Impact of Tropospheric Depolarization on the Performance of Dual-Polarized High-Altitude Platform Systems

The goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of rain and ice depolarization on an hypothetical high altitude platform system operating in the 47-GHz band over central Belgium, and using dual-polarized antenna arrays. An electromagnetic model based on physical parameters (rain rate, ice concentration, rain and ice anisotropy and canting angles) is first described. Time series of physical parameters are then extracted from one year of data recorded during the Olympus experiment in Belgium at 20 GHz. The prediction of attenuation and depolarization based on these parameters is then validated at 12 GHz. Finally, the prediction model is applied to HAPS scenarios by a dual frequency and elevation scaling. The specificity of HAPS is accounted for by considering a range-dependent elevation angle. Performance simulations are eventually presented and illustrate that depolarization may slightly improve the performance of polarization multiplexing schemes.