On the suitability of GO/UTD modelling of microwave propagation in indoor environments

The main aim of this paper is to show the suitability of the geometrical optics and uniform theory of diffraction (GO/UTD) approach for modelling microwave propagation in indoor environments. Implementation details for an efficient method based on a combination of image theory and the binary space partitioning (BSP) algorithm to perform ray tracing are presented. The efficiency of the method allows a full three-dimensional implementation of the GO/UTD approach. An extensive measurement champaign has been carried out in order to analyse the degree of accuracy achievable by the method. Some of these comparisons between measured and simulated data are presented, and a quantitative analysis of errors is made. The analysis reveals that the degree of precision in the calculation of the signal levels allows not only the signal mean level but also its statistics to be estimated accurately. The error in the mean level of the signal is less than 2 dB in the majority of cases, a maximum error of 3.6 dB having been obtained. The statistics of the signal fit Rice distributions very closely with different values of the rician parameter IC. Finally, a brief study of the influence of the number of ray mechanisms considered (reflected, double reflected, etc.) on the accuracy and calculation times is also presented. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.