, daily average of magnitude and incident direction of storm velocity is used. The rain attenuation along the links calculated event by event. The number of sample data rain attenuation shown in Table 1.

10

10

SST 0o SST 45o Probability[Rain Attenuation > absis](%) 10

0

SST East-West SST North-South

Probability[Rain Attenuation > absis](%)

SST 90o SST 135o SST 180o ITU-R

10

10

-1

10

-1

10

-2

10

-2

10

-3

20

40

60 80 100 Rain Attenuation (dB)

120

140

160

10

-3

50

100 150 Rain Attenuation (dB)

200

Fig.3.

Complementary cumulative distribution of rain attenuation at 2 km

Fig.5.

Complementary cumulative distribution of rain attenuation with location link at East and North

Table 2. Outage probability of rain attenuation 0.01 %

10
1

SST 0o SST 45o

Location Link 00 Link 450 Link 900 Link 1350 Link 1800 1 km 23 23.10 24.25 23.60 23.47

Probability[Rain Attenuation > absis](%)

10

SST 90o SST 135o SST 180o ITU-R

10

-1

Rain Attenuation (dB) 2 km 45.57 43.58 47.32 44.30 45.56

3km 61.65 61.85 66.7 62.05 61.67

10

-2

IV. DISCUSSIONS The results of rain attenuation using SST at outage probabilities 0.01 % availability closely with ITUR P.530-10, and for outage probabilities less than 0.01 % the SST have large rain attenuation than ITU-R P.530-10. Because the calculation of rain attenuation applying SST uses rain rates time series and ITU-R uses rain rates distribution with 0.01% that is converted become attenuation along path. Therefore, in designing millimeter-wave communication systems, we suggest SST for calculating rain attenuation because it can be used in a more accurate system evaluation, which in turn will yield more reliable systems. Rain attenuation is also influenced by length of the link. Fig. 2-4 show that rain attenuation increases when the length of link increases. The calculation of rain attenuation applying SST must consider incident direction of storm velocity and assumption of oriented link location. The simulation result shows the North-South oriented links undergo larger attenuation, because incident direction of velocity storm is mostly on the EastWest direction (Fig.5). The simulation shows that tropical region has high rain attenuation, posing a great challenge in

10

-3

50

100 150 Rain Attenuation (dB)

200

Fig.4.

Complementary cumulative distribution of rain attenuation at 3 km

Figure 5 show that the link location and incident direction of velocity storm influence the statistics of rain attenuation. In this case, we assume the reference link is oriented East-West and the other is oriented North-South when mostly incident direction of velocity storm from East and West then outage probabilities less then 0.01%, links location at the North have large rain attenuation than location link at East. For outage probabilities greater than 0.01%, location link at North and at East have the same rain attenuation. Table 2 shows that for link lengths of 1-3 km for outage probability of 0.01%, SST yields large rain attenuation for link located at angular shift of 900. Increasing length of link will also result in an increase of rain attenuation increase.

designing a reliable system. This problem can be solved by mitigation techniques. One of the mitigation techniques is site-diversity which uses more than one link simultaneously. Site diversity can apply estimation SST any links, because it considers temporal characteristic rain rates, velocity and incident wind direction for estimating rain attenuation. The SST prediction also gives a larger fade margin than ITU-R.P530-10 prediction, and hence, provides protection against a worse scenario. Fig.4 shows that the value of fade margin given by SST compared with ITU-R prediction for outage probability 0.01% is 7 dB. V. CONCLUSIONS The estimation of rain attenuation applying SST considers temporal characteristics of rain rates, velocity and direction of incident wind. The results suggest more accurate prediction than that from ITU-R P530-10. In addition, SST provides an evaluation for a worse scenario than the ITU-R method, and hence is more recommended for use in the design of millimeter wave communication system for tropical region. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The reported work is supported in part by JICA through the PREDICT-ITS Project and by the Indonesian Ministry of National Education through Fundamental Research Grant No. 037/SP2H/PP/DP2M/III/2007.

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