Abstract
This thesis provides a new space-time statistical rain model and a novel space-time interpolation approach for planning and dimensioning wide area high frequency satellite communication networks.Key characteristics of rainfall rate fields are modelled. These include detailed description of: (i) the first order statistical distribution, (ii) the spatial and temporal correlation functions of rainfall rate and, and (iii) the probability of rain/no-rain. With a focus on their relevance to satellite and terrestrial microwave network design, the key contribution of this study is the assessment of the impact of varying spatial and temporal integration lengths on these quantities. The issue of how these key characteristics of rainfall rate field change with different area sizes are analysed in this thesis and it is novel.
A simple but accurate interpolation approach of the key characteristic parameters is presented in this thesis. The novelty of the proposed technique is that it does not rely directly on the radar/raingauge derived rainfall rate data like traditional models do but rather on fitted coefficients and computed rain characteristics. This thesis proposes rain parameter contour maps and databases covering the whole of Western Europe from which users can conveniently obtain the key rain characteristic parameters at any location within the studied area. More speculatively, the space-time interpolation approach can extrapolate to rain parameters at space-time resolutions shorter than those in the NIMROD databases. The results have been validated by comparing them with those from ITU Rec model and measurements by NIMROD rain radar.
In addition, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) software has been provided that allows users to interact with the proposed model. The user can easily obtain the information of the key rain characteristics at different space-time scales by simply inputting the longitude, latitude, space resolution and time resolution of the location of interest. The detailed results are then automatically calculated and displayed by the software significantly facilitating rain rate study.
| Date of Award | 2016 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | David Ndzi (Supervisor), David Sanders (Supervisor) & David Brown (Supervisor) |