Foliage Propagation Model Development to Support New Communications Concepts

The Foliage Abstraction RF Multiscale Estimation Rendering (FARMER) modeling and simulation application addresses the complexity of radio frequency (RF) propagation in a high foliage environment with an innovative multiscale calculation approach that has not previously been applied to this problem. It makes the foliage propagation problem tractable by abstracting the computationally intensive interaction between the RF signal and foliage structures using an innovative scattering distribution function. This methodology preserves critical information (including signal amplitude, polarization, relative phase, propagation time, and Doppler shift) while allowing efficient and highly parallelizeable analysis of the overall scene. FARMERs pipeline architecture and software engineering best practices facilitate integration of existing models and enable scalable use of state-of-the-art high performance computing resources. The combination of an innovative modeling approach with the ability to easily apply computational power results in a revolutionary advance in the ability to model previously intractable scenarios, such as RF propagation in foliage environments.