Calculation of attenuation and phase shift in a rain medium using the dielectric mixture model with deformed raindrops

Abstract

A modified approach for computing the effective permittivity of a dielectric mixture has been applied to obtain the attenuation and phase shift of both horizontally and vertically polarized electromagnetic waves in the rain medium. This approach takes into consideration the distributions in raindrop sizes, shapes, and depolarization factors. The computed results agree well with those obtained from the more complicated Mie scattering theory. The differential attenuation and phase shift between horizontally and vertically polarized waves are also obtained using the proposed model and their calculated values compare favorably with available published results by Oguchi (oblate spheroid rain droplets) and Pruppacher and Pitter (deformed rain droplets).