Statistical Modeling of Sand and Dust Storm Attenuation

Propagation characteristics of electromagnetic (EM) waves such as amplitude, wavelength, and polarization can be altered by the medium that they travel. Such changes can decrease performance, and even lead to complete failures in communication networks. Hence, studies focusing on the propagation of EM waves under different atmospheric conditions such as rain, fog and snow have attracted researchers for decades. However, it is evident in both literature and standards that effects of sand and dust storms (SDS) on EM waves have not been understood well. Although proposed models consider randomness in the estimation of parameters, they end up with a deterministic solution without any uncertainty. However, uncertainty in the measurements makes the use of statistical models obligatory. In this study, a statistical model of attenuation is proposed solely based on frequency, and visibility. Moreover, in the proposed model, a region of uncertainty in estimations is provided by considering randomness in visibility measurements, whose characteristics are determined by the World Meteorological Organization and off-the-shelf measurement devices. Additionally, visibility and SDS statistics of Gulf area has been obtained by the analysis of NASA Hourly Global - Integrated Surface Database (ISD). Also, SDS attenuation is compared with rain and gaseous attenuation according to ITU recommendations.