Use of High-Resolution Numerical Weather Predictions for the Operation of Earth-Space Links

The use of high-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) data for electromagnetic wave propagation analysis along Extremely High Frequencies (EHF) is the focus of this work. The Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model is coupled with the ERA5 meteorological data to produce NWP data, hence the link attenuation, at resolutions never explored for propagation purposes, i.e. 1 minute and 1 km x 1 km. By comparison with the Alphasat propagation data collected in Milan, light is shed on the best compromise between space-time resolution and computation time. Also, a statistical approach is proposed exploiting in a more reliable way the link attenuation forecasts to dynamically adapt the link parameters (e.g. modulation and coding scheme) and thus meet the target quality requirements (e.g. Bit Error Rate) in different weather conditions.