Space Wave Propagation

16011A0458
Tejasri Kurapati
JNTUH
What are Space Waves?
• The space waves predominate at
Ground Waves larger distances above the earth,
whereas the surface wave is more
significant near the earth's suface.
• Used for beyond-the-horizon
Surface Space communication
wave Wave
• Only means of communication
beyond 30MHz.
Direct ground • Direct waves and Ground reflected
waves reflecte waves 180 degrees out of phase
-d
waves
Field Strength Relation
With 'd'
• When the distance from the trans to the receiver is suffeciently
larger than the heights of the antennas, the incident angle of the ray
from earth is negligible.
• Reflection of the ray irrespective of polarization can be assumed to
have no change in magnitude but reversal in phase.
• Let Eo=Amplitude of the rays.
• Amplitude of the rays decrease by E=Eo/d
In the formulae, the radiating
and the receiving elements
are assumed to be
omnidirectional.
With 'h'
Effect of Curvature of earth
• The effective and actual antenna heights differ. The quantum of
differences will depend on the separation between trans and receiver.
• There is a change in the number and location of maximas and minimas.
• There is reduction in d', beyond which the two waves tend to be out of
phase.
• The waves reflected by the ground diverges. Thus the reflected wave at
the receiving antenna is weak. This effect is less when the incident angle
is moderate or large and more when this angle is small.
• At large distances, for small incidence angles and direct wave and
reflected wave in phase opposition, the resultant E at receiver is
appreciably greater than that if earth were flat.
• The last two effects of curvature try to neutralize each other.
Absorption
• Rain
• Rain attenuates space waves because of absorption and by scattering.
• The attenuation depends on wavelength, permittivity, drop diameter, drop
concentration, and the losses due to scattering.
• Heavy rains(not cloud burst) - attenuation at ╗=3cm.
• Moderate rains - attenuation at ╗=1cm
• Cloud and fog - attenuation <1cm
• Observe that attenuation is directly proportional to the water per unit volume and
drop size.
• Ice or Snow
• Attenuation is less in snow compared to in liquid.
• Gases
• Due to molecular interactions, absorption of energy takes place at
certain wavelengths.
• The peaks are observed at 1.33cm, 1.7mm and 1mm.
• The peaks due to O2 molecule are observed at 5mm and 2.5 cm of ╗.
Super Refraction
• If the atmosphere’s
temperature increases with height (inversion) and/or the water
vapor content decreases rapidly with height,
the refractivity gradient will decrease from the
standard. This situation is known as superrefraction, and causes
the radar beam to deflect earthward below its normal path.
Duct Propagation
• An atmosphere where the dielectric constant is assumed to decrease
uniformly with height to value equal to 1 at which air density is
supposed to be zero is commonly called normal or standard
atmosphere.
• In one of the many layers of air, there is a region where dM/dh is
negative (M is refractive modulus).
• In this region the curvature along which the wave propagates is
greater than the normal curvature of earth, which is considered to be
flat.
• Due to this, the waves get trapped in such region.
• This energy trapped, propagate sin hoops by getting reflected from
the earth's surface successively.
• This phenomenon is called duct propagation.
• The concepts of line of sight cannot be applied to the waves
propagating in the duct and it is observed that the waves propagate
larger distances without much attenuation.
• Though duct propagation is similar to wave guides, the main
difference is that in ducts, unline waveguides, the energy can leak
out of the boundaries.
• ╗max=2.5hd(delM*10-6)1/2
• hd is height of the duct
• The wavelengths crossing this wavelength won't be able to showcase
duct propagation.
• Trivia
• Phenomenon is atmospheric optics related to atmospheric ducting
include green flash.
• Green flash is an optical phenomenon where in you can spot a green
spot for a few seconds above the sun before sunrise or after sunset.
• The optical phenomenon of ducting is possible only when the height
of the trans is greater than the height of the duct.
M Curves
• Refractive modulus M is represented in terms if refractive index as
• M= (n-1-(h/a)10-6
• h is the height above the ground and r is the radius of the earth.
• Usually M changes 0.158 M units per meter.
• But, in standard atmosphere the refractive index decreases with the
increase in height which results in increase in 0.118 M units per meter.
Scattering Phenomenon
• The troposphere and ionosphere are always in turbulence.
• ╗>turbulent eddies, waves scatter in all directions.
• ╗<turbulent eddies, then most of the scattering takes place in a
narrow cone surrounding the forward direction of the incident
ray.
• The capture the scattered waves, the trans and receiving
antennas should have high gain and their beams should overlap
where forward scattering is found.
• This is used in VHF and UHF communications.
• When the scattering takes place 500Mhz onwards with troposphere
as the scattering medium, it is called troposphere scattering. The
maximum range lies between 300 to 600km.
• When scattering takes place 30 to 50 Mhz with lower E ionosphere as
the medium, it is called ionosphere scattering. It has a range that is
maximum at 2000km.
Observe, it
forms a cone
structure.
Convenient if
the scattering
angle is less.
Troposheric Propagation
• Consider a omnidirectional antenna which radiates in all directions.
• Let Pt be the transmitted power and prf be the power density at R
distance from the trans.
• Prf=Pt/4πR2 watts.
• If the transmitting antenna was directional with gain Gt
• Prf=PtGt/4πR2 watts.
• If area of observation is A
• Prf=PtGtA/4πR2 watts.
• For receiving antenna
• A=╗2Gr/4π
• Prf=PtGtGr╗2/(4πR)2 watts
• We also multiply Prf with attenuation factor F
• When the experiments where conducting, the results were different
from the calculated values.
• The slope of the obtained values for d vs Prf graph was greater than
the computed slope.
Turbulent Scatter Theory
• According to this theory, there is a turbulent variation of refractive
index with height.
Layer Reflection Theory
• It is presumed that there are a large number of randomly distributed
layers with different refractive indices which result in scattering of
part of the transmitter energy towards the earth.
Thank You!