A fast algorithm for computerized indoor radio channel estimation

Real time computer tools are being researched in telecommunications to assess the coverage of the various antennas of a cellular network. Given the floor plan of a building, those computer tools simulate the behavior of the electromagnetic waves using ray tracing techniques in order to determine the quality of the signal reception in the regions covered by the various antennas of the system. Real time capabilities have not yet been achieved. Therefore fast algorithms for this application could be of considerable interest. This paper describes a fast 2-D algorithm to compute impulse responses between one base station location and a set of receiver locations. The performance gain over the standard method of images algorithm is assessed for two types of door plans. The possible implementation of a portion of the algorithm on a parallel machine is discussed. The algorithm can be extended to 3-D