1308
9, SEPTEMBER 1975
[71] A. Jones, Protection in programmed systems, Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973. (11-E, SFR)
[72] J. Morris, Protection in programming languages, Commun.
ACM,vol. 16, pp. 15-21, Jan. 1973. (II-E, SFR)
[73] G. Amdahl, G. Blaauw, and F. Brooks, Architecture of the
IBM System/360, IBM J.Res.Dcvelop., VOI. 8, pp. 87-101,
Apr. 1964. (111-A)
[ 7 4 ] IBM Corp., System370/Principles of operation, IBM Corp.
Syst. Ref. Lib. GA22-7000-3, 1973. (111-A)
[75] R. Bisbey, 11, and G. Popek,Encapsulation: An approach to
operating system security, in R o c . ACM 1974 Annu. Conf.,
pp. 666-675. (111-A)
[ 76) Dept. of Defense, Manuol of Techniques curd Procedures f o r Im-
plementing,
Deactivating,Testing,
and Evaluating
Secure
Resource-SharingADP Systems, DOD5200.28-M, Aug. 1972.
(111-A)
[77] R. Graham, Protection in aninformation processing utility,
Commun. ACM, vol. 11, pp. 365-369, May 1968. (111-A)
[ 781 S. Motobayashi, T. Masuda, and N. Takahashi, The Hitac 5020
time-sharing system, in Roc. ACM 24th Not. Conf., pp. 419-
429, 1969. (111-A)
[79] M. Spier, T. Hastings, and D. Cutler, An experimental imple-
mentation of the kernel/domain architecture, ACM Operating
Syst. Rev., vol. 7, pp. 8-21, Oct. 1973. (111-A)
[ S O ] M.I.T. Proj. MAC, Computer systemsresearch, in Project
MAC Progress Report XI: July I973 to June 1974, pp. 155-
183. (111-B)
[ S l ] E. Burke, Synthesis of asoftwaresecuritysystem, in Proc.
ACM 1974 Annu. Conf., pp. 648-650. (111-B)
[82] W. Schiller, Design ofasecurity kernel for the PDP-11/45,
Air Force Elec. Syst. Div. Rep. ESD-TR-73-294, Dec. 1973.
(IIi-B, SFR)
[83] L. Molho, Hardware aspectsof secure computing, in 1970
SJCC,AFIPS Conf. Proc., vol. 36, pp. 135-141. (111-B, SFR)
[ 8 4 ] R. Fabry, Dynamic verification of operating system decisions,
Commun. ACM, vol. 16, pp. 659-668, Nov. 1973. (111-B, SFR)
[ 851 C. Shannon, Communication theory of secrecy systems, Bell
Syst. Tech. J., vol. 28, pp. 656-715, Oct. 1949. (111-B)
The Role of Rain in Satellite Communications
Abtrrrct-The most fundamental obstacle encountered in design of
satellite communication systems at frequencies above 10 GHz is attenua-
tion by rain. zhe m i c r o w e power radiated toward an earth station,
being limited by factors such as availableprimary power and size of
antennr on the satellite, is insufticient,with present technology, to
memnne the large attenuation produced by intense rain cells on the
earthapace path. me d t a n t loss of signal makes for unreliable
trmanission. In what follows, methods of meunrrement of this atten-
uation at vuious trequencies and a technique d ed path diversity that
substantially improves the reliability are presented. Other degradations
produced by rain, such as depolarization,inkderence, mcrease in
earthstation noise, and deterioration of earth-station antenna perfor-
mance, pe also discussed.
I. INTRODUCTION
I N EARLY EXPERIMENTS usingmicrowaves for broad-
band transmissionvia satellite, it was quickly recognized
that rain influencedperformance
example,inthe Telstarexperiment
of the system. For
[ 11,in which 4 G H z
Manuscript received February 28, 1975; revised April 12, 1975.
The authors are with Bell Laboratories, Crawford Hill, Holmdel, N.J.
07733.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 63, NO.
[86] S. Lipner, Chm., A panel mion-Security kernels, in 1974
NCC, AFIPS Cons Roc.,vol. 43, pp. 973-980. (111-B, SFR)
(871 R Mathis, am., A panel session-Reaearch in data security-
Policies and projects, in 1974 NCC,AFIPS Con$ hoc.,vol. 43,
pp. 993-999. QII-B, SFR)
[88] Institut de Recherche dInformatique et dAutomatique (IRIA),
Int. Workshop Protection in Operating Systems. Rocquencourt,
France: IRIA, Aug. 1974. (HI-B, SFR)
[89] J. Saltzer, Ongoing research and development on information
protection, ACM Opemting Syst. Rev., vol. 8, pp. 8-24, July
1974. (111-B, SFR)
[ g o ] L. Hoffman, Ed., Security curd pnvocyin Computer Systems.
Los Angela, Calif.: Melville Pub. Co., 1973. (SFR)
[ 91 ] C. W. Beardsley, Is your computer insecure? IEEE S p e c m m ,
V O ~ .9, pp. 67-78, Jan. 1972. (SFR)
[ 9 2 ] D. Parker, S. Nycom, and S. Oura, Computer abuse, Stanford
Res. Inst., Proj. ISU 2501, Nov. 1973. (SFR)
[93] D. Kahn, The Codebreakers. New York: Mamillan, 1967.
(SFR)
[94] G. Mellen, Cryptology, computers,and common sense, in
1973 NCC,AFIPS Conf. Roc.,vol. 42, pp. 569-579. (SFR)
[ 9 5 ] J. Anderson,Computersecuritytechnologyplanning study,
Air Force Elec. Syst. Div. Rep. ESD-TR-73-51, Oct.1972.
(SFR)
[ 961 W. Ware et al.,Security controls for computer systems, Rand
Corp. Tech. Rep. R-609, 1970. (Classified confidential.) (SFR)
[97] R. Anderson and E.Fa!ylund, Privacy and the computer: An
annotated bibliography, ACM Comput. Rev., vol. 13, pp. 551-
559, Nov. 1972. (SFR)
[ 9 8 ] I. Bergart, M. Denicoff, and D. Hsiao, An annotated and cross-
referenced bibliography on computer security and access con-
trol in computer systems,Ohio State Univ., Computerand
Information Science Res. Center Rep. OSUCISRC-T072-12,
1972. (SFR)
I991 S. Reed and M. Gray,Controlled accessibility bibliography,
Nat. Bur. Stand. Tech. Note 780, June 1973. (SFR)
[ 1001 J. Scherf, Computer and data base security: A comprehensive
annotated bibliography, M.I.T. Proj. MAC Tech. Rep. TR-122,
Jan. 1974. (SFR)
signals fromthe satellite werereceived with sensitive maser
amplifiers [ 21 , it was found that the level of noise increased
significantly when it was raining in the vicinity of the receiving
station. This increasestemmedprimarilyfrom two sources:
blackbody radiation from the raindrops in the sky [ 31, and
emission and reflection from water layers that formed on the
radomes used to protectthe earth-stationantennas [ 4 ] . It
wasalsoobserved thatinterfering signals could entersuch
systems by way of scattering from the raindrops [ 5 1 . We now
know that a l l of these effects can be explained by theories of
electromagnetic wave interactionwithliquidwaterinits
various forms. All of these theories rely upon knowledge of
the basicmicrowave properties of liquidwater,firststudied
in depth by Saxton
(refractive)andimaginary
[61. Best estimates [61,[71 of the real
(dissipative) components of the
refractiveindex of waterareshownin Fig. 1 for the wave-
lengthrange1 mm to 10 cm.Thecorrespondingfrequency
scale, 300 to 3 GHz, is shown on the upper abscissa. The
curves areatypicallossdispersion pair representinga reso-
nance in the liquid water at a wavelength of about 1 cm (30
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1309

FREOUENCY -GHz

9
300 loo X) x) 10 5 3
..
8 3

n6 2 n'

5
FCG OF WATER
D E h S ' T Y O.lgmlm3
4 I

bPPROX. ATTEN IN dSlkrn

FOR RAIN R I T E ZSrnmlhr

0I 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.6 0.8 I 2 3 4 6 810

-
WAVELENGTH CM ATTENUATION Dl,i T D WATER IN
VbA16US F 0 R " S . A S FUNCTION
Fig. 1. Refractive index of watarat 20C; n and n' are the realand OF FR<UJ;NCY
imaginary components, representing the refractivity and heat loss
respectively; - [ a ] and - - - [ 7 ] are best estimates based on
measurements. Z t /
L / .2
GHz). This absorption by the liquid should not be confused
10'0
<
4
<
6
I
IO"
I

2
I

4
t

6
I I
lClZ 2
I

4 6
FREQUENCY -
, I

nz
I

2
,
4 6
I I
IO" 2 4 6 IO1'

Fig. 2. Comparison of attenuation by water in various forms; the inte-

with absorption by water in gaseous form (water vapor) which
will be mentioned later on.
Satellite communication systems utilizing the 4 and 6 GHz
common carrier bands are now fairly commonplace. Provided
suitable care is taken with the quality of earth station antennas
and selection of the sites to avoid interference with terrestrial
systems sharing the same frequency bands (discussed in Sec-
tion VII), further expansion may take place. However, satura-
tion at these frequencies will eventually occur. Moreover, the
bandwidth allocated to these systems is 500 MHz which may
soon be exhausted by increasing demands for telephone, tele-
vision and data traffic. To overcomethissaturation, the use
of higher frequency bandswas proposed [ 81 and new common
carrierbands,mure than 2 GHz wide, were subsequently
allocated at 19 and 29 GHz. Unfortunately, it turns out that
rain becomesamuchmoreserious factorat thesehigher
frequencies than at 4 and 6 GHz and recently there have been
several international meetings on the subject [9] -[ 111. The
thrust of this paper is to present a background of the research
in propagation through rain that has pointed the way toward
practical design of higher frequency systems[ 121 .
Before getting into the details of the various effects of rain
on propagation, there are four statements that should be made
regarding snow,fog,thetroposphere,andtheionosphere.
When water is frozen, as in the caseof particlesinmany
clouds, Fig. 1 no longerappliesand the corresponding loss
resonanceappears at much longer wavelengths [7]. The net
result is that iceanddrysnowexhibit very low loss in the
microwave band,and,therefore, we will not considerthem
further in this discussion. On the other hand,fog is, of course,
comprised of small drops of liquid; but the density of liquid
water in a heavy fog [ 131 is less than one-twentieth that of a
heavy rain so the attenuations encountered are small and will
beneglected here. Another propagation effect, very familiar
to thoseconcernedwithterrestrial radio-relay systems, is
signal fading caused bylayersand otheraberrations of the
refractivity profile of the troposphere. These attenuations of
the signal occur on microwave beams that are essentially hori-
zontal,therebyinteracting at near-grazingangles with the
layers. But for typical earth-satellite paths at elevation angles
of more than a fewdegrees, this type of fading [ 141 is not
troublesome and will not be discussed in detail, nor will the
relatively small scintillations that are also created by nonuni-
grated thickness of water on the transmission path is 1 mm in all cases.
form refractivity. Earth-satellite paths operating at the lower
frequencies in the microwave band, e.g., 4 GHz, are subject to
some rotation of polarization by the ionospherevia the Faraday
effect, and some signal variations [ 151. The latter are most
prominent at earth stations located near the equator; but it is
believed that the ionosphere will have negligible effect on the
higher frequency systems thatare our main concern here.
It is both interesting and instructive to compare our familiar
visual experiencesduring rain andfogwith the microwave
properties. For example, the visibility in a heavyrainis not
nearlyas restricted as infog [ 131, whereas,as mentioned
above, the liquid-water content is considerablylower in the
fog and it attenuates microwaves much less than does rain. A
direct comparison can be made by plotting the attenuation as
a function of frequencyfor a given amount of integrated
liquidwater on a path. Fig. 2 l shows the attenuation prop-
erties of water in three forms, where the total amountof water
involved in each case is 1 mm. On the abscissa, the frequency
runsfrom 10" Hz in the microwaveband to beyondthe
opticalbandat 6 X 1014Hz. The curvewith the multiple
resonances is absorption by liquid water in the form of a slab
1 mm thick. The absorption is about 4 dB at 10 GHz and in-
creases rapidly with frequency in the infrared region. On the
other hand, at optical frequencies the loss in the slab of water
is less than 0.1 dB. This plot does not take into account re-
flection at thesurfaces of the layer, butis useful as a reference.
The other two plots are attenuation of a 25 mm/h rain(of
content 1 g/m3) over a 1-km path and of 0. l g / m 3 fog over a
10-km path; in both cases the liquid water integrated along the
path is equal to the thickness of the slab,1mm. Over the
microwave band,theattenuation is considerablygreater for
the rain than for the fog, but in the visible band, the reverse
is true. This behavior arises because the water is absorptive
inthe microwavebandwhereas at visible wavelengths the
absorption is negligible and the attenuation is caused by scat-
tering; the latter isinversely proportional to the size of the
drops. It is of interest that water in the form of a slab pro-
'The rain attenuation decreasesrapidly below 10 GHz. The curves
for rainand fog in Fig. 2 w ialmost coalesce at frequencies below
l
l
1 GHz.
1310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

