Propagation over buildings for paths oblique to the street grid

Prediction of cell shape is important for proposed microcellular systems employing base station antennas at or below the surrounding rooftops. For residential and commercial areas, where the buildings are of nearly uniform height, prediction of cell shape will require knowledge of how the average signal received by street level mobiles depends on the direction of propagation relative to the rows of buildings. This paper presents theoretical results for the signal dependence on direction of propagation, number of intervening rows of buildings and the base station antenna height. Assuming all buildings to be of equal heights, the range dependence of the average signal is found by evaluating multiple forward diffraction past rows of buildings, perpendicular or oblique to the propagation path. These theoretical results are compared with measurements