See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/3434891

A Multivariate Autoregressive Model of Rain Attenuation on Multiple Short

Radio Links

Article  in  IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters · January 2007

DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2006.870362 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS
18 113

4 authors:

Gamantyo Hendrantoro Indrabayu Amirullah

Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Universitas Hasanuddin
145 PUBLICATIONS   547 CITATIONS    63 PUBLICATIONS   171 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

T. Suryani A. Mauludiyanto
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember
20 PUBLICATIONS   59 CITATIONS    36 PUBLICATIONS   126 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Distributed node positioning View project

Millimeter-wave wireless communications in tropical regions View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Gamantyo Hendrantoro on 06 February 2013.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

54
A Multivariate Autoregressive Model of Rain
Attenuation on Multiple Short Radio Links
Gamantyo Hendrantoro, Member, IEEE, Indrabayu, Titiek Suryani, and Achmad Mauludiyanto
Abstract—A multivariate autoregressive (AR) model for rain at-
tenuation on a network of radio links is presented. Underlying as-
sumptions are discussed, including the stationarity of rainfall rate
in space and time within the region enclosing the links. Formula-
tion of the model is described, together with some considerations
for its application in assessing performance of a network of radio
links. An example of use of the model for simulation of rain atten-
uation on two short converging links operating at 30 GHz is given.
Index Terms—Diversity, modeling, rain attenuation, simulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
R AIN attenuation exhibits a devastating impact on the per-
formance of a radio link at frequencies above 10 GHz.
Mitigation of rain attenuation has long been studied with a goal
of providing techniques to achieve reliable, high-quality radio
links at these frequencies even under rainy conditions ([1], [2]).
Performance evaluation of adaptive fade mitigation techniques,
such as adaptive power control, adaptive coding, or switched di-
versity among a number of links, necessitates computer genera-
tion of time sequences of correlated rain attenuation on multiple
links.
The lognormal approximation of rain rate and attenuation has
been found from measurements in the past (e.g., [3]), with the
multivariate form for rain on multiple points or links having
recently been discussed in [4]. Accordingly, a set of time se-
ries of log attenuation occurring on multiple links can be gen-
erated through synthesis of a multichannel autoregressive (AR)
process under some assumptions.
Following this brief introduction, the underlying assumptions
of the model are stated and the model itself mathematically for-
mulated. Some practical considerations for application of the
model are subsequently discussed. Finally, a numerical example
of the model application is given and some conclusions are
drawn.
II. ASSUMPTIONS AND MODEL FORMULATION
It is assumed at the outset that point rainfall rate in mm/h
and rain attenuation in dB experienced by a radio link are each
lognormally distributed. In addition, the region that contains all
Manuscript received October 11, 2005; revised December 8, 2005.
G. Hendrantoro, T. Suryani, and A. Mauludiyanto are with Jurusan Teknik
Elektro, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Kampus ITS Sukolilo,
Surabaya 60111, Indonesia (e-mail: gamantyo@ee.its.ac.id; titiks@ee.its.ac.id;
maulud@ee.its.ac.id).
Indrabayu is with Jurusan Teknik Elektro, Universitas Hasanuddin,
Kampus Unhas Tamalamarea, Makassar 90245, Indonesia (e-mail:
bhayu16@yahoo.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2006.870362
1536-1225/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 5, 2006
of the links of interest is assumed to be shrouded by single
rain events. To allow such an assumption, links must be suffi-
ciently short, which is usually the case for terrestrial millimeter-
wave wireless systems like local multipoint distribution services
(LMDS) where links are 4 km or shorter to assure line-of-sight
situation. Moreover, these rain events must be temporally and
spatially stationary so that the same statistical characteristics
apply homogeneously throughout the time and space domain of
the events.
The spatial stationarity of the rain event does not necessarily
mean homogeneity of rainfall intensity within the rainy area.
Rather, it implies that point rainfall intensity (mm/h), or like-
wise, specific attenuation (dB/km), is identically lognormally
distributed at all points throughout the rainy area with location-
invariant spatial autocorrelation function. Attenuation (dB) is
the path-long integral sum of specific attenuation
(1)
with
(2)
where coefficients and depend on the frequency, polariza-
tion, and the raindrop size distribution. Since the sum of cor-
related lognormal random variables is well approximated by a
lognormal random variable [5], the spatial stationarity assump-
tion implies that attenuation on a link of a given length (km) is
approximately lognormal and location-invariant, i.e., the distri-
bution is fixed regardless of the actual location of the link within
the rainy area. Also, by the spatial stationarity assumption, for a
given multilink structure the interlink correlation coefficient of
attenuation will be location-invariant (see, for instance, equa-
tions (9)–(11) in [6] with function fixed). Therefore, we
can be sure that the distribution and correlation statistics of at-
tenuation on a multilink structure do not change both spatially
and temporally.
The proposed model involves synthesizing a set of au-
toregressive processes that behave like time sequences
of natural logarithmic value of rain attenuation on
radio links, where and
denotes the sampling period, according to the discrete-time
cross-covariance functions of log attenuation on the th
and th links, with .
The functions can be obtained directly from a se-
ries of radar measurements whenever available (e.g., [7]). Oth-
erwise, it must be assumed that , where
HENDRANTORO et al.: MULTIVARIATE AUTOREGRESSIVE MODEL OF RAIN ATTENUATION 55

