Radio Wave Diffusion Indoors and Throughput Scaling with Cell Density

Diffusion theory is found to provide a simple yet accurate expression for the average received radio power loss indoors in non-line-of-sight propagation. Effective specific absorption is the sole parameter. Agreement with extensive indoor power measurements is found at all ranges. Use of the standard power-law to describe the data is found to lead to power exponents that vary from near 2 at short ranges to around 11 at 100 m. Extending the diffusion model to account for variation in scatterer density provides a stochastic mechanism explaining the log-normal nature of observed average power variations, usually termed "shadow fading". The standard deviation of power variation is found to increase with range (as r^1/2 at short ranges), in agreement with measurements and unlike accepted models. Exponential absorption in diffusion is determined to have a large impact on the signal-to-interference-and noise behavior, materially affecting conclusions on the value of increasing cell density as a method of increasing wireless network capacity.