Large scale space diversity in a widely spaced network of meteor scatter communication systems and its application to mobile communications

A model is developed for predicting the inherent spatial multiplexing or diversity in a widely dispersed network of meteor scatter receivers. The primary measure, network diversity, is defined as the ratio of the arrival rate of useful trails observed by the entire network to the arrival rate at an average node and is less than the number of receivers in the network. Network diversity is calculated from the ground illumination footprint of individual meteor trails and weighted by the spatial arrival pattern of trails. Predictions using the model are compared to an experiment conducted in the western US. Ramifications on the design of meteor scatter communication systems for very large network applications such as automatic vehicle location and tracking are discussed. >