An electromagnetic method for removing the communication blackout with a space

vehicle upon re-entry into the atmosphere

Jianjun Cheng, Ke Jin, Yong Kou, Ruifeng Hu, and Xiaojing Zheng

Citation: Journal of Applied Physics 121, 093301 (2017); doi: 10.1063/1.4976213

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4976213
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/jap/121/9
Published by the American Institute of Physics

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 JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 121, 093301 (2017)

An electromagnetic method for removing the communication blackout

with a space vehicle upon re-entry into the atmosphere
Jianjun Cheng,1 Ke Jin,2 Yong Kou,2 Ruifeng Hu,1 and Xiaojing Zheng1,a)
1
School of Mechano-Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, Shaanxi,
People’s Republic of China
2
School of Aerospace Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, Shaanxi,
People’s Republic of China
(Received 19 July 2016; accepted 30 January 2017; published online 1 March 2017)
When a hypersonic vehicle travels in the Earth and Mars atmosphere, the surface of the vehicle is
surrounded by a plasma layer, which is an envelope of ionized air, created from the compression
and heat of the atmosphere by the shock wave. The vehicles will lose contact with ground
stations known as the reentry communication blackout. Based on the magnetohydrodynamic
framework and electromagnetic wave propagation theory, an analytical model is proposed to
describe the effect of the effectiveness of electromagnetic mitigation scheme on removing the
reentry communication blackout. C and Global Positioning System (GPS) bands, two commonly
used radio bands for communication, are taken as the cases to discuss the effectiveness of the
electromagnetic field mitigation scheme. The results show that the electron density near the
antenna of vehicles can be reduced by the electromagnetic field, and the required external
magnetic field strength is far below the one in the magnetic window method. The directions of
the external electric field and magnetic field have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the
mitigation scheme. Furthermore, the effect of electron collisions on the required applied
electromagnetic field is discussed, and the result indicates that electron collisions are a key factor
to analyze the electromagnetic mitigation scheme. Finally, the feasible regions of the applied
electromagnetic field for eliminating blackout are given. These investigations could have a
significant benefit on the design and optimization of electromagnetic mitigation scheme for the
blackout problem. Published by AIP Publishing. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4976213]

I. INTRODUCTION most feasible methods mainly contained electrophilic injec-

When a hypersonic vehicle re-enters the earth’s atmo-
sphere, a shock wave is created in front of the vehicle, caus-
ing the ionization of the air molecules. Thus, a layer of
plasma is formed around the leading edge of the vehicle and
prevents radio communication, which is commonly called
"radio blackout."1 Radio blackout may last for few seconds
to several minutes, impeding the aircraft telemetry monitor,
GPS navigation, exterior ballistic measurement, and flight
control of vehicles.2 The random collisions among electrons
and neutral particles in the plasma layer may interrupt the
propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves, which makes
the communication signals fall below the threshold.3
A number of approaches have been suggested to solve
the radio blackout problem, such as aerodynamic shaping,
electrophilic injection or ablation, magnetic windows, high
frequencies, and Raman scattering.1–17,20,23–32 During the
1960s and 1970s, radio attenuation measurement program
(RAM1,10 for short) was conducted to study the effect of the
plasma layer on reentry vehicle communication systems at
the NASA. The mission of the RAM was to determine the
effectiveness of aerodynamic shaping, electrophilic injec-
tion, and magnetic windows in removing the communica-
tions blackout problem. Those studies confirmed that the
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:
xjzheng@xidian.edu.cn
tion and magnetic windows.5
Theoretical and experimental studies show that the
impressed electromagnetic field can change the plasma
layer environment near the antenna, which could mitigate
communication blackout. Pollin et al.6 suggested a mitigat-
ing method by an applied electric field, which indicated that
an electric field can make the electron density decrease
more than two orders of magnitude. Hodara7 first proposed
the magnetic field mitigating techniques, and then Russo
and Hughes8 carried out experimental tests to measure the
effects of a static magnetic field on VHF transmission in the
plasma layer. These results have shown that the signal
attenuation is reduced from 45 dB for zero fields to 28 dB at
a 0.75 T magnetic field. The Institute of Mechanics of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences9 imposed a transverse mag-
netic field on the nonequilibrium ionized high velocity gas
stream and revealed that a 1 T magnetic field can reduce
electron density by an order of magnitude. Rawhouser10
pointed out that 1.3 T magnetic field was needed to elimi-
nate the S-band blackout. Due to the weight and volume
limitations in the reentry spacecraft, however, only 0.15 T
magnetic field11 could be generated by the permanent mag-
nets under the existing technical level (the electromagnet
system provided for 1 T magnetic field required over 500 kg
equipments3,12), which limits the feasibility of the magnetic
window method.

