Performance of site-diversity satellite communication systems in equatorial Malaysia investigated through weather radar data

Site diversity is one of the advanced techniques that aim to mitigate propagation impairments affecting satellite communication (SatCom) systems operating above 10 GHz. In this work, we exploit two years of weather radar data collected at Johor (Malaysia) to simulate a site diversity SatCom system operating at 18.9 GHz with two links pointing to the WINDS satellite (elevation angle equal to 44°). The effectiveness of the dual-link diversity scheme is assessed by calculating the single- and joint-site probability distributions of attenuation, as well as the diversity gain. Both results, calculated as a function of the separation distance, indicate a definite reduction in the rain attenuation affecting the overall communication system, hence a clear improvement in the Quality of Service (QoS) that can be provided to the users in this heavy rain region. In addition, the radar derived diversity gain values have been compared with those obtained from the latest version of ITU-R Recommendation P.618 model for the design of site diversity systems: results indicate quite a significant discrepancy, especially at high attenuation levels.