Impact of the tropospheric turbulence on the propagation of radiowaves: Models for new communication systems

Tropospheric scintillation is a well-known degradation of earth-space radio communication, becoming important in the case of low margin systems, for frequencies in Ka-band and above and for low elevation angles. Various models exist for the prediction of statistics of scintillation amplitude variance, spectrum and also for the generation of time series. They were however developed for earth-space fixed link and present limitations for being used in LEO communication systems, high resolution SAR, communications with UAV, etc. This paper briefly reviews the classical models and their limitations, describes a new generation of models valid for the above mentioned communication and remote sensing systems and points out the remaining difficulties.