Measurement and simulation of radio wave propagation in two indoor environments

Experiments were conducted using a CT2 (operating in the 864-868 MHz frequency range) indoor wireless communications system to measure the received signal strengths in two indoor environments: a cafeteria, and a building corridor including pedestrians. For the cafeteria, a 2D ray launching model is used to predict the radio wave propagation. The model includes the effect of excess loss encountered when the transmitting antenna is mounted between ceiling beam supports. For the corridor, a 3D multi-ray tracing model is employed. To account for the effect of pedestrians, a new approach is presented involving variable dielectric blocks to represent the electrical characteristics of human bodies and their effect on signal propagation. Measurements from each environment are presented to verify the results of the numerical models