0021-8979/2017/121(9)/093301/9/$30.00 121, 093301-1 Published by AIP Publishing.

093301-2 Cheng et al.
In order to decrease the required magnetic field, some
scholars proposed a scheme that combined electric and
magnetic fields to solve the communication blackout.13,14
Keidar et al.13 studied the density reduction by an applied
electric field and an orthogonal magnetic field on the
plasma layer. Kim14 put forward a magneto hydrodynamic
(MHD) model to analyze the required magnetic field
strength for reducing electron density in the E  B method.
Kundrapu et al.15 presented a procedure for the modeling
and analysis of radio communication blackout of hyper-
sonic vehicles. The interaction between electromagnetic
wave and plasma layer was modeled using multi-fluid equa-
tions and Maxwell’s equations. The multi-fluid solver was
verified for a whistler wave propagating through a slab.
Sotnikov et al.16,17 also investigated instability in a plasma
layer that consists of electrons and positively charged ions
in the presence of neutral air particles. However, electron
collisions, the key factor to electromagnetic wave propaga-
tion in the plasma layer, had not been taken into account in
these previous studies.13–17
The main purpose of this work is to model the reentry
blackout with the electromagnetic mitigation scheme. The
electron collisions are considered in the proposed model.
Then, for the C and GPS navigational signals, the effective-
ness of the electromagnetic mitigation scheme is analyzed,
and the effect of electron collisions on the external electro-
magnetic field is discussed. Finally, the feasible regions of
the external electromagnetic field for eliminating blackout
are given under different electron collision frequencies.
II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The schematic configuration of an electromagnetic field
is shown in Fig. 1. A static electric field and a static magnetic
field are applied by a pair of electrodes and an electromag-
net, respectively. The directions of the applied electromag-
netic field near the antenna are shown in Fig. 1, in which a is
the angle between the direction of the electric field and flow
field and b is the angle between the direction of the magnetic
field and flow field. The plasma layer is composed of a large
FIG. 1. Schematic drawing of the applied electromagnetic field.
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)
number of charged particles, and it can be considered as con-
ductive fluid. A multifluid model, based on basic equations
of MHD and EM wave propagation,18,19 is used for the inter-
action of the electromagnetic field and flow field.
Considering the ionization equilibrium, the mass conserva-
tion for the charged particles is given by
r  ðnc Vc Þ ¼ 0 (1)
and momentum conservation is
mc nc ðVc  rVc Þ ¼ qc nc ðE þ Vc  BÞ  kB Tc rnc
X
k¼i;e;n
 nc mc ck ðVc  Vk Þ (2)
k6¼c
here, q, n, V, T, and m are the charge, density, velocity, tem-
perature, and mass, respectively, and index is for any particle
fluid, i.e., c ¼ i; e; n are for ion fluid, electron fluid, and neu-
tral fluid, respectively. ie is the ion-electron collision fre-
quency, in is the ion-neutral collision frequency, en is the
electron-neutral collision frequency, kB is the Boltzmann
constant, and E and B are the electric field and magnetic
field in the plasma layer, respectively.
The ion-electron collision frequency ie is small
enough to be negligible in comparison with the ion-neutral
collision frequency in . The inertia of electron me ne
ðVe  rVe Þ is small enough compared to the one of ion,
since the ion mass is about 104 times of the one of electron.
The velocity Vn of the neutral particle approximately equals
the flow velocity V of the plasma layer. Thus, Eq. (2) can
be simplified as
mi ni ðVi  rVi Þ ¼ eni ðE þ Vi  BÞ  kB Ti rni
 ni mi in ðVi  VÞ; (3)
0 ¼ ene ðE þ Ve  BÞ  kB Te rne  ne me ei
 ðVe  Vi Þ  ne me en ðVe  VÞ (4)
here, the plasma velocity is defined as14
mi Vi þ me Ve
V¼ : (5)
mi þ me
In the following research, taking the same assumption as
Ref. 14, we assume that the plasma layer is considered
as quasi-neutral, ne  ni ¼ n. This assumption is physically
reasonable because the physical size of the plasma layer
is large compared to the Debye screening length kD
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
¼ e0 kB Te =ne e2 , which is related to the electron number
density.14 Since ion mass is much heavier than electron
mass, the plasma velocity is nearly the same as the velocity
of the ion, V  Vi . Thus, Eq. (1) can be expressed as
r  ðnVÞ ¼ 0 (6)
and Eqs. (3) and (4) can be simplified as
mi nðVi  rVi Þ ¼ enðE þ Vi  BÞ  kB Ti rn; (7)
0 ¼ enðE þ Ve  BÞ  kB Te rn  nme e ðVe  Vi Þ: (8)
093301-3 Cheng et al. J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)

