EFFECTIVENESS OF SMART SITE DIVERSITY SCHEMES IN HTS SYSTEMS

A novel model able to generate time series of microwave rain attenuation correlated in space and in time is used to assess the performance of a V-band smart gateways arrangement constituted by 10 stations installed in selected sites in Europe. The link margin of each gateway in diversity configuration to counteract rain attenuation and allow 99.99% system availability is about 8 dB and 18 dB with 8 out of 10 and 9 out of 10 stations in operation, respectively. The average reduction of the duration of longer fade is in the order of a factor two in percentage of occurrence.