A STATISTICAL-MODEL FOR LAND MOBILE SATELLITE CHANNELS AND ITS APPLICATION TO NONGEOSTATIONARY ORBIT SYSTEMS

The paper introduces a statistical channel model which is a combinatio n of Rice and lognormal statistics, and is suitable in principle to al l types of environment (rural, suburban, urban) simply by tuning the m odel parameters. The model validity is confirmed by comparisons with m easurement data collected in the literature. Empirical formulas are de rived for the model parameters to fit measured data over a wide range of elevation angles. In particular, the model is applied to nongeostat ionary satellite channels, such as low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth or bit channels, in which for a given user located in a generic site the elevation angle changes continuously. Finally, examples of average bit error probability evaluations in the channel are provided.