Performance of equatorial multiple-site diversity systems evaluated from rain rate time series

For the last decades satellite communication systems have been moving towards higher and higher frequencies; rain attenuation along the Earth-satellite path can be an important limiting factor for the system availability, especially in tropical regions where rain events can be particularly intense. One of the possible countermeasures is site diversity. In this paper we evaluate the performance of small-scale, multiple-site diversity systems, through simulations performed on rain-rate time series gathered by four rain gauges located in the equatorial city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. The results show a considerable improvement in terms of performance of the system.