Use and development of climatological and experimental databases for radiowave propagation modelling in SatCom and SatNav systems

This paper presents a review of the databases currently used for the assessment of radiowave propagation effects in satellite communication (SatCom) and satellite navigation (SatNav) systems. This presentation focuses on tropospheric effects but relevant effects are also due to the ionosphere and to the environment around the receiver (i.e. multipath) for mobile and navigation systems. The discussion includes both climatological (i.e. statistics of meteorological parameters averaged over a period of time lating up to several years) and experimental databases (including both radiowave propagation parameters and atmospheric remote sensing measurements). The paper illustrates examples of numerical weather prediction data, products from satellite Earth observation systems and the databases which are currently recommended or considered by ITU-R Study Group 3.