L Band Non-Line of Sight Wave Propagation Reflected from a Tree Covered Mountainside

A tree covered mountainside is modelled at L Band, in order to understand the scattering mechanisms of a Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) communication channel. Due to the slope of the layer, the trees are modelled as inclined trunks with branches, needles and leaves which are azimuthally asymmetric with respect to the layer normal. This model induces polarization mixing between horizontally and vertically polarized incident waves. The effect of polarization mixing is highly dependent on the incident & scattering angles, as well as the dimensions and orientation of the individual scatterers. Ground truth measurements have been done in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to compare with the theoretical and simulation results. The main contribution to the scattering comes from the volume (direct) scatter term at L Band.