ducesmuchhigher microwave attenuationthanthe same

amount of water in other forms. This behavior is an important
consideration in antenna design, as discussed in Section VIII.
Much of our understanding of the fundamentals of micro-
wave propagation through rain stems from measurements on
terrestrialpaths.Thesegment of thisinformationthat is
useful in understanding the earth-space transmission problem
is therefore reviewed first. Of primeimportance is the reli-
ability of the transmission, as determined by the attenuation
produced by rain. Preservation of polarization is also impor-
tant since it relates to frequency reuse in an orthogonal mode;
designs such as theATTComsat domesticsystemare based
on utilization of both polarizations. Methods of measurement
A 1 8 . 5 GHz
of transmission onearthspacepaths and typicalmeasured
data are discussed inSection 111. Ingeographicalareas that
experience heavy rain rather often, it is found that reliability
of transmission on a single path is insufficient to meet the
objectives of highly reliable communication systems; experi-
3
ments using pathdiversity, technique
a whichimproves RAINRATE IN MMlHR
reliabilityconsiderably,are discussed insomedetailin Sec-
Fig. 3. The solid curves are computed attenuation as a function of rain
tion IV. Thequestions of extrapolation of measuredrain rate and ftequency; approximate linear equations are given; dotted
attenuationtoother frequenciesand of the influence of linea are linear extrapolations.
scattering by rain on interference and frequency sharing be-
tween systems are also addressed. Since rain water on antenna
structures degrades performance, wegive a brief resume of
those effects.

11. THEORY AND FOR TERRESTRIALPATHS

EXPERIMENT
A . Calculated Attenuation and Comparison with Observations ,,+ +/

Rain increases the noise temperature of a low-noise receiving

system, as mentioned earlier, but at frequencies above 10 GHz
the rainattenuation perse becomesamajorfactor in the
design of a radio system. Calculation of attenuation by rain
will be briefly summarized.
The decrease in the magnitude S of the Poynting vector in
passing through a precipitation layer of thickness A1 is
OD

- A S = SA1 n(a)Q(a,X) da (1)

where Q(a, X) is theextinctioncrosssection(squarecenti-

meter) of a spherical raindrop with radius a (centimeter) and
n(a) da is the number of drops per unit volume (cubic meter)
in range da. Integrating (1) yields

S = So exp (-5. dl) (2)

rainfall rate,rnrn/h
Fig. 4. Attenuation as a function of rainfall ratemeasured for ten
-
showers during the summer of 1971 at Slough, England; - - best-fit
curve - theuleztal curve. (Courtesy of HerMajestys Stationery
where Offlce, U.K.)

a =Im n(a)Q(a, X) da. (3)

aid of modem computers.Recently bothattenuation and
phase delay through rain have been calculated for centimeter
andmillimeter wavelengths [ 201, [21] ; thesedataarepre-
The attenuation in decibels per kilometer is simply 0.434 a sented in Fig. 3 for several frequencies of interest in common
with the parameters given in the above indicated units. carrierradiosystems.The attenuation increasessisnificantly
The extinction cross sections Q can be calculated using Mies with both frequency and rain rate.
scatteringsolutionforspheres [ 161 andSaxtonsmeasured Using rapidqesponserain gauges, theoreticalpredictions
liquid-waterrefractiveindices (Fig. 1).In theattenuation based upon summing the Mie solution over the Laws and
calculation,
measured dropterminal
velocities [ 171
and Parsons dropsizedistributions have shown agreementwith
measured dropsize distributions, often the Laws and Parsons attenuation over short terrestrialpaths. An example of this
distribution [ 171, are used. During World War I1 Ryde and agreement at 35 GHz measured [ 221 over a short path,448 m,
Ryde [ 181 carried out calculations of microwave rain attenua- is given in F i g . 4. However, some comparisons show that the
tion; these have since been extended by others [ 191 with the measured attenuation can be considerablyhigherthan the
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1311

calculatedvalue;such discrepanciescan
be
explained as 1 NEWORLEANS, LA.
follows. When a rain shower misses rain gauges distributed 2 MEMPHIS, TENN.
over a path, the apparent path-average rain rate is lower than 3 NEWARK, N. J.
4 P O R T L A N D , ORE.
the true value. Also, the slow response of some raingauges 5 S A LLTA K C
EITY, UTAH
may miss the peak rain rate whereas the recorded peak atten-
uation is taken as the measuredpoint.? Furthermore, owing
to theoblate shapeof many of the large raindrops, horizontally
polarized waves suffer greater attenuation than that calculated
for sphericalraindrops (see Section 1142). Sometimesthe
updraftphenomenon [23] ina rain stormcanexplainab-
normally high attenuation for relatively low rain rates on the
ground.Inhomogeneity of the rain over along path causes
considerable scatter in the data and leads to uncertainty when
measured and calculated values are compared.
Neglect of multiple scattering effects along the path is often
suspected [ 191, [ 241 as a possible source of error in predic-
tion of rain attenuation. However, scattering by a raindrop at
microwave frequencies is essentiallyisotropic,andnearfor-
ward scattering contributes very little to a receiving antenna
withanarrowbeam.It is implicit in (2) thattheincident
wave at each layer of precipitation takes into account atten-
uation by preceding layers, therefore, the bulk of the multiple 20 60 100 140 180
scattering effects are included in (2). One also notes that the R A I NR A T E IN MM/HR
liquidwaterdensity for a heavy rain of 100 mm/h is only Fig. 5. One-minute rain rate distributionsforafive yearperiod
about 4 g/m3, whichcorresponds to an averagespacingof (1966-1970) measured at several locations in the U.S.
about 10 cm betweendrops of theorder 1-mm radius. The 4 0.4
rain medium is simply not as dense as intuitive vision might v)
v,
0
suggest. Therefore, the simple summationin (3) of the lost In
m
power, extracted in absorption and scattering by each isolated a
In
drop, over atypicaldropsizedistribution, will predictthe a
W
average rain attenuation for a given rain rate. W
0
X
The rain-fading data needed for design of a radio communi- W

cationsystem is best determinedbymeasuringtheattenua- z

0 0.04
I-
tion statistics for the given frequency,geographicallocation a
3
and path length. Since acquisition of such data is costly and t
w CALCULATED FROM
I-
timeconsuming, it is obviously desirable to extrapolateany 5 4968 POINT RAIN
RATE STATISTICS
available attenuation statistics to other frequencies, locations W

and path lengths. In addition to the capability for calculating 1

c
the attenuation, a systematic prediction procedure needs the LL
0
measuredpointrain-ratestatistics of variouslocations. The 5 0.004 -
measured data for several locations are shown in Fig. 5 [ 2 1] . W
0
a
\
The dependence of attenuation upon path length will be dis- 0.0005 I I I 1 1 1 1
cussed in the next section. Let us now demonstrate the feasi- 0 -10 -20 -30 -*O -50 -80
bility of predicting attenuation statistics. 30.9 GHz ATTEMJATION (dB)
An example [25] of measured attenuation data is given in Fig. 6. Percentageof-time distributions of 30.9GHz attenuation mea-
Fig. 6wherepercent-of-timedistributionsareplotted (as sured over a 1.9-km path for 1968 and 1969; -calculated attenua-
tion from point rain rate distribution of 1968.
dashed curves) for 30.9 GHz over a path length of 1.9 km at
Holmdel, N.J., during 1968 and1969.Sincemost of the Sincerain attenuationstatisticsatlower microwave fre-
heavy showers usually occurin the summer months,the quencies for an earth-satellite path can be obtained by radio-
probability of a given attenuation in the worst month may be meter measurements as shown later, it is especially interesting
about five times that of the yearly distribution. For compari- to examine extrapolation of lower frequency data to higher
son with measured attenuation statistics, we have also plotted frequencies where a saturation problem curtails the usefulness
in Fig. 6a solid curve predictedbycalculatingattenuation of radiometers (see Section 111-B). The frequency extrapola-
from the measured point rain rate distribution. The agreement tiontechnique was firstchecked on a short terrestrial path
in thiscomparisonshows thattheattenuationstatisticsfor (2.6 km) where 18.5- and 30.9GHz attenuations weremea-
short transmission hops may be estimated from the measured suredsimultaneously1261. In Fig. 7(a), theratios of 30.9
point rain-ratedistributions.Thediscrepancybetweenthe to 18.5GHz measured attenuations are plotted versus the
measured and calculated curves often becomes larger at higher totalpathattenuationat 30.9GHz; the dashedline is the
attenuation values or over longer paths where rain cell sizes theoretical ratio obtained using the Laws and Parsons drop-
may be smaller than the pathlength. size distribution.Thetheoreticalratiosrepresentthebody
of the data rather well, especially for attenuations exceeding
'Rain on antenna weather covers or radomes (see Section VIII) can 10 dB at 30.9CHz. Atlowerattenuation values, much of
also bias measured attenuations on the high side. the
scatter in the measured instantaneous
ratios was found
1312 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

Q
ln
ln
- I 0 . G 0.
01
m
6
v)
0
W
W
0
X
W
2
P
t-
a
a .O
2
W
E
Q
y .oo
8
I-
LL
0
lo I-
2
W
0
a
Y
.oc
IS
25 20 30 '5
60 GHz ATTENUATION - d B

Fig. 8. Cumulative distribution of 6OGHz attenuationby rain mea-

sured for one year on a l - k m path compared with calculation using
measured point rain rate.
1.6 I I I I 1 I
0 5 x) 25 15 20 30
dB (18.5-GHZ ATTEWATON-2.6-km PATH)

(b)
Fig. 7. (a) Ratio of 30.9 to 18.5-GHz attenuation versus the total path
attenuation at 30.9 GHz;the dashedcurve is the theoreticalratio
using Laws andParsonsraindrop-size distributions. Thelarge dots
and the crosses are data from two particular storms believed to have
special drop-size characteristics. (b) The ratio of measured attenua-
tions taken at the same percent of time from the 30.9- and 18.56Hz
cumulative distributions, plotted as circles, versus the 18.5-GHz total
path attenuation; the solid curve is the theoretical ratio using Laws
and Parsons drop-size distriiutions.