Thus, with (7) and (8), we have

J
mi nðV  rVÞ ¼ kB ðTi þ Te Þrn þ J  B þ nme e (9)
en
in which the definition of the electron collision frequency e
¼ ei þ en 14,19 and the current density J ¼ enðVi  Ve Þ18,19
are used.
For the one-dimensional case, nV is constant in Eq. (6)

n0 V0 ¼ nV; (10)

where n0 and V0 are the electron density and the flow veloc-
ity at the anode location, i.e., x ¼ 0,14 respectively. Eq. (9)
can be simplified as

dV jB0 sin b 1 me e j kB ðTi þ Te Þ dn

¼ þ  : (11)
dx mi n0 V0 mi V0 en0 n0 mi V0 dx

With Eq. (6), Eq. (11) becomes

 
kB ðTi þ Te Þ n0 V0 dn jB0 sin b 1 me e j
 2 ¼ þ :
n0 mi V0 n dx mi n0 V0 mi V0 en0
(12)

Then, the local electron density nðxÞ yields

   
kB ðTi þ Te Þ n0 V0 kB ðTi þ Te Þ n0 V0
nþ  n0 þ
n0 mi V0 n n0 mi V0 n0
  FIG. 2. (a) Initial electron density distribution10 and (b) layered model of
jB0 sin b 1 me e j electro- magnetic wave propagation in the plasma layer.
¼ þ x: (13)
mi n0 V0 mi V0 en0
and different curves represent different flight altitudes. In this
Solving Eq. (13), one can arrive at the following work, the plasma layer is divided into many thin layers, and
equation:
electron density is considered to be uniform in each layer. The
2V0 electromagnetic wave propagation in the plasma layer is illus-
N ð xÞ ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ; (14) trated in Fig. 2(b), where h is the angle between the direction
2
a þ bx þ ða þ bxÞ  4c of the electromagnetic wave and the normal of the vehicle sur-
face, M is the number of layers, and d is the plasma layer total
where NðxÞ is the dimensionless ratio for the local electron thickness. The m-th relative dielectric coefficient erm is given20
density with and without electromagnetic field, i.e., NðxÞ
b
¼ nðxÞ=n0 . a ¼ V0 þ kB ðTe þ Ti Þ=mi V0 , b ¼ jBm0i nsin
0 V0
þ mmi Ve0en
ej
, x2pm
0
er m ¼ 1  ; (15)
c ¼ kB ðTe þ Ti Þ=mi , V0 is the flow velocity, and L is the x2  ixm
inter-electrode length. The proposed model can be degener- pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ated to ones of the Kim model14 when electron collision where xpm ¼ nm e2 =e0 me is the plasma frequency and m is
frequency ve ¼ 0. With the definition of the conductivity the collision frequency in the m-th layer. In this work, m is a
r ¼ e2 n=e me ,1 the classic Ohm’s law18 provides a relation constant in each layer, which can be determined by the flight
between the current density j and the applied electric field E0 altitude and the temperature of the plasma layer. Detailed
as j ¼ rE0 cos a. In this work, under the low magnetic discussions can be found in Part III B. The applied magnetic
Reynolds number assumption, E and B in the plasma layer field strength B0 is less than 0.15 T, which is the maximum
can be simplified to the applied static electric field E0 and magnetic field under the existing technical level.11 In this
static magnetic field B0,14 respectively. Here, the earth mag- case, the magnetization of the plasma can be ignored since it
netic field is ignored since it is small enough to be negligible has little effect on the attenuation of the electromagnetic
in comparison with the applied magnetic field B0 by the wave. The relative errors between the results with and with-
electromagnet. out considering magnetization are less than 8% for different
When a hypersonic vehicle re-enters the atmosphere wave frequencies. Thus, the plasma layer can be simplified
