Electromagnetic Characterization of a Gyproc Slab by Measurement and 3-D Geometrical Optics Simulation

Indoor propagation calculations often use geometrical optics to predict the field reflected from wall surfaces. In this letter, the dielectric constant of a gyproc wallboard sheet and of a wood door is found by comparing the field measured on a path parallel to the panel surface with simulations, at 2.45 GHz. In geometrical optics, the plane-wave reflection coefficient for walls constructed with uniform layers is often used. The accuracy of the layered wall model is tested for a wall with surfaces of gyproc separated by an internal air layer. Agreement between measurements and simulations validates both the measured dielectric constant and the layered wall model in geometrical optics calculations. Moreover, measurement using oblique incidence is proven to be more sensitive to the dielectric constant than measurement using only normal incidence.