Estimating Atmospheric Attenuation Exploiting Noise Power Measurements from Satellite Receivers

A technique for estimating atmospheric attenuation time-series at Ka-band exploiting noise power measurements from a satellite receiver is proposed. The objective is to provide a tool for treating satellite receivers as beacon receivers for the atmospheric attenuation retrieval without the need of additional external sources thus reducing hardware complexity and costs. Results of the attenuation estimated with the proposed technique are in agreement with available simulations with a bias ranging from 0.49 to 0.71 dB.