Clear sky availability for Satellite Communications in a Sub-tropical Region — Australia

Helen Chedzey, Mervyn Lynch, Brett Nener, Kerry Mudge

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Cloud cover provides a significant difficulty for effective ground-to-satellite optical communication. While the Australian continent is positioned in the mid-latitudes and is the second-most arid continent in the world, there isn't any location that can achieve year-round, 24-hour, clear-sky communications. In order to achieve a high level of clear-sky availability (greater than 90%) in Australia, multi-site networks (site diversity) will perform better than any single site. In considering the global demand for weather-resilient and high bandwidth communications, it is important to have networks that also permit cross-hemisphere linkages. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia's longitudinal extent offers a significant siting advantage when compared to South Africa and South America. In this research we identify this advantage with selections of several combinations of sites. Lowly correlated, spatially well separated sites with low amounts of cloud are ideally suited for inclusion in ground station networks to increase the probability of clear-sky communication opportunities. Many sites across Australia, being well separated spatially are wellsuited to achieve these selection criteria. A selection of spatially separated sites across Australia were pre-screened for low cloud cover levels using a recent decadal satellite data set. Of these selected sites, seven were chosen to participate in an investigation of multi-site networks. Approximately two-thirds of the twosite network combinations analysed achieved an average clearsky probability greater than 0.90. Combinations containing the site at Learmonth performed best. Any combination of three sites (from the seven analysed) achieved an average clear-sky probability greater than 0.94 with some combinations as high as 0.99.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8166-8174
Number of pages9
JournalIEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
Volume59
Issue number6
Early online date7 Aug 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023

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