between altitudes from 100 km to 20 km above the Earth’s sur- as the nonmagnetic plasma, and the relative magnetic perme-
face, initial electron density is different at each altitude. The ability can be assumed as lr ¼ 1.19 The Helmholtz equation
electron density distribution is spatially non-uniform in the can be derived from Maxwell’s equations as the term
plasma layer and can be obtained from RAM-C (Fig. 2(a)).10 r  ðr  EÞ is ignored due to the transverse wave assump-
Here, the z-axis is the vertical distance to the vehicle surface tion,1 which is given by
093301-4 Cheng et al. J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)

@ 2 Ew found as NðxÞ ¼ 1. The attenuations of the radio wave as a

r2 E w  l 0 e 0 e r ¼ 0; (16) function of wave frequency for different incident angles h at
@t2
30.6 km reentry altitude are shown in Fig. 3(a). As shown,
where er is the relative dielectric constant of the plasma the attenuation of the wave reaches its lowest point as the
layer, e0 ¼ 8:85  1012 F=m is the permittivity of vacuum, incident angle h ¼ 0 . Similar to the previous stud-
l0 ¼ 4p  107 H=m is the vacuum permeability, and the ies,14,15,23,24 in the following study, we assume that the inci-
electric field Ew ¼ ðEwx ; 0; Ewz Þ is associated with the elec- dent angles h ¼ 0 . The variation of the attenuations of five
tromagnetic wave, given by21 typical radio waves with reentry altitude is shown in Fig.
  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 3(b). Here, the relationship between attenuations and reentry
Ewz ðx; z; tÞ ¼ AeiðkzxtÞ þ BeiðkzþxtÞ eiðx e0 l0 x sin hÞ : (17) altitude is obtained by cubic spline interpolation and the
number of layers M is taken as 500. The collision frequency
Substituting Eq. (17) into Eq. (16), one can obtain
fe of the plasma can be found in Table I3 as the temperature
 2  is 2000 K, a typical value of the surface temperature for the
k þ l0 e0 ðer  sin2 hÞx2 Ewz ðx; z; tÞ ¼ 0: (18)
reentry vehicle. According to the NASA test data, the aircraft
Then, the electric field Em 21 enters the "blackout" when the attenuation of the communi-
wz ðx; z; tÞ in the m-th layer is given as
  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
cation signal exceeds 30 dB.3,24 It is clearly observed that
Em
wz ðx; z; tÞ ¼ Am e
iðkzm zxtÞ
þ Bm eiðkzm zþxtÞ eiðx e0 l0 x sin hÞ lower frequency signals (VHF, L, and S) enter the "blackout"
(19) much earlier than high frequency signals (C and X), but
almost simultaneously leave the "blackout". The reentry alti-
m
and the magnetic field Hwz ðx; z; tÞ associated with the electro- tudes of entering or leaving the "blackout" for VHF, C, and
magnetic wave in the m-th layer is X band signals can be obtained when the attenuation values
are equal to 30 dB in Fig. 3(b). Compared to the RAM-C II10
1 
m
Hwz ð x; z; tÞ ¼  ikzm Am eiðkzm zxtÞ
ixl0
 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ikzm Bm eiðkzm zþxtÞ eiðx e0 l0 x sin hÞ ; (20)
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where kzm ¼ x e0 l0 ðerm  sin2 hÞ, x is the electromagnetic
wave angular frequency. Since Em m1
wz ðx; zm ; tÞ ¼ Ewz ðx; zm ; tÞ
m m1
and Hwz ðx; zm ; tÞ ¼ Hwz ðx; zm ; tÞ, it yields
8
>
> B g þ Rm e2ikzm zmþ1 2ikz zmþ1
>
> Rmþ1 ¼ mþ1 ¼ mþ1;m e m
< Amþ1 1 þ gmþ1;m Rm e2ikzm zmþ1
>
> Am 1 þ Rmþ1 e2ikzmþ1 zmþ1 iðkzm kzmþ1 Þzmþ1
>
>
: Tmþ1 ¼ A ¼
1 þ R e2ikzm zmþ1
e ;
mþ1 m

