A Computation-Driven High-Latitude HF Communication Channel Model With Antenna Directivity

Economical High-frequency (HF) channel models at high latitudes pose significant challenges to conventional statistical HF communication channel models (SHFCCMs), which rely on long-term and large-scale real observations. Additionally, the performance of such models degrades further when antenna directivity is not considered. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel link-specific HF communication channel model with low operational costs for high-latitude regions. The model incorporates antenna directivity and associates 3D ray-tracing computational results with channel parameters in the Doppler-delay domain. A new delay power profile (DPP) fitting scheme is introduced based on the principle of shorter geometric distances. Moreover, a sinc-squared stochastic modulation function (SMF) is employed to effectively simulate the Doppler effect, leveraging the favorable low-pass (LP) characteristics of the Sinc function. Evaluations across three high-latitude communication links demonstrate that the proposed model achieves higher Normalized Cross-Correlation (NCC) coefficients in its scattering function compared to the ITS model, while the modeled channel parameters align more closely with real observed characteristics. This approach effectively mitigates the modeling problem caused by limited measurements in high-latitude HF channels.