Ice crystals and raindrop canting angle affecting the performance of a satellite system suffering from differential rain attenuation and cross-polarization

For frequencies above 10 GHz, which are of high importance in current satel lite systems, interference is mainly aggravated because of the following re asons: potentially existing differential rain attenuation along the wanted and interfering paths as well as depolarization induced by the rainfall med ium. The latter source concerns, of course, satellite systems using the fre quency-sharing technique. In the present paper an already proposed method t o predict the degradation of the carrier-to-interference (C/I) ratio due to the above sources is properly modified by taking into account ice crystals arid raindrop canting angle effects. The novel assumptions reflect upon th e more accurate estimation of cross-polarization discrimination and thus co ntribute to the reliable design of the system being interfered with. The pr esent results are compared with the so far existing ones. The sensitivity o f various parameters affecting the interference performance of the system i s investigated. As a general conclusion, the inclusion of the ice crystals along with the raindrop canting angle effects may be of importance in some cases, such as the operation in the K band combined with the circular incid ent polarization, for the accurate estimation of the degradation of the tot al (C/I) ratio.