to be caused by two particular storms indicated by dots and

crosses, with anomalous drop-size distributions. When the IO 20 30 40 50 60

percent of timedistributions were obtainedfor 18.5 and -

PATH LENGTH K m

30.9 GHz attenuations, the ratios of 30.9 to 18.5 GHz atten-
uationtakenat given percent of time levels showalmost
perfect agreement with the theoretical ratios as indicated in
Fig. 7(b). A methodforextrapolatingdataobtained on
earth-space paths is discussed in Section VI.
B. Dependence of Attenuation on Path Length
Where short path lengths of the order 1 km are involved, the
path attenuation is directly proportional to the path length,
even for very high rainrates. Theattenuation behaves that
way because the diameter of the cells is generally larger than
the length of the path, and in such cases the percent-of-time
distribution of attenuation can be determined fromthe
cumulativedistribution of rainratemeasured atapoint, as
discussed in the previous section. A further example of that
behavior is givenby measurements of 6 0 6 H z attenuation
1271, made for one year over a onekm path at Holmdel, N.J.;
thesearecomparedwithattenuationcalculatedfrompoint
rainrates measured for the same period with a rapid response
rain gauge at the same location [ 2 1] . As shown in Fig. 8, the
comparison is favorable to at least the35dB attenuation level.
Note also thatthedistributionin Fig. 8 is approximately
exponential.
However, theportion of anearth-satellitepaththat may
encounter rain is much longer than 1 km. For example, rain
can originate at altitudes of more than 10 km in the tropos-
Fig. 9. -.measured 1 lCHz attenuationsexceeded 0.01 percent of
the time on fwe paths in England during 1964;see text for description
of curve.
phere3 as has been determined by weather-radarstudies.
Therefore, if we assume that the elevation angle of an antenna
beam looking from some earth station toward a satellite is 30,
the path length upon which a rain cell may appear is about
20 km, andintenseshowers, being of limitedextent [29],
occupy only a fraction of that length. It is because of this
limited cellsize thatpathdiversity,atechnique discussed
in Section I V Y is viable in satellite systems.
Some understanding of the dependence of rain attenuation
on path length can be derived from a set of 1l G H z measure-
ments [ 301 made in England during 1964 on five terrestrial
paths ranging from 24 to 5 8 k m . Fromthe cumulative dis-
tributions of attenuation obtained from each path, the atten-
uation level exceeded for some given amount of time, say 50
min during the year, is determined. The result of that exer-
cise is plotted in Fig. 9. Drawn through the points obtained
from the experiment is a line which is extended by a dashed
curve to zero attenuation at zero path length; for short path
lengths,thedashed curve is essentiallylinear in accordance
withthe discussion in Section 11-A. On theotherhand,
'Thealtitude at which rain originates varies considerably over the
U.S.,being quite high in the central region [ 281.
HOGG A N D C H U : RAIN A N D SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1313

considerablecurvature is required atpath lengths of about

5 km in order to link the two linear portions into a well-
behavedcurve. We believe that this curvature takes place at
path lengths of theorder of thediameter of the rain cell.
Thustherelationshipdoesnotcontinue linearly with the
initialslope to large pathlengths because the cell diameter
becomes smaller than the path length; in this case the atten-
uation is less than would have been anticipated from assuming
point rainrates to beuniform over theentirepath. Similar
nonlinear behavior has also been observed in attenuations
derived from rain-gauge network measurements [ 3 1 1 . That
the cell sizes are relatively small for high rainrates has been
substantiatedinarecentpublicationfromthe U.K. [ 321.
Over atwo-yearperiod, 77 rainshowerswithpeakrates
greater than 20 mm/hexhibited amean l / e width of only 5.0
3 km,but t h i s isnot necessarilyvalid atother geographic
2.5
locations. More is said about effective path lengths on earth-
satellite paths in Section VI.

C. Polarization-Dependent Attenuation and Depolarization

The assumption of spherical raindrop shape used in the Mie
calculation discussed inSection 11-A is onlyafirst-order
approximation. Close examinationbyphotography reveals
that many of the larger drops are better represented by oblate 0.01I
1 10 100
1

spheroids. Theratio of minor to majoraxes of theoblate FREQUENCY (GHz)

spheriodalraindrop, as determinedfromtheexperimental Fig. 10. Rain-induced differentialattenuationbetweenpolarizations I
data [ 331, is approximately a / b = 1 - if where il is the radius and I1 for various rainrates.
(incentimeter) of an equivolumicsphericaldrop.4Oguchi
[34] F i t investigated theeffect of oblateraindropson
microwave propagation using perturbation calculations. Point-
matching procedures [ 351 -[ 371 and improved perturbation
techniques [37] nowprovideextensivenumericalresults for
the scattering of plane electromagnetic waves by oblate
spheroidal raindrops. The rain-induced attenuation and phase
shiftobtainedfromtheforwardscatteringfunctions [38]
S (0)are
xz
A I , = = 0.434 - Re Sl,n(O) n(Z), dB/km (4)
n
h2
@I,= = -36 - Im Skn(0) n(Z), deg/km (5)
n
where n(Z) is the number of drops with equivolume spherical
radius Z, percubicmeter;thesubscripts Iand I1 designate
electric fields parallel and perpendicular to the plane contain-
ing the a x i s of symmetry of the raindrop and the direction of
propagation of the incident wave, and the summation is taken
over all drop sizes. The derivation of (4)and ( 5 ) is based upon
the effective index of refraction of a scattering medium pro-
posed by Van de Hulst [38]. One notes that (3) of Section
11-A and (4)are equivalent to each other andimply the follow-
ingrelationbetween theextinction cross-section and the
forward-scattering function
Cx)
h2
Q = - Re {S(O)I.
FREQUENCY (GHd

n Fig. 1 1 . Rain-induceddifferential phase shiftbetweenpolarizations I

and I1 for various rainrates.
The calculated [39] differentialattenuation (11-1) and dif-
ferential phase shift between polarizations I1 and I for various Hosoya [40]. It is assumed in these calculated data that the
rain rates and frequencies from4 t o 100 GHz are given in Figs. direction of propagation is perpendicular to the axis of sym-
10 and 1 1 ; they agree withthoseobtainedbyOguchiand metry of theoblateraindrop.Thedifferentialattenuation
betweenhorizontal
andvertical
polarizations have been
The large drops, having a lesser component of tension normal to the measured at 30 GHz [41] as shown in Fig. 12, and at 18 GHz
surface, are most norupherid. [421 in Fig. 13. Also shown the in calculated
figures
are
1314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

0 L W U A E D POINTS WITH
V-POLARIZATION AT 17.35 GHz

5
- H-POLARIZATION AT 17.71 GHZ
PATH LENGTH407 KM
a
I
X
a

0 I I
0 io IO 20 30 1
SUM ATTENUATION (dB) VERTICAL POLARIZATIONAlTENUATION Ay (dB1
Fu. 12. 30GHz differentialattenuation in New Jersey; curves are Fig. 13. 18GHz differentialattenuation measured in Georgia; c w e a
calculated assuming the raindrops to be canted at the indicated anglas; are calculated assuming the raindrops to be canted at indicated angles.
crosaea are medians in 5 d B i n t e a l s .
is I I I I

curves [43] with the raindrops assumed to be cantedat the

angles indicated.' The agreement between the measured data 0
and the calculated curve with a canting angle of 25' is consis-
0 +
tent with calculation using a photographically measured cant- ai@
ing angle distribution [441 . Measured differential attenuation 0
between horizontal and vertical polarizations is found to be 5%'
smallerat 60 GHz [27] and11 GHz [45] thanat 30 and
18 GHz as predicted by thetheory given in Fig. 10.It is
0 + 0 0
0 0 0
especiallyinteresting thatthe measureddifferentialattenua- 8 0
0
tion at 60 GHz remains below 2 dB for rain fades up to 40 dB
[ 271 ; this occurs because small raindrops of lesser ellipticity
0 0 +
contribute heavily to the attenuation at shorter wavelengths;
surfacetensionmaintainssphericity in the small drops. Dif-
ferentialattenuationatlower microwave frequencies is less
significant because the total rain attenuation is small. Recent
measurements' of differential phase shift through rain has also J

given similar confirmation of the calculated data. 0 40 20 30 40 SO

Depolarization by cantedraindrops is aresult of both HORIZONTAL POLARIZATION ATTENUATION (dB)

differential attenuation anddifferential phase shiftbetween Fig. 14. Meaaured raia-induced crosa polarization for horizontal
the components along polarizations I and 11. Numerous mea- polarization transmitted;. ..
11 GHz, +++ 17.71 GHz, ooo 60 GHz.
surements of rain-induced cross polariation at centimeter and
millimeter wavelengths have been reported 1271, [451-[541 somewhatlowerdiscriminationthanexpected because of a
during the past few years, the surge of activityin this area low crosspolarization discrimination level (= 30 db) in the
being prompted by efforts to realize frequency reuse of the measuringsystem. Because the rain attenuationfor vertical
orthogonalpolarization. Measured cross-polarization dis- polarization is less than that of horizontal, the cross polariza-
crimination'fortransmittedhorizontalpolarization at11, tion discrimination ata given attenuationfortransmitted
17.71, and 60 GHz is plotted in Fig. 14. The 1 l G H z data are vertical polarization is expected to be better than for trans-
samples measured in England [461, the 17.71GHz data being mittedhorizontalpolarization as has been experimentally
measuredmedians of 16 rainstorms in Georgia, [421, [431; c o n f i i e d [ 4 6 ] . The measureddepolarization of alinearly
the latter agree with 18.356Hz measurements in New Jersey polarized wave orientedat 45' withrespect to the vertical
[47], and 20GHz measurementsinJapan [481, [491 (both direction [SO] and of a circularly polarized wave ( 5 1] have
not shown). The 60GHz data are taken from the measured been found to be very severe, as shown in Fig. 15. In all cases,
statistics [27] of rain-induced fading and cross polarization for measuredcross-polarizationdiscriminationshowsaconsider-
the same percent of time level; theyare believed to show able variance about the median value at a given attenuation.
Theoretical prediction of the rain-induced cross polarization
'The canting angle is the angle between the major axis of the image is hampered by uncertainty in the raindrop canting angle dis-
of an oblate raindrop (shown in Fig. 10) projected on a plane normal to tribution. It was found from photographs (441 of falling rain-
the direction of propagation, with respectto the horizontal.
'Private communication from P. A. Watson and N. J. McEwan, Uni- drops that the canting angle is not far from an even distribu-
versity of Bradford, Bradford, England. tion with respect to thevertical (gravity) direction. In the case
'Cross-polarization discrimination(XPD) is theratio of thepower
received
in the principal polarization to thatconvertedintothe of ahorizontally or verticallypolarized wave, the cross-
orthogonal polarization. polarization produced by positive and negative canting angles
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 131 5

m
W

1 I I I I

MEASURED POINTS OF 47.65 GHz

SIGNALS LINEARLY POLARIZED
- AT 45. FROM VERTICAL (REF.50)

MEASURED 'MEDIAN OF
l8.5 GHz CIRCULARLY
POLARIZED WAVE (REF.54)

1 401 I I
I . I I I
g
0
o 5 j0 1525 20 X)
RAIN ATTENUATION IN dB
Fig. 15. Measured depolarization versus attenuation for circular polari-
zation and for h e a r polarization at 45" from vertical transmitted.

