Prediction of indoor wireless coverage by leaky coaxial cable using ray tracing

Coaxial cable having a slotted or perforated outer conductor can be used as a base-station antenna for indoor wireless systems. This paper explores the use of ray-tracing software to predict the radio coverage that can be achieved by leaky coax in a building with given wall geometry. For either coupled-mode or radiating-mode cable, a model that represents the cable as a sequence of "fluorescent-bulb" elements, each of which radiates diffusely with a Lambert's-law radiation pattern, is found to work well, However, the coupling-loss parameter, which defines the effective power radiated by each element, appears to depend significantly on whether the cable is laid in a rich scattering environment or a barren one.