Full-wave simulation of propagation channel parameters for a forest environment

Scattering from tree trunks is the dominant source to the field fluctuations in a forest environment. Using full-wave analysis based on the method of moments in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulations the effect of multiple scattering among a large number of tree trunks and their interaction with the lateral waves are studied. It is shown that only scatterers near the source and the observation points contribute to the field fluctuations significantly. Keeping about 200 tree trunks in the vicinity of the transmitter dipole and the receiver point, Monte Carlo simulation is used to evaluate the statistics of the spatial and spectral behavior of the field at the receiver. Using a wide bandwidth simulation, the temporal behavior is also studied and the performance of antenna arrays is investigated.