GPU-accelerated ray tracing for electromagnetic propagation analysis

Due to ongoing improvements in the performance and programmability of commercially available Graphics Processor Units (GPUs), substantial increases in the execution speed of EM propagation analysis through ray tracing is now attainable. This paper presents recent results where RF ray tracing has been applied to analyze signal propagation over complex urban 3D scene models. The ray trace algorithms were programmed to operate as parallel processes over hundreds of core processors that make up the architecture of off-the-shelf GPU chips.