Performance Comparison of Tropospheric Propagation Models: Ray-Trace Analysis Results Using Worldwide Tropospheric Databases

The report describes the performance of three databases and tropospheric models and covers the analysis results for several selected refractivity and rangeangle error models, three empirical databases of global climatological, and meteorological data. Most performance comparisons are conducted through time delay, range error, and angle of error for areas of interests on different climatology to induce reasonable conclusions. A modified exponential model is proposed as the best performer among the many models examined based on the level of accuracy, minimum level of the databases including surface weather data, and the real time data applicability.