Synthetic rain models and optical flow algorithms for improving the resolution of rain attenuation time series simulated from Numerical Weather Prediction

New generation of satellite system communication is moving toward frequencies above 20 GHz and non-geostationary satellites. In order to guaranty the quality of service, specific Fade Mitigation Techniques have to be applied, like Advanced Coding and Modulation (ACM). In order to accurately design ACM, time series of attenuation should be used. As there are no measurements available, the simulation of attenuation times series for non-geostationary earth-space links becomes critical. This paper presents a model consisting in a combination of a Numerical Weather Prediction model (Weather Research and Forecasting), a synthetic rain cell model MultiEXCELL and Optical Flow techniques. It gives an efficient method to generate more realistic rain attenuation time series. Long-term CCDF statistics of simulated attenuation data are validated by comparison with the Alphasat measurement data over 2 years at Louvain-la-Neuve ground station.