This paper evaluates the performance of the twoway message transmission system on the meteor burst channel developed and tested by the authors. First, the usual channel model is simplified and then the system is analyzed. It is shown through simulations that the errors introduced by the new channel model and by the approximated analysis method are negligible and the proposed method can be used to design and evaluate the system.
The performance of the system having packets with subblocks is compared to that of one with usual packets. It is shown that, by using packets with subblocks, robustness of the system performance against changes of channel parameters as well as a shorter time needed to transmit a message can be obtained. The method of performance evaluation shown in this paper has adequate generality and is also applicable to many other meteor burst communication (MBC) systems.
Meteor burst communication (MBC) is a BLOS communication which relies on the reflection of VHF waves from meteor bursts (columns of electrons and ionized particles left on meteor trails) which appear randomly. Although it may not be suited to some applications such as those with a vast amount of data to be transferred and those requesting real time transmission (e.g., human conversation), it is superior to other BLOS systems in many aspects, e.g., simplicity of implementation and operation, protection of privacy, survivability, and reliability [1-4].* It is most attractive for nonrealtime, low-average data rate applications. In the 1980's many MBC systems were developed and utilized in several foreign countries.
The ionization of the upper atmosphere by meteors began to attract the interest of physicists around 1930. They studied the nature of meteors as well as that of the upper atmosphere using the method of radar observation Key words: Meteor burst communications; performance evaluation; message transmission; packets with subblocks.
*Average data transfer rate smaller than 100 bps is usual in MBC. Though some tens of kbps are attainable using advanced sophisticated technology [35], we are not so interested in such systems since we believe that they will eliminate one of the good points of MBC, i.e., its simplicity.