Short-term Forecast of Radiocommunication Geostationary Satellite Links coupling Weather Prediction and Radiopropagation Models

The objectives and the preliminary results of the RadioSatMet numerical simulator are here described. The simulation chain is aimed at assessing the radio-propagation channel over the coverage region of a geostationary satellite communication (SatCom) system, featuring adaptive techniques as smart gateway diversity, through link quality estimates provided by its ground terminals as well as numerical weather prediction data. The RadioSatMet channel assessment system generates short-term statistical nowcasts and forecasts of the propagation conditions in each point of the coverage area. The RadioSatMet channel assessment output feeds an end-to-end system simulator, which evaluates the performances of the SatCom system with a particular focus on its gateway stations, in terms of data throughput, number of gateway switches and availability gains that can be achieved by using these methods.