3D-Wave Propagation Analysis of Indoor Wireless Channels Utilizing Hybrid Methods

A full 3D hybrid method for analyzing electromagnetic wave propagation in buildings with realistic wall types and structures is presented. This hybrid method combines full-wave techniques which are used for the analysis of one unit cell of inhomogeneous periodic walls with a ray-tracing-like field calculation for the interaction between the walls. Consequently, the method can overcome the inadequacy of traditional ray-tracing in the presence of inhomogeneous periodic wall structures like cinderblock, rebar structure, etc. but is still computationally tractable. Because of this, both indoor wireless channel characterizations and signal fading statistics are shown to be more accurate with this method. Numerical results of the hybrid method are presented for two simple scenarios and validated with theory and measurement. Furthermore, numerical results for a realistic indoor scene are given and compared to a scene where the periodic walls are replaced with effective homogeneous walls. For both setups, the propagation channel is characterized, fast fading signal statistics are extracted and the inadequacies of the homogeneous wall implementation are pointed out.