RF Propagation and Channel Models

Atmospheric loss and fading channel models

RF path propagation modeling describes the behavior of electromagnetic radiation from a point of transmission as the signal travels through the surrounding environment. Model RF propagation paths to calculate signal propagation through atmospheric gases, rain, fog and clouds, and tropospheric scintillation. You can also calculate outage probability due to rain attenuation with site diversity.

Channel modeling describes the over-the-air environment in communications system links. Analysis of propagation and channel modelling is essential in understanding how electromagnetic waves incur losses from a transmitter to a receiver in different scenarios. Model and visualize noisy single input single output (SISO) channels that have Rician or Land Mobile Satellite (LMS) fading profiles.

Functions

`dopplerShiftCircularOrbit`	Calculate Doppler shift at ground station due to circularly orbiting satellite (Since R2024a)
`p618PropagationLosses`	Calculate Earth-space propagation losses, cross-polarization discrimination, and sky noise temperature (Since R2021a)
`p618SiteDiversityOutage`	Calculate outage probability due to rain attenuation with site diversity (Since R2021a)
`satelliteCNR`	Carrier-to-noise ratio for configured satellite link budget parameters (Since R2022b)
`slantRangeCircularOrbit`	Calculate slant range or distance between circularly orbiting satellite and ground station (Since R2024a)

Objects

`etsiRicianChannel`	Filter input signal through multipath ETSI frequency-flat Rician fading channel (Since R2021a)
`lutzLMSChannel`	Filter input signal through Lutz LMS frequency-flat fading channel (Since R2022b)
`dsocPoissonChannel`	Create a deep space optical communications Poisson channel (Since R2023a)
`dsocWebbGaussianChannel`	Create deep space optical communications Webb Gaussian or Gaussian channel (Since R2024b)
`p618Config`	Create P.618 configuration object (Since R2021a)
`p618SiteDiversityConfig`	Create P.618 site diversity configuration object (Since R2021a)
`p681LMSChannel`	Filter input signal through ITU-R P.681 LMS frequency-flat fading channel (Since R2022a)
`satelliteCNRConfig`	Carrier-to-noise ratio configuration parameters (Since R2022b)

Topics

Earth-Space Propagation Losses
Calculate the Earth-space propagation losses for the design of Earth-space systems.
Choose a Satellite Channel Model
When to use the different satellite communication channel models based on model type, frequency, and satellite orbits.
Channel Visualization
These Satellite Communications Toolbox channel models include an option to visualize the characteristics of the fading channel.

Featured Examples

Simulate and Visualize Land Mobile-Satellite Channel

Model and visualize a two-state semi-Markov chain LMS channel.

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Model NR NTN Channel

Model NR NTN narrowband channel and frequency selective fading TDL channel.

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Calculate Latency and Doppler in a Satellite Scenario

Model and calculate the latency and Doppler frequencies between the satellite and the ground station.

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Antenna Size Analysis Using ITU-R P.618 Propagation Model

Select antenna diameter using the p618PropagationLosses function in the toolbox.

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