New Approach to Wave Oriented Radio Propagation Modeling Based on Extended FDTD Methods

Predicting the signal level and coverage area of radio frequency communication channels between base stations, vehicles and warfighters is a challenging problem. The channel may involve radio frequency interactions with hills, foliage, and buildings. Thepaths may involve long distances over hilly terrain or shorter distances involving interaction with urban building features. Some propagation paths may simultaneously involve hills, foliage, and urban areas. The goal of the proposed effort will be toinvestigate, develop, implement and test a new method for calculating radio channel parameters for these difficult propagation paths. Remcom's approach is an extension of the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method. Remcom will extend the capabilitydeveloped during Phase I to include longer distances, atmospheric effects, additional foliage factors, and urban features. Remcom's Wireless InSite tool will be extended to provide geometrical input to the new method and to utilize and display results.Remcom will validate the new method for accuracy in a variety of different scenes. Finally, Remcom will demonstrate that over a broad range of frequencies the extended FDTD propagation method is a new and a viable full-wave approach to accurate predictionof radio propagation over irregular terrain including atmospheric effects, foliage, and urban features.