Effects of Dynamic Plasma Sheath on Electromagnetic Wave Propagation and Bit Error Rate Under External Magnetic Field

• Published in: IEEE transactions on plasma science Vol. 48; no. 8; pp. 2706 - 2714
• Main Authors: Liu, Jiang-Fan, Ma, Hong-Yu, Jiao, Zi-Han, Bai, Guang-Hui, Fang, Yun, Yi, Ying-Min, Xi, Xiaoli
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.08.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aerodynamics; Atmospheric entry; Binary phase shift keying; Bit error rate; Bit error rate (BER); Blackout; Circular polarization; Computer simulation; dynamic plasma sheath; electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation; Electromagnetic radiation; Electron density; Frequency shift keying; Hidden Markov models; Incident waves; Magnetic fields; magnetic window; Mathematical model; Modulation; Normal distribution; Plasma; Plasma sheaths; probability density distribution; Probability density functions; Propagation; Statistical analysis; Vibration; Wave propagation
• ISSN: 0093-3813; 1939-9375
• DOI: 10.1109/TPS.2020.3006955

The "magnetic window" is considered to be an effective technique for alleviating a vehicle's atmospheric reentry blackout, whereas the dynamic variation characteristic of the plasma sheath is critical for the vehicle's communication. In this article, the effects of dynamic plasma sheath on electromagnetic wave propagation and the bit error rate (BER) of two typical modulation signals under an external magnetic field are investigated. First, the hybrid matrix method is used to calculate the transmission coefficients of right-handed circularly polarized (RHCP) waves with different magnetic fields and plasma electron density fluctuation. Then, the average BER of two typical modulations signals, namely M-ary phase-shift keying (MPSK) and noncoherent M-ary frequency shift keying modulation (NC-MFSK) is numerically simulated based on the magnetized plasma sheath channel response. The results show that the magnitude in dB scale and phase of the RHCP transmission coefficient follow Gaussian distribution when the probability density function of the electron density is a Gaussian distribution. The BER performance of binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and NC-MFSK is relevant to the incident wave frequency, the plasma stopband, and the intensity of electron density variation. Owing to the insensitivity of phase jitter, the NC-8FSK has a better performance than BPSK, followed by NC-4FSK and NC-2FSK.