Ionospheric Scintillation Effects on LEO-Transmitted Signals Across Multiple Frequency Bands

Abstract Previous studies using a physics-based global navigation satellite system scintillation simulator demonstrated that Global Positioning System-like L1 signals transmitted from low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites exhibit higher signal dynamics, resulting in more severe scintillation effects than those from medium-Earth-orbit satellites. This study extends these analyses from L-band to very high frequency, ultra-high frequency, and S-band, evaluating the effects of scintillation on LEO-transmitted signals across a broader range of frequency bands. Key scintillation characteristics, including fading time separation, duration, depth, and phase rate, are examined across frequencies and signal dynamics under different transmission scenarios. The results show that lower-frequency signals experience more frequent and deeper fades with greater phase fluctuations, particularly under higher dynamics of LEO transmissions. Quantitative analysis reveals that the ratios of mean scintillation characteristics (fading time separation, duration, and phase rate) between different signal dynamics cases remain consistent across frequencies. Rare fading overlaps among L-band frequencies suggest the potential for leveraging inter-frequency aiding to improve receiver tracking robustness for LEO transmissions.