A system´s view of numerical wave propagation modeling for airborne radio communication systems

An end-to-end simulation for an airborne communication system in the UHF range is performed; it describes the radio signal quality between an aircraft and a ground station. Effects like the installed performance behavior of antennas as well as multipath wave propagation are considered. All parts are implemented by using only commercially available software. The interfaces between each software tool are illuminated as well. All partial results are transformed to a system level simulation with MatLab. The calculated EM field strength is used to determine the bit error rate along a special flight path, which can be used to improve the data predictability for the overall system design. For the system level approach, much more understanding is given to systems engineering, and each sub aspect is given even more importance.