Satellite-PCS channel simulation in mobile user environments using photogrammetry and Markov chains

In this paper, we present a system that models the land-mobile satellite communication channel with a Markov chain approach supported by images of the mobile Earth station’s (MES) environment. Our method employs a video camera with a fish-eye lens capturing image sequences of the user environment from the position of the moving MES, image and signal processing algorithms to recognize propagation path states and extract their duration and transition probabilities, and modeling of the communication channel characteristics using the theory of Markov stochastic processes combined with statistical fade distributions appropriate for given path states. The results demonstrate that the procedure provides a full statistical characterization of the narrow-band land-mobile satellite propagation channel in several environments.