is the normalized temporal autocorrelation of log atten- where both and

uation and is the normalized correlation of instantaneous
log attenuations on the th and th links [8]. The correlation
coefficient can be estimated by firstly measuring the spatial
autocorrelation function of rainfall intensity, and subsequently
applying the Kanellopoulos–Koukoulas (K–K) method [6] to
derive the correlation coefficient for rain attenuation on links
of equal lengths. The K–K method can be applied to various
configurations of radio links, including those in serial, parallel,
and converging configuration. For the spatial autocorrelation of
rainfall rate, such models as those proposed by Morita–Higuti
[9] or Lin [3] can be adopted. Coefficients for links of different
lengths can be obtained by applying a modified version of the
K–K formula.
Temporal autocorrelation of rain attenuation on individual
links can be obtained through direct measurement of rain attenu-
ation on an experimental radio link. For the special case, where
the link length is 1 km or less, along which the rain rate can
be assumed to be approximately homogeneous, it can be easily
shown through (2) that the autocovariance is basically identical
for log rain rate and log attenuation.
A vector sequence of zero-mean normally distributed
, where , is generated
recursively as follows:
where with are matrix coefficients
of the AR processes
.. .. ..
. . .
whereas denotes the order of the processes that depends
on the maximum time lag of the autocorrelation function,
a vector sequence of independent
white zero-mean unit-variance Gaussian random numbers, and
a scaling matrix that determines covariances of the
elements of Gaussian vector sequence . Once vector
sequence is obtained, the rain attenuation sequence
can be obtained
From the discrete-time covariance functions of
(or equivalently, the correlation functions of ), a set of
matrices can be formed
.. .. ..
. . .
where . For real-valued AR processes, the AR
matrix coefficients can subsequently be obtained from [10]
are of dimension, while
the matrix
.. .. .. .. (8)
. . . .
Taking and , the scaling
matrix is obtained through Cholesky decomposition
(9)
III. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
In applying the AR model, parameters of the lognormal dis-
tribution for the attenuation on each link must be determined.
This can be accomplished by computing maximum-likelihood
estimation of the parameters using real measurements of atten-
uation. In the absence of real measurements, rough estimates of
these parameters can be found by applying linear regression on
some percentiles of the attenuation [11].
A number of computation issues also have to be dealt with
(3)
prior to applying the model. Due to high correlation of rain at-
tenuation for typical sampling intervals, both in space and time,
correlation matrix is generally not well-conditioned. We pro-
pose to take the following simple strategy. We let the computer
generate a number of sequences of rain attenuation on multiple
links based on the AR model, evaluate the auto- and cross-corre-
(4) lation properties of each generated set, and subsequently select
and use only those that show correlation properties close to the
desired.
In evaluation of a fade mitigation scheme, it is commonly
desired to assess the error rate or capacity performance of a
multiple-link configuration employing the scheme during rainy
periods only. Time-inefficient evaluation might happen herein
since the probability of rain event is small, only 1%–5% on av-
erage per year. Therefore, we recommend that after the whole
rain attenuation sequences are generated, only portions of time
in which rain events occur are examined for the system perfor-
mance analysis. All statistics obtained from the performance
(5) evaluation are hence conditional upon the occurrence of rain.
For simulation purposes we define the occurrence of rain to
be an event in which the rain rate exceeds the value associated
with probability of occurrence specified in the ITU-R Rec. P.837
[12]. The starts and ends of rain events can be determined by
linearly interpolating the attenuation series and locating upward
and downward “threshold”-crossing points.
(6) In addition, due to the slow variation of rain attenuation rel-
ative to the transmission rate, we recommend the adoption of
quasianalytical simulation technique for error rate evaluation of
a fade mitigation scheme. Values of signal-to-noise power ratio
are obtained at sampling times and subsequently translated to
error rates using an analytical equation or an empirically de-
(7) rived curve for the modulation scheme employed.
56
Fig. 1. The evaluated system: Converging links of lengths L and L with
separation angle  between two receivers (BS1 and BS2) and a transmitter (ST).
Fig. 2. Computer-generated rain attenuation. (a) Rare event with spikes of
nearly 10 dB followed half an hour later by another event of lower attenuation.
(b) Rare event as “observed” on two converging links separated by 180 .
IV. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE
In this section, sequences of rain attenuation on two con-
verging links at 30 GHz links are generated from the AR model.