tends to cancel.Butit is found that systematicpredictions

can be obtained [431 , [ 5 51 by comparing measured differ-
ential attenuation and cross polarization at one frequency with
1 0 0 m m / H R RAIN RATE
calculated values to determine two empiricalparameters:an
effective average of the absolute value of the canting angle,
and the imbalance in the number of drops with positive and
negative canting angles.* Suchempiricalmedianestimates 0 IO 20 30 40 50
based upon measured data at 18 GHz [42] are shown in Fig. ATTENUATION OF HORIZONTAL POLARIZATION IN dB
16 for the cross polarization of horizontally polarized waves Fig. 16. Semiempirical estimates of median cross polarization discrimi-
nation versus attenuation for horizontally polarized transmittedwaves
atvariousfrequencies.Comparisonbetween Figs. 14 and 16 at lOO-mm/h rain rate.
shows fair agreement for frequencies below 30 GHz. The lack
of precise agreement stems not only from the imperfection of
thetheoreticalmodelbut also fromthe background levels
in theexperimentscaused in part by groundreflectionand
4 -
antenna depolarization.
A 4GHz experimental observation [531, [541 of only 9 d B 1 -
cross-polarizationdiscrimination has
beenreported fora
40-kmpathduringanextremely heavy rain;however, the
significant cause of crosspolarizationfor a longterrestrial
pathat low microwave frequencies is primarilymultipath
propagation.
W
Normalizingthedifferential attenuation anddifferential
phase shift with respect to the copolar attenuation gives the
followingphysicalinsight. For a given fade,the differential
phaseshift
increases
sharply
with
decreasing frequency
CO-CHANNEL IN
whereasthenormalizeddifferential attenuation is relatively ORTHOGONAL
insensitive to frequency. The sharp increase of the differential
phase shift is caused in part by the increase in refractive index 1 -
at lowmicrowavefrequencies(see Fig. 1) andimplies less
depolarizationathighermicrowavefrequencies for a given
fade. At low microwave frequencies, the very high normalized 2 -
differential phase shift indicates that significant depolarization
is possible even foronly a fewdecibels of attenuation, and
that differential phase shift is indeed the dominant cause of
depolarization.Differential attenuation plays an increasing 48 46 44 8 12 IO 20 22
role in depolarization as the frequency increases. SIGNAL-TO -NOISE RATIO IN DECIBELS
The cross-polarization coupling in a dual-polarization com- Fig. 17. Calculatedbit error ratesfor 4-phase coherent PSK modulation;
municationsystemproducescochannelinterference.Unfor- versus SNR for constantsignal-to-interferenceratios froma single
interferer, - - - ybrsus 18GHz rain fade with interference from rain-
tunately,the rain-induceddepolarizationoccurs when rain induced cross polarization (a fade margin of 5 0 dB is assumed).
fades have already depressed the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
It is desirable, therefore, that a dual-polarization system use a
quired for maintaininga given probability of error. As a
modulationschemewith high resistance to interference. In
numericalexample, Fig. 17showscalculatedbiterrorrates
anycase,thecochannelinterferenceincreases the SNR re-
[56] versus SNR fora 4-phasecoherentphase-shiftkeyed
'The imbalance is apparently caused by wind component normal to (PSK) systemwith a single interferer.Thesolid curves are
calculated for a constant level of interfering signal as indicated.
the propagation path[ 521, [ 1191.
1316 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

The dashed curve shows the limitation imposed by rain cross FREOUENCY-GHz
300 100 50 30 10 5 3
polarization at 18 GHz. The depth of the rain fade is also indi-
cated on theabscissa.
x=
n
111. METHODS OF MEASUREMENT OF RAIN ATTENUATION 7 25
ON EARTH-SPACEPATHS Y
In the beginning there were no strong sources in space avail- $20
able for measurement of large rain attenuation at frequencies L 15
W
above 10 GHz, except the sun. Therefore, we w li discuss the I-

experimental measuring systems and results obtained in more ;IO

or less chronologicalorder beginning withsuntrackers? fol-
lowed by the passive radiometer method which is simpler but
has less dynamic range, and concluding with receiving systems
which can monitor signals from synchronous satellites such as
the NASAATS-5 (15.3 GHz) and ATS-6 (20 and 30 GHz),
the Canadian CTS (12 GHz)and theATTComsat(19 and
28 GHz). The clear air background attenuation is compara-
tively small in the "window" regions and is given in [ 641.
A . Suntrackers
The diameter of the sun at millimeter wavelengths subtends
an angle of about 0.So, viewed from the earth. If a microwave
antenna, perfect in the sense that it receives all of the energy
only within angles less than k0.25' from the beam axis, were
pointed at the sun, it would observe a brightness temperature,
T,; Fig. 18,taken largely from [57], shows the effective
temperature of the quiet sun for the microwave band." The
powerfrom the sun that passes through a receiver of band-
width B fed by such an antenna is kT,B, k being Boltzmann's
constant. In this relationship, the sun is treated like a black-
body emitting noise, at temperature T,, and it is assumed that
the atmosphere of the earth is transparent. But the latter is
never true; indeed, if the attenuation constantis ff along a path
of length 1 through the atmosphere, the power from the sun
in the receiver is reduced to kT,Be-Q'.
The capability of a system to measure attenuation is usually
limited by noise in the system itself. In a suntracker the sys-
tem noise originatesin the receiving equipmentand,fortu-
nately or unfortunately as the case may be, in the material on
the path, the attenuation of which one wants to measure. In
thetroposphere,theattenuating material,constitutedpri-
marily of oxygen, water vapor and at times liquid water, is
itself at someapparentabsorbertemperature Tu. If the
material is absorbing, as opposed t o scattering, it produces an
effective noise power
kTbB = kB
1,1 aTue-Q' dr = kTuB( 1 - e-Q').
F
I 5
a
m
0.1 .2 .3 .4 .6 .8 I 2 3 4 6 810
WAVELENGTH - C Y
Fig. 18. Microwave brightness temperature of the quiet sun; the optical
value of about 6000 K obtains for frequencies above 200 GHz.
Consider for example, an ideal receiver operating at a wave-
length of 1 cm (frequency 30 GHz) for which the sun tempera-
ture is about lo4 degrees (see Fig. 18). If a veryheavy rain-
storm withabsorbertemperature of, say Tu = 28S0,then
enters the antenna beam and completely occludes the sun, al
is very large resultingin Tb = Tu. Thustheratio ofnoise
powers in the absence and presence of the rain is 104/285 = 35
which is a SNR of 15 dB. Therefore, with basic tracking of
the sun, this ideal 3O-GHz receiving system is capable of mea-
suring attenuations no larger than 15 dB. In practice, a non-
ideal antenna and noise in the receiver per se limit the measur-
ing range to even lesser values.
A goodexample of the resultsobtainableby basic sun-
tracking is the three-year sample of 19-GHz attenuation mea-
sured in England [ 591, a cumulative distribution of which is
shown in Fig. 19. The data were taken from 1968 to 1971 for
periods when the sun was at least 5' above the horizon; this
represents about 10500 hours of recording. The attenuation,
under the constraints mentioned in the previous paragraph, is
measured up to 10 dB. That value is exceeded about 0.01
percent of the observing time which, if converted to a yearly
basis, is almost 1 h. Therefore, if an outage objective of 1 h/y
were suitable to a radio engineer designing a 19GHz satellite
communication system in England, he would need to provide
a fading margin of about 10 dB. But that is an average value;
departures of +3 dB appear to occur depending on whether
the storms during a particular year produce intense or light
rainfall.
There is a mode of suntrackeroperation,otherthanthe

Therefore, even with a noiseless receiver, the power observed

(6) basic suntracking just discussed, that provides a large dynamic
measuring range. It involves spatial switching, or lobing, of the
antenna beam on and off the sun, a technique suggested by
Conway [60] that is now commonly used in radio astronomy.
when lookingat the sun is To understandthismethod, assume, as above, that a rain-
kT,Be-a'+
kTbB = kB[T,e-Q'+ T u ( l - (7) storm has entered an ideal narrow microwave antenna beam
pointed toward the sun, in which case the effective antenna
where Tb is the brightnesstemperature of thetroposphere. temperature is, from (7)
T, = Tse-a' + Tu(1 - e-a') (8)
'Suggested to us in the present application by R. Kompfner, now of
StanfordUniversity,Stanford,Calif., and OxfordUniversity,Oxford, where e-Q' is the transmission factor for the particular storm.
Enpd. Butwhen the narrow beam is switched just off thesun, it
' Solar flares which make the sun such an erratic source of radiation
sees only the rain and the antenna temperatureis
at meter wavelengthshave relatively little effect at wavelengths of order
one centimeter where the sun is essentially a constant source. There is,
however, an 11 year cycle in the microwave intensity [ 581 ;at sunspot Te = Tb = Tu(1 - e-Q'). (9)
maximum, for a wavelength of 10 c m , this can be a factorof four times
the value given in Fig. 18. If the switching is rapid enough, (9) can be subtracted from
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1317

DlSTRleCrrlONS OF ATTENUATION
NEASURED USING A (CRAWFORD HILL SUN TRACKER)
YON-BEAN-SWITCHER DATA BASE-ONE YEAR
S U N TRACKER AT W
SLOUGHE
, NGLAND,
1968 -71

0.01
0 6 12 18 24 30 36 42
dB
Fig. 21. Cumulative distributions of 16- and 30-GHz attenuation
measured
during 1968inNew Jersey
using the suntracker of
Fig. 20.

[ 6 1I as shown in Fig. 20. An advantage of this method is that

the rain attenuation can be measured simultaneously at more
than one frequency on the same antenna. In the arrangement
0.0li ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '9 of Fig. 20, the flat reflector moves about the polar axis with
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
I 9 G H z ATTENUATION-dB time of day,reflecting the solarradiation intothe fixed
Fig. 19. Cumulative distribution of 19-GHz attenuation measured for antenna; but it is also mounted on bearings on the orthogonal
three years in England using the basic suntracking (non-beam- axis about which it oscillateswith an angularamplitude of
switched) method. 2.S0 atarate of 1 Hz. Inthisway,simultaneousmeasure-
ments of rain attenuation, reliable to atleast 30 dB, were
made at 16 and 30 GHz for more than a year. Part of these
results,presented as cumulative distributions of attenuation,
is shown in Fig. 21 tor the measuring period 1967-1968. As
anticipated, a much larger attenuationoccurs at 30 GHz, for a
given percentage of the measuring period, than at 16 GHz.
In the design of broad-band satellite systems for the 18- and
30GHz bands, itturnsout[8]that reasonablechoices for
?ewer on the satellite, bandwidth, type of modulation,
mtenna size, satellite stability etc., result in a clearday fading
margin of about10 dB ona "down" link at18 GHz. That
margin is the amount of fading that the down link can with-
stand. But we observe from Fig. 21 that the rain attenuation
exceeds 10 dB for 400 min, or about 7 h/y which is not a
mark of high reliability. For that reason, systems designed to
operate in locations which experience heavy rain would need
to employpathdiversity to improvereliability of transmis-
sion, as discussed in Section IV.
Fig. 20. A microwave suntracker using a polar-mounted flat reflector It is also important that the system designer employing fre-
that nods about the declination axis for beam switching. quencyextrapolation have ameasure of confidencefor dis-
tributions of attenuation such as those in Fig. 21. In other
(8) electronically in the receiver resulting in words, fora given 16GHz attenuation, over whatrange of
values does the 3 N H z attenuationextend? This question
was examined by obtaining conditional probabilities for a nine
allowing the attenuation ai to be deduced from the measured month sample of attenuation data measured by the suntracker
value of T,. discussed above; the ratio of simultaneous values of 30- and
There are atleast two ways in which an antenna beam can be 16GHz attenuation were obtained on an instantaneous basis
switched on and off the sun efficiently: by using two feeds in for given values of the 16-GHz attenuation. The medians and
the focal plane of a reflector, or by mechanically nodding the 10- to 90-percent values obtained at 30 GHz from the con-
beam.One wayof achieving the latter is by using ahorn- ditional distributions were then plotted as shown in Fig. 22;
reflector antenna in conjunction with a nodding flat reflector the measuredcumulativedistribution,obtained in the usual
1318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

a -
W
W
0 -
X
w
2 -
P
G3
z
.I -
I4 - :
w -
- MEASURED
AT
CUMULATIVE
3OWz
DISTRIBUTION
I
.05 - + MEDIAN VALUE FROM CONDITIONAL
DISTRIBUTIONS
L L

a! 1 ---
IO TO 90 PERCENT CONFIDENCE LIMITS

.aI I I I 1 I 1
5 IO IS 20 25 30
3 0 G H z ATTENUATION IN DECIBELS
Fig. 22. Median values of instantaneous 3OGHz attenuation, conditional
upon given 16-GHz attenuations for fixed percent-of-time levels, are
shown as crosses, and the 10- to 90-percent confidence range by
dashed lines.