(21)
kz kz
where gmþ1;m ¼ kzmþ1 þkzm , Rm is the reflectance, and Tm is the
mþ1 m

transmission at interface z ¼ zm ,22 m ¼ 1,2,…,M þ 1.

The reflectance R and transmission T of the electromag-
netic wave can be expressed as

R ¼ jRMþ1 j; (22)

A0 Mþ1Y
T ¼ ¼
jTm j: (23)
AMþ1 m¼1

Since antenna lies on the vehicle surface z ¼ 0, 0-th

boundary layer, any reflection is neglected because of dielec-
tric/antenna mismatch. Thus, R1 ¼ 0 and T1 ¼ 1 at the vehi-
cle surface z ¼ 0. The reflectance R, transmission T, and
attenuation Att ¼ 20lgðTÞ of the electromagnetic wave can
be obtained from Eqs. (21)–(23).

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Model verifications
FIG. 3. Without applying electromagnetic field (a) attenuation vs. electro-
As a special case, when no external electromagnetic magnetic wave frequency for different incident angles at 30.6 km reentry
field is applied, the dimensionless ratio in Eq. (14) can be altitude; (b) attenuation vs. reentry altitude for different frequency waves.
093301-5 Cheng et al. J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)

TABLE I. Collision frequency fe of the reentry plasma layer3 (T ¼ 2000 K).

Altitude /km Collision frequency /Hz Altitude /km Collision frequency /Hz Altitude /km Collision frequency /Hz

76.2 5:37  106 53.3 1:76  108 30.6 5:71  109

71.0 1:182  107 47.5 4:2  108 25.1 1:318  1010
61.6 4:992  107 39.9 1:36  109 21.3 2:3  1010

