Effects of Plasma Sheath on the Signal Detection of Narrowband Receiver

When vehicle travels sufficiently quickly, a plasma sheath forms around the vehicle. The plasma sheath strongly affects signal detection by a receiver on the vehicle. This paper mainly investigates the effect of the plasma sheath on the detection of the single-frequency pulse signal. Using an analytical technique referred to the wave impedance calculation method, the transmission coefficient is obtained. The detection probability of transmission signal which is received by a narrowband receiver is then derived. Effects of the incident angle, signal frequency, and parameters of the plasma sheath including electron density and collision frequency on the detection probability are analyzed. Numerical results indicate that the detection probability decreases with increasing electron density and incident angle, while the detection probability first decreases and then increases with increasing collision frequency. Moreover, for high collision frequency, an interesting phenomenon that the detection probability is higher at lower signal frequency than at higher signal frequency occurs in the low-frequency signal range. This is because there is a turning point in the transmission coefficient as well as amplitude attenuation in the low-frequency range.