Estimation of attenuation due to rain within Ka and Ku bands in Oyo State of Nigeria

Abstract

Rain-induced attenuation of microwaves poses a serious challenge to signal availability beyond 10 GHz frequencies. The challenges are even more pronounced in the subtropical and tropical regions with high intensities of rain which is more accompanied with thunderstorms. Nigeria has an equatorial and tropical climate, which is identified by controlling rainfall. Rain is the significant attenuation factor of various communication signal above 10 GHz frequencies. Therefore, for effective utilization of the microwave bandwidth during rainfall, it is required to form the correlation between this attenuation effect and the bandwidth at various rainfall rate and frequencies at a particular interest location. Therefore , using propagation modelling, the point rainfall and  rain effects for frequencies was concurrently  considered between 11 and 40 GHz (i.e. Ku, and Ka) for satellite communication service on earth-space path at Ibadan in Oyo state , Nigeria by using rainfall data for the period of five (5) years (January 2014 to December 2019). Keywords- Rain Attenuation, Rain Rate, Bandwidth, Propagation Modelling