TABLE II. Comparison of the predicted altitudes with measured results.10

Onset of blackout End of blackout

Prediction /km Experiment /km Error/km Prediction/km Experiment/km Error/km

VHF (225.7 MHz) 76.52 79.33 3.5% 27.15 26.13 3.9%

C(5.8 GHz) 49.34 49.55 0.4% 25.66 … …
X(9.21 GHz) 40.31 38.12 5.8% 25.75 … …

measurement data, it can be found that model predictions are
in accordance with the measurement data (Table II).
When the external electromagnetic field is applied, the
plasma frequency as a function of x can be given as fp ðxÞ
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
¼ n0 NðxÞe2 =e0 me =2p. In Fig. 4, the predicted plasma
frequency for different electron temperatures are compared
with the experimental data at E0 ¼ 6250V=m and B0
¼ 2000G.25 The collision frequency is given from the
Petrin26 empirical formulas, and flow velocity25 is taken as
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
V0 ¼ kB Te =me . The range of electron temperature during
reentry is from 2 eV to 6eV.25 The electron density n0 is cal-
culated from the plasma frequency fp0 at the anode in the
experiment.25 It is shown that the model predictions are in
accordance with the measurement data.
B. The effect of electron collisions on electromagnetic
wave attenuation
Without an applied electromagnetic field, ion and elec-
tron velocities are nearly the same (Vi  Ve  V) in the
plasma layer. When the electromagnetic field is applied, an
electromagnetic force is exerted on those charged particles
and changes their movements. The motion of electrons can
be changed extremely easily due to its lightweight compared
to the neutral particle or positively charged ion. Therefore,
its motion can be affected by other particles and can be
described from the collision term in Eq. (8). Taking the C
band (5.7 GHz), a typical signal used in reentry, as example
communication, without magnetic field, the effect of applied
electric field strength on the blackout mitigation at 30.6 km
is analyzed in Fig. 5. The electron collision frequencies at
different reentry altitudes used in the model are given by
Table I. In the following study, the case that antenna lies in
the cathode is discussed, i.e., N ¼ NðLÞ. In the figure, the red
and blue lines are the attenuation changing with electric field
calculated from the proposed model and Kim’s model,
respectively. The attenuation value decreases with the
increasing electric field in the proposed model while it
remains unchanged in Kim’s model. The reason is that the
electron collisions are not considered in Kim’s model, which
means the electron collisions should be taken into account in
the analysis of blackout mitigation by electromagnetic
scheme even if only electric field are applied.
Thus far, it is shown that the electron collision fre-
quency is a key parameter to the analysis of blackout

