Terrain Modeling in Dynamic Atmosphere for a Ground Wave Propagation Simulator

Sammanfattning

The parabolic equation methods are advantageous in simulating under small time frames because of their low computational complexity. Because of this they are also feasible to implement on low end hardware. Due to the parabolic approximation they are based on, much work exists on improving the error introduced from the approximation. In this publication, further effort is put into developing these methods and the result from a master thesis at Tietoevry are presented. An in-house algorithm for evaporation duct propagation has been altered to improve the terrain modeling and to include range varying refractivity in a split step Fourier method called the discrete mixed Fourier transform. Previously only the piecewise linear shift map was utilized for terrain modeling which is known to become unstable at propagation angles exceeding around 15 degrees from the horizontal. By utilizing a hybrid method between piecewise linear shift map and knife edge method the stability issues are partially avoided, hence the solutions generated with the hybrid method are stable for a larger range of slope angles than with only using piecewise linear shift map. The range varying refractivity was included in the discrete mixed fourier transform by indexing making it possible to simulate dynamic evaporation duct heights. The report starts with a review of the theoretical foundation that the algorithm is built upon. Secondly, a logical list of steps outlines the altered algorithm. To conclude, the changes to the code are presented and discussed with the new results together with remarks on possible future improvements and current problems with the algorithm.