Weather Forecast-Enabled Tropospheric Scattering Path Loss Modeling for Over-the-Horizon Maritime Communications

Tropospheric scattering is a critical propagation mechanism for Over-the-Horizon wireless communications, where radio propagation characteristics are significantly influenced by nonuniform and spatiotemporally dynamic atmospheric refraction and turbulence. This paper proposes a weather forecast-enabled parabolic equation-based tropospheric scattering path loss channel model, referred to as the WPE model. First, atmospheric parameters extracted from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) scheme are used to compute atmospheric refractivity profiles, enabling the WPE model to enhance temporal and spatial resolution while integrating meteorological factors specific to the marine environment, thus overcoming the limitations of traditional scattering parabolic equation (PE) model. Then, the atmospheric refractivity structure constant is used to obtain the stochastic turbulence perturbation component, which is incorporated into the two-dimensional PE to reflect the impact of turbulence on tropospheric scatter radio wave propagation. More importantly, a cross-sea shore-to-shore experiment is conducted in the South China Sea with a 300 km link distance for both C-band and Ku-band. Finally, the results from the validation of the proposed WPE model and measurement, demonstrate that the average root mean square error and mean error of the WPE model can be reduced to below 3 dB and 1.5 dB at C-band and below 5 dB and 1 dB at Ku-band, respectively. These findings suggest that the WPE model effectively predicts path loss and provides a more realistic characterization of turbulence effects compared to the traditional PE model. This research establishes a theoretical foundation for troposcatter channel modeling and propagation analysis, offering valuable insights for the design of Over-the-Horizon maritime communication systems.