FIG. 4. Comparisons between predicted plasma frequency and experimental FIG. 5. Attenuations of C band wave changing with electric field predicted
data25 with applied electromagnetic field. by Kim’s model and the proposed model, respectively.
093301-6 Cheng et al.
TABLE III. The range of collision frequency fe for the reentry plasma layer.
Altitude/km Collision frequency/Hz Altitude/km
6 7
76.2 10 –10 53.3
71.0 107–108 47.5
61.6 107–108 39.9
mitigation. For the actual situation of the plasma layer, the
electron collision frequency is approximate to the collision
frequency of electrons with neutral particles, which is related
to the neutral particle density and the plasma temperature.
The relation between the neutral particle density and the
reentry altitude can be given by curve fitting,27 that is
log ðNm Þ ¼ ah þ b, with a ¼ 0:058 and b ¼ 19:011. From
the existing literature, the electron collision frequency can be
expressed as follows
Petrin26 e ¼ 3:9  109 P½Torr (1 Torr ¼ 1=760atm),pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ginzburg27 fe ¼ 43 pa2 vNm ¼ 6:3  109  Nm  T=300,
Empirical formula28 fe ¼ 5:8  1012 T 1=2 ½KP½atm (1atm
¼ 1:01325  105 Pa),
Bachynski29 fe ¼3108 T q=q0 (q0 ¼1:288 103 g=cm3 ),
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where T is the temperature of the flow field, v ¼ 8eT=pme
is the electron arithmetic average speed, Nm is the neutral
particle density, kB is the Boltzmann constant, q ¼ 29
ð1:993  1026 =12Þ  Nm , P ¼ kB Nm T, and e ¼ 2pfe is
the electron collision frequency. The actual temperature
range for reentry is from 1000 K to 5000 K,1 which is a typi-
cal value of the surface temperature of the reentry vehicle.
The electron collision frequency at various reentry altitudes
is different and is given in Table III.
For the collision frequency range from 105 to 1011 Hz,
the influence of electron collisions on the attenuation values
for the C band is given in Fig. 6. It is found that the attenua-
tion values of the C band is less affected by electron collision
frequency in the range from 105 to 108 Hz but is largely
changed by electron collision frequency in the range from
108 to 1010 Hz.
FIG. 6. Attenuation of C band wave vs. collision frequency at the six differ-
ent reentry altitudes without applying electromagnetic field.
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)
Collision frequency/Hz Altitude/km Collision frequency/Hz
8 9
10 –10 30.6 109–1010
108–109 25.1 1010–1011
109–1010 21.3 1010–1011
The magnetic window method only uses a strong mag-
netic field to magnetize the plasma layer. Existing researches
show that the applied magnetic field strength to eliminate
blackout must be higher than 0.75 T.8–10 However, due to
the weight and volume limitations, only 0.15 T magnetic
fields11 can be applied under the existing technical level of
the reentry spacecraft. When the electric field is applied
simultaneously, charged particles will move and cut mag-
netic induction lines and drift under the Lorenz force J  B.
Thus, the necessary applied magnetic field should be lower
than the one in the magnetic window method. Therefore, the
effect of the electric current density on the blackout-area
(Dh) of the C band should be discussed. As shown in Fig. 7,
the blackout-area for the C band decreases with increasing
the electric current density under three different collision fre-
quencies. Here, the blackout-area is defined as the difference
between the altitudes of the entering blackout (henter ) and
leaving blackout (hleave ), i.e., Dh ¼ henter  hleave . The three
different collision frequencies are taken as the lower limit in
Table III, upper limit in Table III, and the value in Table I,
respectively.
C. The effect of electromagnetic field on "radio
blackout"
Since the Lorenz force exerted on charged particles by
the applied electromagnetic field can help to reduce the
plasma density near the antenna, the electromagnetic field
scheme may be applicable for solving the blackout problem.
Therefore, to minimize the weight, the effectiveness of the
electromagnetic field scheme should be investigated. By
FIG. 7. The blackout-area (Dh ¼ henter  hleave ) of C band vs. the applied
electric current density under three different electron collision frequencies,
which are upper and lower limits in Table III, respectively, and the value in
Table I.
093301-7 Cheng et al.
Ðd
defining the equivalent electron density Ne ¼ 0 nðzÞdz=d,
where nðzÞ is the electron density distribution function and d
is the thickness of the plasma layer, the effect of the electron
collisions on the equivalent electron density and attenuation
is shown in Fig. 8. In this work, B0 is assumed to not vary
with the distance z from the spacecraft surface. Here, the
electromagnetic field is taken as B0 ¼ 0:1T, j ¼ 200A=m2
(L ¼ 4cm). In Fig. 8(a), the blue line is the original values
without electromagnetic field, and the red and green lines
represent the equivalent electron density under the applied
electromagnetic field with and without considering electron
collisions, respectively. In Fig. 8(b), the shadow region rep-
resents the radio "blackout" and the line of 30 dB intersects
each curve at two points, which can be defined as the altitude
of entering and leaving blackout, respectively. It is obvious
that both the equivalent electron density and the blackout
region are reduced by the applied electromagnetic field.
Moreover, the influence of electron collisions on the equiva-
lent electron density and electromagnetic wave attenuation is
remarkable in the low altitude (20–40 km) but not obvious in
FIG. 8. The effect of electron collisions on the equivalent electron density
and the attenuation of the C band wave with applied electromagnetic field.
