Monte Carlo simulation of electromagnetic wave transmittance in charged sand/dust storms

Abstract The electromagnetic wave (EMW) transmittance in sand/dust storms is studied via Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and the effect of charged particles and multiple scattering processes on the EMW transmittance/attenuation in sand/dust storms is studied. Based on Monte Carlo simulation, the electromagnetic wave propagating in a sand/dust storm is treated as Monte Carlo photon (MCP) packets, which are randomly scattered by sand/dust particles. The MC simulation results show that neglecting the multiple scattering effect could result in significant error in the theoretical evaluation of EMW transmittance/attenuation in sand/dust storms, especially at high frequency bands and under low visibility conditions. As the sand particles are charged, this error could be enlarged further. Compared with the effect of charged particles on the attenuation of EMWs, the effect of multiple scattering processes is more significant. On the other hand, when the multiple scattering processes are considered in the calculation of EMW transmittance/attenuation, the effect of charged particles on the calculation results will be significant for the cases of low frequencies and small particle sizes.