Ray tracing for indoor radio channel estimation

This paper describes the foundation for and implementation of a simple computer tool to evaluate the power/delay/carrier phase shift parameters of an indoor radio channel impulse response. The tool is based on a geometrical ray approximation of electromagnetic wavefronts. A graphic ray tracing technique is adapted to find all propagation paths within a three-dimensional scene between a user specified transmitter and receiver position. Each propagation path is characterized by a power/delay/phase vector. The set of all those vectors gives the site specific channel impulse response. Typical applications are for placement of base stations in Personal Communication Networks