(a) Equivalent electron density vs. reentry altitude; (b) Attenuation of C
band vs. reentry altitude.
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)
the high altitude (40–80 km), since the electron collision fre-
quency is very low in higher altitude due to very low atmo-
spheric density. Therefore, the electron collision frequency
should be taken into account in the analysis of electromag-
netic wave attenuation when reentry altitude is lower than
40 km.
In order to optimize the direction of the applied electro-
magnetic field, the equivalent electron densities under elec-
tromagnetic field at different directions are discussed. As
shown in Fig. 9, the effect of the direction of the electromag-
netic field on the equivalent electron densities is analyzed. In
Fig. 9, the most optimal scheme for the direction of the
applied electromagnetic field is taken as a ¼ 0 for the elec-
tric field and b ¼ 90 for the magnetic field. In this case, the
equivalent electron density reaches its lowest point.
From Fig. 8, it also can be noted that the most significant
signal attenuation occurs when the reentry altitude is
30.6 km, which means if radio blackout can be eliminated at
this altitude, the blackout problem can be solved at other alti-
tudes. Therefore, C and GPS band (1.575 GHz) waves are
taken as examples, the required electric field and magnetic
field to eliminate blackout are analyzed at 30.6 km.
The phase diagrams are given in Figs. 10(a) and 10(b) to
show the necessary applied electromagnetic field, and the
electron collision frequency is taken as 1 GHz and 10 GHz,
respectively. In Figs. 10(a) and 10(b), the red line is the
blackout dividing line (the attenuation is 30 dB). When the
applied magnetic field and electric field are higher than the
dividing line, the blackout can be eliminated. As shown in
the figure, both C and GPS band radio blackout can be elimi-
nated by the electric field and magnetic field in the right
region (green region), while neither C and GPS band black-
out can be eliminated in the left region (black region).
However, in the middle region, only C band blackout can be
eliminated as fe is 1 GHz (see blue region in Fig. 10(a)),
while only GPS band blackout can be eliminated as fe is
10 GHz (see the yellow region in Fig. 10(b)).
In addition, it can be also concluded from Fig. 10 that
the collision frequency has a great influence on the feasible
FIG. 9. Equivalent electron density vs. the direction of electromagnetic
field.
093301-8 Cheng et al.
range of the electric field and magnetic field. Thus, the mini-
mum applied electric field changes with collision frequency
when the magnetic field is 0.15 T is discussed in Fig. 10(c).
It is shown that, for both GPS and C bands, as the collision
FIG. 10. The feasible region of the magnetic field strength and electric field
strength to eliminate blackout. (a) Electron collision frequency fe ¼ 1GHz;
(b) fe ¼ 10 GHz; (c) the minimum electric field changes with collision fre-
quency at B0 ¼ 0.15T.
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 093301 (2017)
frequency increases, the minimum external electric field
strength increases to a critical value and goes down quickly.
When the collision frequency is smaller than f0 , the neces-
sary applied electric field to eliminate blackout for the GPS
band is higher than that for the C band, while it is lower than
that for the C band as the collision frequency is greater than
f0 . Moreover, the necessary minimum electric field in the
electric field method, to eliminate "blackout" of C and GPS
bands, is higher than that in the electromagnetic field
method.
IV. CONCLUSION
As a mitigation scheme, the magnetic window method
needs a strong magnetic field to help the electromagnetic
wave to propagate through the plasma layer, much greater
than the maximum magnetic field provided by the current
technical level of the reentry spacecraft. So the magnetic
window method cannot be implemented in actual reentry
vehicles. But the electromagnetic field mitigation scheme
proposed in the proposed study can reduce the required mag-
netic field in the magnetic window method.
Based on the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) framework
and electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation theory, an ana-
lytical model is proposed to describe the effect of the effec-
tiveness of electromagnetic mitigation scheme on removing
the reentry communication blackout. The results show that
the electron collision frequency is a key parameter to the
analysis of blackout mitigation. The required applied electric
field and magnetic field to eliminate C and GPS band black-
out are calculated, and the optimal direction of the applied
electromagnetic field is analyzed.
However, the electromagnetic field mitigation scheme
has several limitations. One of the main deficiencies is that
the electric field is restricted by the Debye shielding effect.
The electric field is limited near the electrodes, which leads
to the current density that satisfies j ¼ 0A=m2 . According to
the proposed model, the electron density reduction ratio sat-
isfies N ¼ 1 when j ¼ 0A=m2 . Bittencourt’s study19 shows
that time-varying electric field produced by the time-varying
magnetic field is beneficial to overcome the Debye shielding
effect. Therefore, the effect of time-varying electromagnetic
field on the reentry communication blackout is an issue wor-
thy of discussion.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11672217, 11472201,
11402105, 61627901), the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities (Nos. JB151305 and JB151306).
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