For the sake of exemplification, we arbitrarily take the temporal
autocorrelation of rainfall rate obtained in Barcelona [13]. We
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 5, 2006
Fig. 3. Simulated and desired complementary cumulative distributions of rain
attenuation on a 1-km 30-GHz link.
Fig. 4. Simulated and desired temporal autocorrelations of rain attenuation on
a 1-km 30-GHz link.
also compute the interlink correlation coefficients using the
K–K method and assume Morita–Higuti spatial correlation
model [6].
Fig. 1 illustrates the configuration of the converging links to
be evaluated with and , with Fig. 2
exemplifying the computer-generated time series of rain atten-
uation on both links. Figs. 3 and 4 show the closeness of distri-
bution and temporal autocorrelation of the computer-generated
rain attenuation on a single 1-km 30 GHz link to the desired
curves. The interlink average correlation coefficients of attenu-
ation are invariably found from the simulation to differ from
the prescribed values by less than 0.01. For instance, coefficients
of 0.9563 and 0.8954 for two 1-km links with 45 and 180 sep-
arations, respectively, computed based on [6], are used in gen-
erating rain attenuation sequences, for which the corresponding
values are found to be 0.9577 and 0.8998.
HENDRANTORO et al.: MULTIVARIATE AUTOREGRESSIVE MODEL OF RAIN ATTENUATION
V. CONCLUSION
The multichannel AR model provides an alternative method
to simulate the effects of rain on a network of radio links. With
complete statistical knowledge of rainfall rates both in time and
space, multiple sequences of rain attenuation occurring on a
number of links, be they convergent, parallel, or connected in
tandem, can be simulated and the performance of the entire
multilink network can be assessed. Use of the model, however,
must consider that some underlying assumptions concerning the
statistical properties of rain events, both in the time and space
domain, are fulfilled and that some limitations might cause in-
accuracies in the results. In [14], an example of application of
the model in assessment of a fade mitigation scheme involving
adaptive modulation and site diversity is presented.
REFERENCES
[1] D. G. Sweeney and C. W. Bostian, “Implementing adaptive power
control as a 30/20-GHz fade countermeasure,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 40–46, Jan. 1999.
[2] G. Hendrantoro, R. J. C. Bultitude, and D. D. Falconer, “Use of cell-site
diversity to combat the effects of rain attenuation in millimeter-wave
fixed cellular systems,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 20, no. 3, pp.
602–614, Apr. 2002.
[3] S. H. Lin, “A method for calculating rain attenuation distribution on
microwave paths,” Bell Syst. Tech. J., vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 1051–1051,
1975.
View publication stats
57
[4] A. Paraboni and F. Barbaliscia, “Multiple site attenuation prediction
models based on the rainfall structures (Meso- or Synoptic-Scales) for
advanced TLC or broadcasting systems,” presented at the 27th Gen-
eral Assembly Int. Union Radio Sci., Maastricht, The Netherlands, Aug.
2002.
[5] A. A. Abu-Dayya and N. C. Beaulieu, “Outage probabilities in the pres-
ence of correlated lognormal interferers,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.,
vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 164–173, Feb. 1994.
[6] J. D. Kanellopoulos and S. G. Koukoulas, “Analysis of the rain outage
performance of route diversity systems,” Radio Sci., vol. 22, no. 4, pp.
549–565, Jul.–Aug. 1987.
[7] C. J. Gibbins and K. S. Paulson, “Durations of rain events and rain atten-
uations at millimetric wavelengths,” presented at the Millennium Conf.
Antennas and Propagation (AP 2000), Davos, Switzerland.
[8] A. D. Panagopoulos, G. Fikioris, and J. D. Kanellopoulos, “Rain atten-
uation power spectrum of slant path,” Electron. Lett., vol. 38, no. 20, pp.
1220–1222, Sep. 2002.
[9] K. Morita and I. Higuti, “Prediction methods for rain attenuation dis-
tributions of micro- and millimeter waves,” Rev. Electr. Commun. Lab.,
vol. 24, no. 7–8, pp. 651–668, Jul.–Aug. 1976.
[10] J. H. Michels, P. K. Varshney, and D. D. Weiner, “Synthesis of correlated
multichannel random processes,” IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 42,
no. 2, pp. 367–375, Feb. 1994.
[11] C.-Y. Chu and K. S. Chen, “Effects of rain fading on the efficiency of the
Ka-band LMDS system in the Taiwan area,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.,
vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 9–19, Jan. 2005.
[12] “Characteristics of Precipitation for Propagation Modeling,” ITU-R,
Rec. P.837-4, 2003.
[13] A. Burgueno, E. Vilar, and M. Puigcerver, “Spectral analysis of 49 years
of rainfall rate and relation to fade dynamics,” IEEE Trans. Commun.,
vol. 38, no. 9, pp. 1359–1366, Sep. 1990.
[14] G. Hendrantoro and Indrabayu, “A multichannel autoregressive model
of rain attenuation on multiple radio links and its application in assess-
ment of fade mitigation schemes in fixed wireless systems above 10
GHz,” presented at the 28th General Assembly Int. Union Radio Sci,
New Delhi, India, Oct. 2005.