way, is also given t o serve as a reference. Clearly, the medians

which resulted fromtheconditional distributions (analysis
of instantaneous values), agree well with the reference 30-GHz
distribution. The 10- t o 90-percentconfidencelimits are
shownas dashed lines. The range defined by the limits ex-
pands with increasing attenuation attaining a spread of about
10 dB when the median attenuationat30 GHz is 25 dB
(corresponding t o 8 dB at 16 GHz, see Fig. 21). Whether this
rather large range will obtain on a fixed path to a synchronous
satellite (rather than on the ever-changing path to the sun)
is not yet known. This matter is discussed further in Section
VI.
The moon could also be used as a source, but its brightness
temperature [62] is only of the order 220 K over the 3- t o
300GHz band, about 17 dB below that of the sun at 30 GHz.
B. Passive Radiometers
As mentioned in the previous section, the rain medium emits
noise in the fashion of a blackbody" at some temperature T,.
It turns out that this characteristic can be utilized t o measure
the attenuation to levels of about 10 dB. It is because there is
no source, such as the sun or a satellite beacon transmitting
throughthe rainstorm, that we refer to thismethod of
measurement as passive radiometry.
Basically there are twotypes of radiometer receivers, so
called dc and switched. A dc radiometer system is comprised
of very low noise receiving electronics and a high quality
antenna.Inthat case, the overall background noise of the
system achieves a very small value which can, however, be pre-
determined by calibration. Any additional noise that appears
in the receiver, for example by way of a rainstorm entering the
antenna beam, is simply measured by observing the increase in
"The question as to whether collisions o f charged raindrops produce
significant microwave noise has often been raised. Apparently not
much. since measurements at 1400 MHz 1631during heaw showers
showihatthe intensities are
very small, typi'call; 1 to 2-K.
EASTERN STANDARD TIME
Fig. 23. 6-GHz sky temperature produced by rain cells passing through
a zenith-oriented beam in New Jersey; point rain rates measured at
the antenna site are shown dashed.
the direct current of the final detectorinthe receiver. Ex-
amples of such measurements [3 I at 6 GHz using azenith-
pointinghorn-reflector antenna with 1.8-m aperture anda
traveling-wave maser input stage are illustrated in Fig. 23. The
noise temperature of the receiver per se is about 14 K. How-
ever, Fig. 23 onlyshows the sky noise measured by the
antenna. About 3 K of the sky noise is contributed by the
troposphere [ 641, and 3 K by the cosmic background radia-
tion[651.The large changes in noise temperature are pro-
duced by rain in the zenith-pointed beam; in the first example,
a maximum value of nearly 110 K is attained. The rain-rate
measured at the site, Holmdel, N.J., is also plotted in Fig. 23,
as a dashed Line. It is interesting that in both examples, the
rainrate lags the noise temperature;this occurs in most
observations using azenith-oriented beam because atypical
rain cell, moving with the wind, slopes forward underthe
influence of a wind profile that increases with height, thereby
causing the rain to enter the antennabeam before reaching the
rain gauge at the site, i.e., the rain is detected before it reaches
ground.
Theothertype of receiver, introducedby Dicke [661,
switches between the antenna and a reference waveguide load.
In this way, synchronous detection can be used and receivers
of relatively high noise figure can resolve small changes in
antenna temperature.12 A measurement of the 15.5-GHz
" A n interesting variation of the Dicke systemisthe noise-adding
radiometer [ 671 in which a small known amount o f noise is added in an
alternating fashion to the "signal". Frequency switched radiometers
~ are also used in special applications.
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE CC"UN1CATIONS
1319

,*,300 I n

: :
ea 0 IS00 I530 BOO
\
I630 I700 I730

EASTERN STANDARD TIME

Fig. 24. 15.5GHz antenna temperature produced by a New Jersey
shower passing through a beam at an elevation angle of 30'.

antenna temperature produced by a shower, using a switched

receiver, is shownin Fig. 24. In this case the beam of the
antenna, a horn-reflector with 1.2-m aperture, is at an eleva- SKY N O l 5 E T t - OK
tion angle of 30'. With the beam atsucharelativelylow
angle, there is little point in measuring the rainrate at the site Fig. 25. Cumulative distributions of sky noise at 1 S G H z measured
undervarious weather conditions for several elevation angles of an
of theantennatoobtain detailedcorrelationbetweenthe antenna beam in Massachusetts; the tails occur during very humid
antennanoiseandindividualstormssince,moreoftenthan weather and rain.
not, the rain shower in the beam w ibe at some distance from
l
the site. Because of the high 15GHz attenuation producedby
thisshower, theradiometer becomessaturatedfor5
beginning at 1550 EST in Fig. 24. The temperature at which
saturation occurs, in this case 275 K, is somewhat lower than
the kinetic temperature of the raindrops, an effect discussed
mi?
260
c
later in this section.
In Fig. 24, a background noise of about 10 K is generated
by the antenna and the sky when the rain is not present. This
background temperature is quite dependent on the amountof
water vapor in the air and, of course, on theelevation angle of
the antenna beam. The variability in sky noise introduced by I
the day to day changes in water vapor content is well demon-
strated by a set of 1 5-GHz measurements [68] taken over a
six-month period at Waltham, Mass., shown as a percentage-
time distributions in Fig. 25. Portions of the curves, between
the100 and 20 percent-time values, are quitelinear;at an
I6Ot I 1
elevation angle of 30' for example, weather changes from a
very dry to a humid condition are accompanied by sky tem- II2O 34 6 O9 12 U15
perature changes from 6 to 15 K. The measured dry-air value
of 6 K agrees with the calculated sky temperature based solely ATTENUATION IN dB
on absorptionbythe oxygen[641 in the atmosphere. In Fig. 26. Calibration curves for 16- and30-GHz radiometers measured
radiometricmeasuringsystemsthebackground level there- by a suntracker in New Jersey; the smooth curves show the calculated
relationship between brightness temperature and attenuation assuming
fore varies somewhat, but it represents only a small attenua- apparent absorber temperatures of 270 and 280 K for the rain.
tion which is not our prime concern here.
The examples of radiometric data discussed so far have been from this equation, is
expressed in terms of the sky brightness temperature produced
A = - 10 log10 ( 1 - Tb/T,,). (10)
by rain, but to make these useful for communication system
design, the radiometer must be calibrated in units of attenua- It is inthis way that one determines the value of Ta most
tion.Theonly way of doing that properly is to measure appropriateforconversion of radiometricmeasurements to
directly the attenuation of numerous rainstorms by means of attenuation at a given frequency and geographic location. In
the sun or a satellite signal, simultaneously observe the effec- the present case, Fig. 26 shows that T,, 270 K is appropriate
tivebrightnesstemperatureproduced bythe rainmedium at 30 GHz for attenuations up to 8 dB, and about 275 K for
( T b ) in a radiometer at about the same microwave frequency, attenuations above that value whereas T,, = 280 K pretty well
and plot one against the other. Such a calibration [69], using satisfies the data over the whole range at 16 GHz. The reason
attenuation measured by a sun tracker as reference, is shown for the lower value of To at the higher frequency is discussed
by the dotted irregular plots in Fig. 26 for the frequencies 16 later. Data taken in Hawaii [701 using a suntracker operating
and 30 GHz. These plots are average values of the brightness atboth15 and 35 GHz showedgoodagreementbetween
temperatures evidenced byall of the heavy storms during 1970 directly measured attenuation and those computed fromradie
at Holmdel, N.J. The smooth curvesin thefgure are cal- metric measurements using T,,= 284 K.
culated from (9) The attenuation of signals from satellites,
particularly
Tb = T,(1 - e-d) ATSJ [ 71 1, has also been used to determineapparent
absorber temperature. But, because of the intermittent mode
for two values of the apparent absorber temperature T,, = 270 of operation of the beacon, the data are given on a stonn-by-
and 280 K. Conversely, the attenuation in decibels, obtained storm basis rather than statistically. An example [ 721 of such
1320 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

Fig. 28. Calibration of a 15.3-GHz radiometer using a 15.3-GI-h

satellite signal for measuring attenuation by rain showers at Ottawa,
Canada; see text for discussion of the curves.

