volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

The performance assessment of maritime microwave communications and radar systems requires accounting simultaneously for the non-homogeneous propagation medium over the sea and the rough sea surface scattering. The tropospheric ducting, specific for over water propagation, is one of the most difficult to treat propagation mechanisms. The proposed work combines a recently published in the literature phase correction, responsible for the shadowing effects, to the Ament rough surface reflection coefficient and the Parabolic Equation method (as implemented in the Advanced Propagation Model) to simulate the microwave propagation over the sea under evaporation duct conditions. Propagation factor and path loss results calculated for phase-corrected Ament, non-phase-corrected Ament and the other widely used, Miller-Brown, rough surface reflection coefficient are compared and discussed. The main effects from the accounting of the shadowing result in the shift of the interference minima and maxima of the propagation factor, changes in the path loss pattern and destruction of the trapping property of the duct.

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Dr. Irina Sirkova