3D wave propagation simulation in complex indoor structures

Modern wireless radio systems, such as public mobile cellular services (GSM or CDMA), PCN, DECT, wireless LANs, etc., are established in different operating frequency bands according to their specific applications. For new service deployments and expansion or improvement of existing systems, accurate path loss and power delay profile prediction in different environments is important for specifying system parameters. Recently, wave propagation prediction algorithms based on site-specific deterministic models, quasi-optical ray tracing and higher order electromagnetic wave propagation models have been developed. The paper discusses the results from a simulator consisting of two discrete computer codes, an environment modeler and a ray tracing engine. It is found that, for closed indoor areas with many scatterers, modeling the environment with more details is beneficial because it improves the accuracy of the simulated results while simulation time is not significantly increased. However, considering diffraction may not be useful, as it is very time consuming and does not have a major impact on the total predicted result because of extreme multipath effects.