Building empirical models of satellite-mobile channels

We describe here an approach to the problem of generating random signals that adequately simulate fluctuations of the power received on Earth from satellites. Our method is empirical in the following sense: rather than postulate a priori probability laws for the instantaneous received power, we try to estimate these laws by processing available experimental signals from the considered channel. The same procedure allows us to extract dynamical (Markov) state models corresponding to the temporal variation of the power distribution law in urban or sub-urban channels. The method is general as it can be applied to various types of signals with a Markovian underlying variability