Modified Equivalent Current Approximation (MECA) applied to radioelectric coverage evaluation in rural scenarios

This paper presents the application of the deterministic Modified Equivalent Current Approximation (MECA) method to the evaluation of radioelectric coverage in rural scenarios. MECA is an extension of the high frequency technique Physical Optics (PO) for non-PEC materials based on the determination of induced equivalent currents on the interface between two media. The electric field at different observation points due to a dipole located above a plane with PEC, dielectric and lossy characterizations is calculated with MECA and this is contrasted with the results obtained with the Image Theory and Method of Moments (MoM). Finally, the power density in an electrically large rural enviroment is shown and compared with the empirical COST 231 method.