Time and Orbital Diversity Assessment With Ka- and Q-Band Slant-Path Propagation Experiments in Madrid

In satellite communications, the adverse propagation effects produced by the atmosphere to the signal are compensated by the systems using propagation impairment mitigation techniques, protection by diversity being one of their main categories. Two slant-path propagation experiments have been carried out in Madrid in the Ka- and Q-bands, with the Eutelsat KA-SAT and Alphasat satellites, respectively, with three concurrent years of measurements available: from March 2014 to February 2017. In this paper, results on time diversity and orbital diversity-the latter obtained from a frequency scaling approach- are presented, the first one for both frequency bands and the second for the Q-band. An acceptable overall behavior is obtained by comparing the results with the available models. For both diversity techniques, possible gains are moderate but not negligible due to the climatological conditions of the evaluated site.