measurements in Fig.26. We forego analysis of thiseffect

re.27. Calibration of a 16-GHz radiometer using a 15.3-GHz satellite but will make a few descriptive statements.
beacon signal for measuring attenuation by a rain shower inNew
Jersey. A raindropina vertical antenna beam scattersradiation
incident upon it more or less isotropically [ 781. The radia-
an event is given in Fig. 27 where the 15.3-GHz attenuation tion incident on the drop originates over a 477 solid angle. If
experienced bythe ATS-5 satellite signal is comparedwith only one raindrop were present, the radiation incident from
attenuation measuredsimultaneously using a 16-GHzpassive the half spacebelow the drop would beprimarilyemission
radiometer, both receivers being mounted on thesame antenna fromanabsorbingearth, at, say 290 K. But the half space
at Holmdel, N.J. An apparent absorber temperature of 275 K above the drop is very cold, less than 10 K. Therefore, in this
was used to compute the radiometer attenuation;a dashed line highly idealized single-drop model, the radiation, incident over
whichtakes intoaccount a factor 1.1 representing the ex- 477, and available for scattering, is equivalent to an average
pected larger attenuation at 16 GHz (above 15.3 GHz) is also temperature of only 150 K, which, depending on the magni-
shown.Twoeventsmeasured [73]atOttawa, Canada,are tude of the scattering coefficient, manifests itself as a sizable
shown in Fig.28.Again, the narrow band15.3 GHz ATSJ decrease inapparentabsorbertemperature.Inreality,the
signal was used for measuring the attenuation directly, and a radiation incident on the drop is influenced by the emission
broadband radiometer at
the same frequency was also andattenuation of numerousneighboring dropsand,there-
mounted on the receiving antenna. In the initial comparisons fore,by the geometryof the storm cell. For example, if a
of the directly measured attenuation withthosecomputed heavyrain cell encompassesa vertical beam, the radiometer
from the antenna temperatures, an apparentabsorber tempera- will essentiallymeasure thekinetictemperature of the first
ture of 278 K was assumed; this value obtains for the data in kilometer or so of rain and scattering is of little consequence.
Fig.28. Thetwosets of bounding curves, computedfrom However,if the beam is at a low elevation angle and a cell
(1 0), show how the relationship changes when T, is assumed enters the beam at some distance from the antenna, the drops
* l o and *20 K with respect to 278 K; a system measuring un- nearest the antenna have a most significant scattering effect,
certainty of 20.5 dB is also included in these curves. However, resulting in a decreased apparent absorber temperature.
detailed analysisof 65 eventsmeasured at Ottawaled to a We concludefrom the measurements discussed above that
value ?'= = 272 K asmostappropriate.Individualstorms an apparent absorber temperature Tu 11 273 K is suitable for
measured at Roman, N.C. [74], at15.3and16 GHz, pro- conversion of antenna temperature t o rain attenuation (equa-
duced data compatible with an apparent absorber temperature tion (10)) at frequencies of order 20 GHz in many parts of
270 to 272 K ; similar measurements have been made at the North America. This conclusionapplies to statisticaldata
Universities of Texas and Ohio, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, since for individual storms, the most appropriate value of Tu
and in Maryland. may depart from 273 K. Rather high attenuations (6 t o 9 dB)
Comparison of radar return [75] with antenna noisetem- at 6.5 GHz have been observed [79] in New Jersey using the
peratures measured during rain has also been successfully used radiometric method, but these are rareevents.
to calibrate a radiometer.
It is fascinating that the apparentabsorber temperature is C. Beacons on Synchronous Satellites
near or belowfreezing for observations inNorth America The usefulness of signals from ATS-5 forcalibration of
whereas the rain is infact usually fairly warm, say 285 K, radiometers is evidentfrom the abovediscussion, but it is
especially for summer showers near the surface of the earth. appropriate to give moredetail on techniquesfor receiving
This discrepancy [ 761 is due to scattering" by the raindrops; satellitebeaconsandsome of the resultsobtained. We will
it is a function of operating frequency, dropsize, the geometry also discuss some plans for future experiments.
of the storm, the aspect of the antenna beam axis with respect A beacon signal is derived froma well stabilizedcrystal
to the strom cell, the temperature profile of the rain, and the oscillator. Therefore, if the signal is unmodulated, all of the
kinetic temperature and microwave properties of the ground power can be received within a very narrow band, exhibiting
surroundingthe site of theantenna. Because the scattering potential for the large SNR necessary for measuring the deep
coefficient of raindrops increases with frequency,the apparent fading due to rain attenuation. But synchronous satellites are
absorbertemperature decreases [77] as suggested by the not perfectly stationary with respect to an earth station, there-
''Suggested to us in 1968 by J . R. Pierce, now of California Institute fore the signal frequency is dopplershifted over adiurnal
of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. period. For that reason, and also to overcome frequency drifts
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
caused by temperature changes in both the satellite and earth
station,the beatingoscillator of the receiver mustemploy
AFC to track the signal. It is desirable that this control cir-
cuit have a hold feature because whenthe signal fades near the
noise level, locking may be lost; a good decision is t o hold the
frequency until the signal is regained. Even so, the signal may
not be within the narrow band after a long fade, in whichcase
a frequencysearch circuit must be activated.
Statistics of rain attenuation[80] have beenobtained at
Clarksburg, Marylandusing the 15.3-GHz signals fromthe
ATS-5 satellite,supplementedbysuntrackerand passive
radiometer measurements. Data for the year 1970-1971 have
beenanalyzed tothe10dBattenuation level. Comparison
with New Jersey data (Fig. 21) shows a slightly higher proba-
bility of occurrence of these attenuations in Maryland.
It is planned thatthree ATT-Comsat satellites,eachwith
beacons [81] at 19.04 and 28.56 GHz be launched beginning
in1976.Thebeacons will operatecontinuouslyand illumi-
natethecontinental U.S.,thereby affordingcompilationof
attenuation statistics inavariety ofrain environments. It is
expected [82] that a dynamic range of at least 45 dB will be
possible at both frequencies using an earth-station antenna of
7-m diameter. Such dual-frequency measurements, other than
of great usefulness in their own right, should provide a sound
basis for determining rain attenuation at other frequencies as
discussed in Section VI.
Intelsat has been used to measure 4- and 6-GHz rain attenua-
tion [ 831 at a low elevation angle (8) in Japan. During 1972-
1973, attenuations of about 1 dB at 4 GHz and 3 dB at 6 GHz
wereobserved for 0.01percent of the time. Values con-
siderably higher than that have been observed for short periods
of time in theeastern U.S. as discussed in Section 111-B.
An aircraft has been equipped with a transmitter and flown
beyond heavy rain clouds to measure attenuation at Ottawa,
Canada [ 841. Observed attenuationsat15 GHzwere com-
pared with values calculated from backscatter measured by a
2.9-GHz radar;these were foundin good agreementduring
stratiform rain, but for a heavy cell, the attenuation derived
from the radar method resulted in attenuation six times the
actual measured value. Melting hail is believed to have caused
this large discrepancy. We believe, therefore, that conversion
of most radar backscatter measurements to attenuation is not,
at present, an accurate enough procedure for design of satellite
communication systems.
Iv. PATH DIVERSITYIN EARTH-SPACETRANSMISSION
The high attenuations observed on earth-space pathsare
caused by cells of intense rain, and relatively poor reliability
of transmission results, as discussed in Section 111-A. But by
takingadvantage of the finite cell size [85] , considerable
improvementinreliabilitycanbeobtainedbyswitching
between two earth stations separated bya distance larger than
the cell size. Thisarrangement, called path diversity [86],
[87], requires a broadband terrestrial ,link between the two
earthstationsandappropriateswitchingcircuitry.Theinset
of Fig. 29 is aplan view showingantennasseparated on a
baseline normal to the direction of the path to thesatellite. If
a rain cell in a given antenna beam produces attenuation ex-
ceeding the fading margin14 of that station, the transmission
is switched through another station whose antenna beam does
not simultaneously encounter thecell.
Or degrades significantly the signal-to-crosstalk ratio, as governed
by cross polarization.
1321
1
O r -
PY
CH
S
CH-PY
L
s- PY
.o0to S-CH
16 GHz ATTENUATION. d B
Fig. 29. Statistics of path diversity for beams with elevation angle of
30 separated by 3, 1 1 , and 14 krn,measuredat 16 GHz in New
Jersey.
Initial measurements on the diversity advantage obtainable
inthis waywere madewith passive radiometersat16 GHz
[ 881, no synchronous satellite beacons being then available.
Tnere were at least three reasons for this choice: a fixed-path
orientation (rather than a variable one as with suntrackers) is
desirable to simulate the geometry of a synchronous satellite
system; radiometers measure attenuations to only 10 dB, but
that is a valueof interestin systemdesign as discussed in
Section 111-A; radiometers are simple, with no moving parts,
so they can remain unattended for long periods of time p r e
vided the electronics is reliable, and they can be calibrated to
good accuracy as discussed inSection 111-B. The relative
positions of three(horn-reflector)antennasareindicatedin
the inset in Fig. 29, separations of 3, 11, and 14 km applying
to the various pairs. The elevation angle of the beams is about
30,inthedirection of afictitioussatellitelocatedinsyn-
chronousorbitsouth of thecentral U.S. The figure shows
several cumulativedistributions of datataken during April
through August 1969 at Holmdel, N.J.. The three upper plots,
all quite similar,are simply the distributionsforthethree
individual sites; they show, for example, that an attenuation of
10 dB is exceeded about0.08percent of the time onthe
individual paths. The switched diversity pair with separation
3 km (curve 6), at the 10dB level, shows an improvement of
only about a factor of two in reliability, but the pairs with 11-
and14-kmseparation evidence a diversity improvement of
about twenty; the greater improvement for 1 1-km rather than
14-km separation is believed to beaconsequence of insuf-
ficient sample size.
More recently,measurements using the same radiometers
spaced11, 19 and 30 km were taken [69] for the fullyear
1970. The attenuation distributions for the individual paths,
the variouscombinations of pairs, and the diversitytriplet
are shown in Fig. 30. In the case of the pairs, the diversity
improvement clearly increases with
separationbetween
1322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

level during 1970 was also made; for the 30-km diversity pair,
there were twelve of 5-min and one of 10-min duration.
Path diversity studies have also been made using the ATSd
satellitebeacon ona few stormswhichoccuredduringthe
summer months of 1970 and 1971 at Columbus, Ohio [891.
In that case the 15.3-GHz receivers were separated by 4 and
8.3 km along a baseline oriented 50' withrespect tothe
verticalplanecontaining thepathtothe satellite.Greater
diversityadvantage was observed forthese small separations
in Ohio than for the larger ones in New Jersey. For example,
with the 4-km separation, the improvement factor was 200 at
the 9-dB attenuation level. Although the total annual rainfall
is aboutthe same (1000 nun) in New JerseyandOhio,
thunderstorm-type showers occur more often in Ohio than in
New Jersey; this may give rise to the greater diversity improve-
ment; on the other hand, the lengths of the two measuring
periods are quite different.
At Waltham, Mass., two 35-GHz suntrackers [go] separated
by11 km on a NNW-SSE baseline wereused to determine
diversity advantage during 197 1. In this case attenuations up
to 27 dB could be resolved, but as mentioned above, the beam
orientation constantly changes and, of course, measurements
canonlybetakenduringtheday. Nevertheless, byproper
normalization of the data, itwas found that 27dB attenuation
Fig. 30. Statistics of path diversity for beams with elevation angle of was exceeded for 2.5 h on thesingle paths, but for only about
30' seearated by 1 1 , 19, and 30 km, measured at 16 GHz in 10 min using the diversity pair; this constitutes an improve-
Jersey.
mentfactor of 15 atthatattenuation level. An experiment
using twosuntrackersinJapan i l l 7 1 observed substantial
DIVERSITYADVANTAGE
VS diversity advantage for a pair separated 15 km but sawvery

I
AMENNA SEPARATION little diversity improvement for a pair separated 2.6 km.
1970 DATA
A standing question with regard to path diversity improve-
/' 11.2KM NI ment relates to orientation of the baseline with respect to the
earth-satellite path vis-a-vis the direction of persistent weather
P ATTENUATION
LEVEL frontsatthe particularlocation.The answer to this is of
W
IO0 interest in system design because real estate suitable for sites
W
60 may not be available on a baseline normal to the earth-space
z
40
path. To examinethe effect of baseline orientation,three
a radiometers were arranged in a right-angle geometry [91], one
* edge of the angle, 27 km long, being below the path and the
20
W other, 19 km normal to the path, as shown by the insetin
-> Fig. 3 2. 15.5-GHz attenuation was measured continuously for
0 10
ten months at Holmdel, N.J.. Interestingly, even though the
6
separation of the stations below the path(P-CH) is 8 km more
4 than for the pair normal to the path (A-P), the probability of
occurrence of 8 d B attenuation is more than ten times larger
2 fortheformer pair.The higher correlation of attenuation
sac c between the in-line stations P and CH can be partly explained
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 by the fact that intense showers originating at great altitudes
ANTENNASEPARATION-KM above P will also intersect the antenna beam from CH. How-
Fig. 31.Diversity advantage (improvementfactor relative to asingle ever, it is also true that most convective storm fronts approach
path)for dual-path diversity at various 15.5GHz attenuationlevels
versus path separation. central New Jersey from the northwest (see inset of Fig. 32)
thus any ellipticity in the shape of the cells, with major axis
antennas. The diversity advantage, i.e., the ratio of the per- parallel to the front, would result in stronger correlation on
cent of time level for a diversitycombination to that of a the in-line pair. It is also worth noting in Fig. 32 that diversity
single path, is plotted versus separation, with attenuation as on the pair A-P, in spite of the relatively large separation of
33 km, is no better than on pair A-CH separated only 19 km.
a parameter, in Fig. 3 1. For the pair separated by 30 km, and
A recent U.K. experiment [ 1181 also showedconsiderable
attenuation levelof 9 dB, the diversity improvementfactor
greater diversity improvement for the baseline perpendicular
is about one hundred which, on a yearly basis, means that the
rather than parallel to thepropagation path. Thus on thebasis
outage of system witha 9 d B fade margin is reducedfrom
of experiments to date,15 it is believed that baselines normal
eight hours to less than 5 min. Measurementswiththese
to the path and, secondarily, to the direction of convective
radiometers also encompassed a year which included humcane
Dona, in which case the improvement factor at the 9 d B level
"A program is also under way in Virginia 1921 utilizing.radar
was 25 forthe pair with 30-km spacing. A countofthe measurementa to determine the effect of eccentricity and orientatron o f
number of fades of various lengths which occured at the 5 d B rain cella on pathdiversity statisti-.
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITECOMMUNICATIONS 1323

I
N
- - -- A@= = A0,,2mn2a
- POINT MATCHING SOLUTION

fP ELEVATION
Y\'-SINGLE ANGLE
WTH 01 I

.os
Y
I-
.02 t
\ W V E R S I T Y \P
.01
0

5
0

,005 6

,002
i io loo
,001
RAINRATE (rnrn/HR)

