TROPPO - A Tropospheric Propagation Simulator

A problem which frequently arises in wireless network and radar engineering is the calculation of propagation losses through the troposphere. While a wealth of literature and software exists for propagation geometries characteristic of terrestrial satellite and point to point links, and surface based radar installations, the more general case is less frequently addressed. This paper discusses the design and implementation of the TROPospheric PrOpagation (TROPPO) simulator tool, which implements a general propagation model for pairs of stations with arbitrary altitudes up to the lower stratosphere. TROPPO solves the nonlinear refractive ODE boundary value problem, and implements models for water vapour and oxygen resonances, cloud droplet scattering, rain absorption and lense effect loss, for a wide range of configurable initial conditions. The Friis pathlength loss is modelled and receiver SNR and link Shannon capacity are calculated. The report presents calibration curves for most of the models, and examples of link parameter calculations.