Author(s)

Patrick Fiati

Department of Electrical, Electronic Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

WiMAX communication systems operating at 2.6 G frequencies are used for broadband multimedia and internet based services. At these frequencies, the signal will be affected by various propagation impairments such as rain attenuation, cloud attenuation, tropospheric scintillation, ionospheric scintillation, water vapour attenuation, and rain and ice depolarization. Among all the pro-pagation impairments, rain attenuation is the most important and critical parameter. In this research, rain attenuation is calculated at KNUST, Kumasi using ITU-R rain attenuation model. The preliminary results of the work will be used to calculate the attenuation experimentally and comparison can be made, which helps to develop a new rain attenuation model at 2.6 G bands. Rain attenuation is an important aspect of signal propagation above 2.6 GHz frequency. The attenuation time series generation from point rain rate measurement is crucial due to unavailability of actual signal measurements. In this research, a simple and realistic approach has been demonstrated for better estimation of rain attenuation using WiMAX-band signal propagation data and ground rain rate measurements in Ghana. The ITU-R model of rain attenuation has been modified by incorporating an effective slant path model. The effective slant path has been estimated and modeled in terms of a power-law relationship of rain rate data of 2007-2008. The methodology has been validated with the measured data of 2014. Comparison with ITU-R and GMET clearly demonstrates the improved predictability of the proposed model at the present tropical location.

Rain Attenuation, ITU-R Model, Rain Fall Rate, WiMAX, Alamouti

Fiati, P. (2015) Rain Attenuation Effects on 2.6 GHz WiMAX Networks Deployment in Ghana. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 3, 83-90. doi: 10.4236/wjet.2015.33009.