Fig. 33. Comparison between approximate and exact calculations of

3OGHz differential phase shift; Q is the angle between the direction
of propagation and the axis of symmetry of oblate raindrops.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0
15.5 GHz ATTENUATION (dB) same attenuation level provided the incident linear polariza-
Fig. 32. Statistics of path diversity for antennas located in a right-angle tion from the satellite is parallel or perpendicular to theplane
configuration; location, NewJersey. containing the direction of propagation and the local gravity
direction, the latterbeing the axis of symmetry of horizontally
weather fronts, are most efficient for path diversity. In system disposed oblate spheroidalraindrops, atthe ground station.
design, that is an important matter because minimization of This condition can be met in a multiple-beam satellite system
the separation between stations reduces the cost of the broad- [8] by properly orienting the polarization of each feed on a
band terrestrial route that links them. multiple beam satellite antennal6 for
the corresponding
Thesynchronous satellite ATSd[93 I was successfully ground station.
positioned in orbit, with 20- and 3 0 6 H z beacons on board, In the case of an areacoverage satellite antenna (for example
on May 30, 1974. Although these beacons are not continuous a CONUS coverage)," the polarization vectors of the radia-
but operate in an "on-demand" mode, several receivers in the tion from the satellite can not be parallel and perpendicular
U.S. are observing, and further measurements on pathdiversity to the plane defined above simultaneously for all grouni sta-
may be forthcoming. There are also 13- and 1 8 6 H z receivers tions.The angle between the unitpolarizationvector p and
I941 on the satellite which are used t o monitor attenuation this preferred plane is given by
onpaths from several earth-based transmitters arranged in
diversity configurations. The signal levels received at the
satellite are then frequencytranslated to 4 GHz and trans-
mitted to earth foranalysis.
where ff is the direction of propagation and 7 is the local
v. DEPOLARIZATION
BY RAIN IN EARTH-SPACE gravity direction at the ground station. If the aperture field
TRANSMISSION of the satellite antenna is linearly polarized in the direction
The calculated differential attenuation and differential phase e^, p^ is determined by
shift discussed in Section I I C were confined to the case of p^ = (5; x e^) x P / l ( 5 ; x 2)x $1.
ct = n / 2 , where ct is the angle between the directionof propaga-
tion and the axis of symmetry of oblate raindrops, a situation As anumericalexample, thecontours of constant t are
appropriate t o terrestrial paths. However, in earth-space trans- plotted in Fig. 34 for a synchronous communication satellite
mission, other values of ct apply and there exist the following located at 105" west longitude with [ = 0 at Denver, Colo. If
approximate relations [43], [95] for the differential attenua- the satellite antenna beam covers thecontinental United
tion and phase between orthogonal linear polarizations: States, [ exceeds 30' in the fringe area. Therefore, the rain-
induced depolarization of linearly polarized radiation from an
areacoveragesatellite inthe fringe area is expected to be
(&I - &)a = (&I -
sin2 a. &)?r/Z worse than that of Fig. 16 but better than thatof Fig. 15.
It is tempting to use circular polarization to avoid polariza-
These equations are derived by assuming the uniform rain as
tion trackingand also to produce equal attenuations in the
an anisotropic medium and they have been verified by point-
orthogonal polarizations (zero differential attenuation). How-
matching solutions for ct = 50' and 70' at 30 GHz. Fig. 33
ever, both experimental data [ 5 l ] (see Fig. 15) and theoretical
shows a comparison between the above approximate relations
considerations [43] show that rain-induced depolarizationis
andthe point-matching solutionforthe differential phase much worse for circularly polarized waves. Measurements
shift,
the corresponding
comparison for
the differential [96] of a 4-GHz circularly polarized signal fromIntelsat IV
attenuation not being shown because the curves coincide. The
above equationsindicatethat depolarization on theearth- ' See, for example, [ 115 1.
space path should be less than on aterrestrial path for the "See, for example, [ 11 61.
1324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975

%OO 0
' -IC* RAINRATE-mm/HR
2 5 10 20 50 D O 200 50C
1) I l l 1 1 1 I

ATTENUATION RATIO
p,-MEASURED XXX

\\ p;CALCULATED *e*

I
\

Fig. 34. Contours of constantpolarizationorientation E withrespect

to theplanecontainingthe local vertical;satellite at105' west
longitude radiating linear polarization in the meridian plane.

2.0b 5I IO
I I
15
16GHZ ATTENUATION-dB

Fig. 36. Ratios of 30- t o 1 6 4 % ~attenuation derived from the cumula-

tivedistributions of Fig. 21 along withcalculations using the Lam,
and Parsons raindropsize distribution.

19-GHz beacon signal will be switched at a 1-kHz rate between

V I I I I I I I I
two orthogonal linear polarizations, horizontal and "vertical"
5 10 IS 20 25 30 35 40 45 withrespect toa receiving siteatHolmdel, N.J., and the
-
2 0 GHz ATTENUATION dB satellite-earth
path.
It is believed that this forthcoming
Fig. 35.Measured crosspolarization versus attenuationof a 2O-GHz experiment will provide a comprehensive set of statistics on
signal fromATS-6;theincident linear polarization is oriented 20' cross-polarization produced by rain.
-
from the plane containing the local vertical, - - calculated C W ~
from [43]. VI. FREQUENCY DEPENDENCE
OF ATTENUATION
BY R A I N ON EARTHSPACE
PATHS
showed that rain-inducedcrosspolarization as high as - 11 Thestatistics of attenuation by rain measured ata given
dB relative to thecopolarization can occur. locationareuniquefor several reasons: thetotalamount
Recent measurements of the20-GHz signal from ATS-6 have of precipitation varies from one place to another, as does the
producedexperimentaldata on the rain-induceddepolariza- duration of thestorms,theirgeometry, and the height at
tion of a linearlypolarized wave radiatedfromasatellite. which the rain originates. It is also truethatattenuation
Fig. 35 shows the data obtained [97] during a rain-storm at measurementsmust be madecontinuouslyfor several years
Holmdel, N.J.;'8in thiscase, theincidentpolarization is to obtain data sufficient for an engineer to design a system
oriented 20" from the plane containing the propagation direc- with confidence. Just as discussed for terrestrial paths in Sec-
tion and the local vertical. The polarization crosstalk ratio in tion 11-A, when long-term statistics have been measured at a
clear weather, about 26 dB, is caused mainly by the off-axis given frequency,it is meaningful to examinemethods of
cross-polarization characteristic of the satellite antenna. The extrapolating the attenuation to other frequencies.
two dashed curves in Fig. 35 are theexpectedrain-induced The relative attenuation at 16 and 30 GHz, measured simul-
crosstalk ratios at 18 GHz for circularly and vertically polar- taneously on a single antenna, was discussed briefly in connec-
ized waves respectively on a terrestrial path; the experimental tion with Fig.21of Section 111-A. Thosedatacanbeinter-
points are mostly confined within the two curves, as predicted preted in another way [981 by takingtheratio of the
in the earlier discussion. These preliminary data indicate that attenuationsat variouspercent-of-time levels andplotting
when significant rain-induced cross-polarization begins to them versus a t t e n ~ a t i o n ' ~as shown by the crosses inFig.
appear (e.g., 2 M B crosstalk ratio), the rain fading probably 36. But a given ratio of attenuationfortwo specific fre-
alreadyexceeds the fading margin (e.g., 10dB) of a single- quencies only occurs at a particular rainrate according to the
path 20-GHz satellite communication system; path-diversity, theory, using the Laws and Parsons drop-sizedistribution,
discussed inSection IV, could be operativeunderthose discussed in Section 11-A. Therefore, the theoretical ratio of
conditions. 30- to l6-GHz attenuation can be plotted versus rainrate as
In thepropagation experiment using the ATT-Comsat shown by the solid dots in Fig. 36. Thus, for this particular
domestic satellites with beacons [ 8 11 at 19 and 28 GHz, the
Is& was done for the 30.9- to 18.5GHz attenuation ratio on a short
"Elevation angle of the antenna beamia about 40'. terrwttrlal path, Fig.7 of Section 11-A.
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1325

12

I APFARENT RAINRATE ON PATH

DERIVED FROM y s o / q r ATTENUATION
EXTENT OF RAINCELLS ALONG THE
EARTH-SPACEPATH.
OF RAINRATE
AS A FUNCTION
(1968 DATA)
RATIO (1968 DATA)

$ 1
k! 0.2
X
W
t: I \ 3

X
I-
X
I-

w
J
X

J
I-
2
2-

Y
\
\ I
\
RAINRATE 5 IO
.o2C \, 11968) 50 1 0 0 200
RAINRATE ON EARTH-SPACE PATH-mm/HR.

Fig. 38. Rain extent versus apparent rain rate derived from the cumulr-
tive distributions of attenuationin Fig. 21.
OD1
IO 20 50 100 200
RAINRATE-mrn/HR
Fig. 37. Apparent rainrate on the earth-space pathderived from the
cumulative distributions of Fig. 21; point rainratemeasuredat the
New Jersey location is shown dashed.
o,+ PRwCTKwl
set of data, when the measured 16-GHz attenuation is, for
example, 8 dB, the 30- to 16-GHz ratio is 3.0, therefore the
apparent rainrate in the cell on the earth-space path is (on the
average) 20 mm/h. In this way oneconstructsacumulative
distribution of apparentrainratecorresponding tothedata
of Fig. 21 ; the result is shown in Fig. 37. Plotted as a dashed
lineon that samefigure is thepointrainratedistribution
measured atthe site. Clearly theapparentrainrateonthe
earth-space path has a much greater probability of occurence
than the point rainrate, especially for the higher values.But
that is not asurprisingresult since theformer applies to
occurence on a path of order 20 km whereas the latter applies
only at a point. In other words, a shower or cell is much more
likely to intercept a long path than to include a point. This
matter wasdiscussed brieflywith regard toshort terrestrial
pathsin Section 11-B; but simultaneous long-termdual-
frequencymeasurements over Zong terrestrialpathshave, to
the authors knowledge, not yet been made.
The apparent rainrate of Fig. 37 is not to be confused with
the path-average rainrate. Indeed, so far, nothing has beensaid
about the effective length of the rain medium on the path,i.e.,
the extent of the rain cell. But this effective length can be ob-
tained from the absolutevalue of the attenuation;in the above
example, from the 16-GHz attenuation of 8 dB and apparent
rainrate of 20 mm/h, we calculate a rain extent, orequivalent
cell size, of 6.5 km. When this procedure is c d e d out for all 5 lo 25 X)
of the measured ratios in Fig. 36, a relationship between the
extent and the intensity of the rain is obtained, as shown in Fig. 39. Cumulative distriiutions of attenuation m e w e d by a sun-
Fig. 38. This result is intuitively satisfying because it broadly tracker in New Jersey during 1972-1973; predictions of atteuutim
tells us that light rains usually occur over large areas in New at a third frequency from measurements at two other f r e q u m c h
are shown.
Jersey whereas heavy rains are in the form of relatively small
cells. Because a given pointin Fig. 38 relates to acertain Simultaneousmeasurements [991 of attenuationat 13, 19
percent-of-time value, onecan, using the standard theory of and 30 GHz were made using asuntracker (Fig. 20) at
Section 11, derive acumulativedistribution of attenuation Holmdel, N.J., for the year 1972-1973. The cumulative distri-
foranyother desired frequency. This hypothesishasbeen butions are given in Fig. 39; the 30 GHz distribution does not
checkedbyathree-frequencyexperiment discussed in the differ much from its 1967-1 968 counterpart in Fig. 2 1. But
following paragraphs. the main purpose of the experiment was to utilize attenuations
1326
\ If two antenna beams have a common volume,20 the main
.o I
3
0 ATTTEN-dB
Fig. 40. Prediction of
attenuation at 100 GHz from suntracker
measurements o f 19- and 3&GHZ attenuation in New Jersey.
measured at two frequencies for predicting the attenuation at
a third frequency and to examine agreement of that value with
the actual measurement at the third frequency. This exercise
was carried out, as discussed above, by determining the ap-
parent rainrate distribution from two setsof data and applying
standard theory to predict thethird set. Fig. 39 shows the
result of predictions to both lower and higher frequencies,i.e.,
theopendots arepredictions of13-GHz attenuation, given
19 and 30 GHz, and the crosses predictions of 30 GHz given
the 13-and 19-GHz measureddata.In both cases, the pre-
dicted values are withinabout1 dB of the measured values
except for the point of highest attenuation, i.e., 35 dB at 30
GHz, in which case the curvature of the measured distribution
is open to somequestion [99] because of dynamic-range
limitations.
An example of the result obtained when the apparent rain-
ratedistribution is used to predictattenuationatamuch
higherfrequency,100GHz, is shownin Fig. 40. The mea-
sured 19 and 30 GHz attenuations used to determinethe
apparentrainratearethose discussed above. The 100-GHz
distribution shows a distinct and rapid downward trend at the
higher values of attenuation; this is a consequence of a some-
what slower increase of 1 0 W H z attenuation at high rainrate.
However, in spite of that behaviour, the lOOGHz attenuation
reaches values of order 60 dB which, in the light of present
technology, appear to be insurmountable in design of a com-
munication system, even if path diversity were used. It should
be pointed out thatFigs. 39 and 40are based on only one year
of measurements in New Jersey.
VII. SHARINGOF FREQUENCYBANDS BETWEEN
TERRESTRIALAND SATELLITE SYSTEMS
(INTERFERENCE)
In order that terrestrial and satellite communication systems taken t o be isotropic [781, [ 1071. Previous calculations have
successfully share the same frequency band, the interference been based upon the following relation [ 1081 which involves
between them must be kept under control. In clear weather the Rayleigh approximation:
conditions, one must contend with transmission beyond the
horizon [ 1001 , [ 101 ] due to scatteringfromatmospheric
turbulence, superrefraction, and layer reflection. On the other
hand, when the signal is depressed by heavy rain fading, com-
munication systems may be more vulnerable to energy propa-
gated beyondthe horizonand also besusceptible to inter-
ference caused by scattering from the rain.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, SEPTEMBER 1975
e , = 30
Fig. 41. Geometry for calculation of rain-scattering interference
between an earth station R and a terrestrial radio-relay antenna T.
beam to main beam coupling via rain scattering is expected to
produce strong interference. But in the absence of a common
volume, coupling from the main beam of one system into the
sidelobes of another is still a potential source of interference.
Both cases have beenestimatedbyapproximatenumerical
calculations [ 1021, [ 1031 which will be discussed later. Mea-
sureddata onthe sidelobe to main-beamcouplingare very
scarce [ 51 , whereas several experiments have been carried out
in the common-volume case [ 1041-[ 1061. The comparison
between thelatter experimentalresultsandcalculated pre-
dictions is not only interesting in its own right but also serves
as a bench mark for estimating the sidelobe to main-beam
coupling.
Measured ratios [ 1041 of received to transmitted power at
4.5 and 7.7 GHz have been found to be in good agreement
with values calculated using the bistatic radar equation, mea-
sured radar data, and a rain-scattering coefficient based upon
the Rayleigh approximation. The measured statistics [ 1051,
[lo61 of the coupling loss at 3.6, 6, and 7.8 GHz also agree
with predictions based upon rain statistics measured at a loca-
tion on the earth beneath the common volume. The coupling
caused by common volume rain scattering can be of the order
- 120 dB for 0.01-percent probability in the eastern US [ 1051 ;
intersecting main beams should, therefore, be avoided in the
planning of radio communication systems.
Startingfrom the bistaticradarequationand assuming a
well behaved Fresnelzone beam cross section for the earth
stationantenna, as shown in Fig. 41,the powercoupling
between a terrestrial radio-relay antenna and the earth-station
antenna can be predicted by
where u, is the rain scattering coefficient (the scattering cross
section per unit volume), Q the rain attenuation coefficient,
and A 2 ( f ? ~ the
) pattern function for the effective aperture area
of the terrestrial repeater antenna. In the frequency range of
interest ( 5 3 0 GHz) the scatteringby the raindropscanbe
"A common-volume geometry is one in which the main beams of the
two antennas intersect.
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1327

