FDTD method with oblique incidence for ionospheric wave propagation problems - application to an HF one-hop radio-link study

This paper introduces a new finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach for electrically very large wave-propagation problems and especially for high-frequency (HF) ionospheric radio-link studies. An appropriate modification of the FDTD technique is presented, which reduces the problem´s dimension by the appropriate introduction of an effective magnetic permeability for the ionospheric layers. The proposed approach gives an answer to the demand for accurate radio-link design, taking into account the characteristics of ionosphere all over the path of propagation, unlike existing simplified analytical methods. The methodology is successfully applied to a practical HF one-hop ionospheric radio-link study