.lO.O

m
?
h-150
I .o 1
d
c
L
-3
I-
2 -mO 2 4 6 8 0 20 00 6OWKy) ZOO 400
w0 0.1
-
R N N RATE MM f HR
LL
LL Fig. 43. Calculatedcoupling at 4 GHz forauniform rain of 4 km
W
0 height, -radio relay antenna beam directed towardearth station;
0 - - - isotropic level sidelobes directed toward the earth-station.
(3
i
a
W
c
5
0
01
0.01 -loo m
z
a
a

0.001

0.0001

RAIN RATE (mm/HR)

Fig. 42. Calculated scatteringcoefficients of rain; - - - empirical ""' I " ' ' "'" ""' " I ' "'" ' I " ' '
relation using theRayleighwavelengthdependence, -Me's scat- -250
4 2 3 4 r s + o 2 3 4 ra+otJ 2 3 4
tering solution using the Laws and Parsons drop size distribution
RAIN RATE, rnm/HR

Rayleinh approximation is knownto be invalid at higher
microwave frequencies,(13) is compared in Fig 42anth
recentcalculations [20] using Me'sscatteringsolution and
Laws and Parsons drop-size distribution. For rainrates up to
150 mm/h, Fig. 42shows that the dashedlines for the ap-
proximate relation (1 3) are within a factor of two of the exact
calculation for the frequencies 4 through 18GHz. At 30 GHz,
the exact result is a factor of four lower at 100 mm/h. Using
(1 2) and (131, numerical calculations of the power coupling
losshave been made for various geometries and frequencies.
Fig. 43 showsanexample at 4 GHz foruniformrain origi-
nating at a height of 4 km, and Fig. 44 an example at 18.5
GHz for a localized shower extending S = 1 km from the earth
station. The upper set of curves in Figs. 43 and 44 apply to
the situation where a terrestrial radio relay antenna beam is
directed toward an earth station (see Fig. 411, the gain of the
antenna in terrestrial system being 43 d B at 4 GHz and 36 dB
at 18.5 GHz which are typical of existing designs. The lower
setapplies where isotropic-levelsidelobes of theterrestrial
antenna intercept the beam of the earth-station antenna. The
coupling is relativelyinsensitive tofrequencybecausethe
effects of increased scattering and increased attenuation tend
to cancel one another. For the lower frequencies, the maxi-
mum coupling occurs at high rain rates, and the interference
caused bylarge-area uniformrain is generally of the same
order of magnitude as that of a localized shower. At higher
frequencies the rain attenuation reduces the interference for
large-area uniform rain, and the maximum coupling occurs at
even lowerrainratesthanforthelocalized rain condition
shown in Fig. 44.
Fig. 44. Calculated couplingat 18.5 GHz for a localized shower extend-
ing 1 km from the earth station; -radio-relay antenna beam directed
toward earth station; - - - - isotropic level sidelobes directedtoward
the earth station.
The significance of the cochannel interference resulting from
thesecouplings(of the order - 140 dB) is judgedby com-
parisonwith thethermal noise inthe receiverof a typical
earthstation. If the system noise temperature of a 4 GHz
earth station is 70 K within a 40-MHz band, the noise power
referred to the input w li be - 134 dBw. The interference in
the earth-station receiver from a terrestrial radio repeater of
10-W transmitting power, with - 140 dB coupling, is therefore
- 130 dBw, 4 .dB above the thermal noise. Thus the combined
interference of several radio repeaters with sidelobes near the
isotropic level couldbecome a seriousthreat tothe per-
formance of a 46Hz earthstation receiver, therefore, earth
stations of 4- and 6 G H z satellite systems have to be located
farfrommetropolitancenters which alreadyaccomodate
terrestrialsystemsatthesefrequencies.Unfortunately,the
connecting link between the earth stationand the urban traffic
center is a significant added costto theoverall system.
It is desirable to locate the earth stationof a satellite system
in an urban area with terrestrial systems occupying the same
frequency bands, thereby reducing the cost of the connecting
end link;this is much easier to accomplish at 18 and 30 GHz
thanat4and 6 GHz. Because an 18-GHz earth-station
receiver can have both higher noise temperature (1 50 K) and
greater noise bandwidth (say 300 MHz) than at 4 GHz, the
totalthermalnoise of an 18-GHz groundstation receiver is
expected t o be more than 10 dB above that of 4 GHz. The
1328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE,SEPTEMBER 1975

relatively strong satellite signal provided by high gain of the

earth station antenna and a spot beam antenna on thesatellite
will provide more immunity tothe rain-scatter coupling
AIR
(which is about the same as at 4 GHz). Also, one notes that
beyondthe horizoncoupling(in clear a i r ) decreases with
wavelength [ 1001. Furthermore, the higher frequency system
wiU likely utilize digital modulation and hence be more +T
tolerant of interference. For example, analysis shows [56]
that the bit error rate for a 4-level CPSK system is less than
10 for a signal t o interference ratio of 15 dB, and a signal
t o thermal noise ratio of 16 dB (see Fig. 17).

VIII. DEGRADATION
OF ANTENNA PERFORMANCE
BY k 4 I N
In the introduction it was mentioned that one of the first
rain effects observed at 4 GHz was caused by a wet radome. I1 GHr
Subsequently, analysis of rain falling on a hemispherical
radome showed that a water layer of constant thickness [ 1091
would be formed over sucha surface. An electromagnetic
wave incident on a layer of water experiences both absorption
and reflection loss [ 1101 ; the resulting overall degradation in
-45 -
transmission is shown in Fig. 45 as a function of layer thick- -
ness for several frequencies of interest. At 18 GHz for ex-
ample, an attenuation of 10 dB is introduced by a layer of
water one quarter of a millimeter in thickness. Therefore, if
layers that thick are formed by rain falling on a radome, the
system designer is faced with another source of attenuation of -20
0 0.5 4 1) 15
the same order as the attenuation produced by rain on the WATERLAYERTHICKNESS mm
propagationpath. Unfortunately, we knowlittleaboutthe Fig. 45. Transmission through a layer of water at various common-
thickness of the layerformed at a given rain rate since it carrier frequencies.
depends on the geometry, frictional and wetting properties of
the radome surface.
In the past, attenuation by rain on radomesand weather
covers of antennas has not been studiedexperimentally in
its own right because it occurs simultaneously with attenua-
tionby rain onapropagation path; separation of the two
effects is a difficult process. For that reason, a near-field ex-
periment was implemented [ 11 11 in which 20 GHz was trans-
mitted through a portion of asegment of aradome over a
path of onlynine meters. Over such a short distance, the
attenuation on the pathitself is negligible even for theheaviest
of rains, therefore the observed attenuations are only caused
by water on the radome. Fig. 46 shows data measured during
rains which occurred afterthe radomesurface had been
exposed to the sun and weather for about eight months. The
I
median values of attenuation are plotted (ascrosses) versus
I I I I I I I
rainrate measured by a gauge near the radome,alongwith 0 x) 40 60 80 100 Ix) 140 160
dashed lines which include the maximumandminimum RAIN RATE (YYIHR)

observed attenuations.The measured data have abehavior
similar tothetheoretical relationshipshown bythe solid
curve, but are of lower absolute value. Clearly, attenuations
of 6 dB or more can occur forrainrates greater than 10 mm/h.
Referring back t o Fig. 45, the thickness of the layer would be
about 0.1 mm to produce that attenuation at20 GHz.~
It is desirable therefore that an earth-station antenna be
operable without aradome, assuming that problems intro-
duced by wind forces and ice formation can be overcome in
other ways. However, without aradome, rain producesa
waterlayeron the reflecting surfaceswhich constitutethe
Radome surfaces o f special design may prevent formation o f a layer
by causing the water to flow in rivulets; this wi decrease the attenua-
l
tion but presumably new problems such as aperture phaseerrors and
cross polarization may be introduced.
Fig. 46. 20-GHz attenuation through asection of a large spherical
radome versus measured rainrate.
antenna and onemust examine howmuchattenuation is
introduced. We had occasion t o calculate the reflection coeffi-
cient of an 18.5-GHz plane wave incident at 4S0 on water
layers of various thickness covering a flat conducting surface.
As shown in Fig. 47, the attenuation in the reflection process
is a function of the thickness of the water and the wave polari-
zation, a wave polarized normal to the plane ofincidence
exhibiting about half the degradation of polarization in the
plane. However, the significant point is that if we assume the
same thickness of water on the reflector (0.1 mm) as on the
radome discussed above, the attenuation is, from Fig. 47, less
than 0.05 dB for both polarizations. Comparing that value
with the 6-dB loss involved in transmission through a 0.1-mm
HOGG AND CHU: RAIN AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS 1329

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