A Fast and Enhanced Ray Optical Propagation Model for Indoor and Urban

Scenarios, Based on an Intelligent Preprocessing of the Database

Gerd Wolfle, Reiner Hoppe, and Friedrich M. Landstorfer
Institut fur Hochfrequenztechnik, University of Stuttgart,
Pfaffenwaldring 47, D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany
e-mail: woelfle@ihf.uni-stuttgart.de
WWW: http://www.ihf.uni-stuttgart.de

Abstract |

Ray-optical propagation models are often

used for the prediction of the field strength (and delay
spread) in wireless mobile communication networks. But
these models suffer from long computation times. For large
areas in urban or indoor scenarios the computation times
are in the range of hours which is too long for the planning
of mobile radio networks.
A new method for the acceleration of ray-optical models
is presented in this paper. It is based on a preprocessing
of the database and leads to acceleration factors near 1000,
reducing the computation time to a few seconds on PCs.
The propagation model is implemented for urban and indoor scenarios and very accurate results are obtained with
the model.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Ray-optical propagation models are very often used for the
prediction of the field strength (and also for the delay spread) in
indoor and urban scenarios [1], [2], [3]. They are very accurate
because they consider waveguiding effects in street canyons (urban) or corridors (indoor) and they include diffraction at wedges
(corners).
There are two approaches to the ray optical prediction models: ray tracing and ray launching [4]. Both of them have their
individual advantages and disadvantages. The ray tracing computes all rays for each receiver point individually and guarantees
the consideration of each wall as well as a constant resolution.
This individual computation is more time-consuming than the
ray launching approach, where the rays are launched from the
transmitter with a constant angle increment. But the ray launching might neglect a wall because it is very small and located between two rays. Different approaches to a better resolution with
the ray launching were presented in the last years [5], but the
ray launching has still kept the disadvantage of a variable resolution depending on the distance to the transmitter. The new
approach presented in this paper combines the advantages of
both ray optical models and neglects their disadvantages.
The field strength is computed with the Fresnel equations
for the reflection/transmission and with the GTD/UTD for the
diffraction [6]. Also empirical diffraction models are available,
because they can be calibrated with measurements [4].
Ray optical models are very time-consuming, because all
possible rays must be determined and many reflections and
diffractions are computed. Especially 3D models consider thou-

sands of rays, but most of them can be neglected because their

contributions are very small.
Therefore implementations for 2D are also available, but they
have a limited accuracy and the computation times are still in
the range of hours an a standard PC.
Several approaches to an acceleration of the models were
presented in the last years and lead to acceleration factors up
to 10 [7], [8]. But the computation times of ray optical models
(2D and 3D) are currently still in the range of hours if many
prediction points (large prediction areas) and interactions (especially diffractions) are computed.
II. P REPROCESSING OF THE DATABASE
The basic idea of the preprocessing is the reduction of identical operations, because the ray tracing algorithm determines
nearly the same rays for neighboring prediction points and for
each of these points the same computations are necessary (reflection (diffraction) points are on the same walls (wedges) if
the receiving pixels are adjacent to each other [9]). The evaluation of these possible rays reflected at the same walls leads to
similar results considering the same walls for the shadowing.
So it is possible to accelerate the computation if the visibility relation between two walls is computed only once and
stored in the memory [8]. If there is line of sight between the
walls or between parts of the walls, the algorithm will always
consider both walls for the computation of a potential reflected
(diffracted) ray. If there is no line of sight between the walls, no
reflected ray will be searched. So the computation of the reflections (diffractions) depends on the visibility relation between
the walls (or parts of the walls). This principle is well-known
and very often used for the acceleration of the ray-optical algorithms [10].
In this paper an enhanced approach is presented. All walls
are subdivided into tiles and all wedges are subdivided into segments as shown in figure 1.
The visibility relations between each tile (segment) and all
other tiles (segments) are computed in the preprocessing, because they are independent of the transmitter and receiver locations. For the decision about the visibility relation, the line of
sight between the centers of the tiles (or segments) is evaluated.
If there is line of sight between the centers, the rays from the
center of the first tile to the corners of the second tile are determined and the projection of the angles of the rays on the first
and second tile are stored together with the visibility relation.

Table II shows the dependency of the computation time on

the size of the tiles and segments for two urban test scenarios.
Resolution
Nancy
Stuttgart

5m
90 min
100 min

10 m
20 min
22 min

20 m
5 min
5 min

TABLE II: Computation times for the preprocessing

of an area 600 m x 600 m of an urban data
base depending on the resolution of tiles
and segments (in all cases 5 m resolution
for the receiving points)
Fig. 1: Tiles and segments of a wall
A similar computation for the visibility relations between
tiles and segments and between segments and segments is done
and also stored in the file of the preprocessing.
The angles of the projection are very important, because they
define a range of possible reflection (or diffraction) angles for
the illuminated tile (or segment). The angle also continues on
the neighboring tile, so a very accurate prediction of the rays is
possible even if the tiles or segments are large (up to 5 or 10
meters for urban data bases) [9].
A further improvement is possible if the grid of the prediction
points is also used in the preprocessing, because the prediction
plane can be subdivided into tiles and the visibility relations between the tiles of the prediction grid and the tiles (and segments)
of the walls represent the last part of the ray in the direction to
the receiver.
If different heights for the receiver locations should be computed in the prediction, individual prediction planes for each
height must be considered in the preprocessing.
If the receiver visibility relations are determined in the preprocessing, the only remaining visibility relations to be computed in the prediction are the ones from the transmitter to the
tiles (of walls and prediction grid) and segments (see section III
and figure 2).

Nancy
Lille
Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Munich

Area
600 x 600
1000 x 1000
1000 x 1000
1500 x 1500
2500 x 3200

Buildings
40
86
120
300
2000

File size
4 MB
6 MB
10 MB
20 MB
50 MB

Time
8 min
12 min
25 min
60 min
10 h

TABLE I: Memory requirements and computation

time for the preprocessing of different urban data bases depending on the size of the
data base (Pentium II, 266 MHz)
Tables I shows the memory requirements and computation
times for different urban scenarios. The computation times
given in table I are smaller than the computation time of a single prediction for the same area with the standard ray tracing
(see table III), because each visibility relation is only computed
once in the preprocessing while in the prediction the visibility
relation might be considered and computed for many prediction
points.

The computation times and file sizes for indoor data bases
depend on the type of the data base (details, number of walls,...).
The office buildings (IHF in Stuttgart and the building in Vienna, presented in [11]) lead to files smaller than 20 MB and
computation times in the range of 2 hours. But these values depend on the size of the tiles and segments. Detailed information
about the software features (files, times) can be found in [12].
Further information about the preprocessing, the subdivision
of the walls and the parameters for the computation of the visibility relations are given in [9], [13].
III. P REDICTION WITH A PREPROCESSED DATABASE

Fig. 2: Tree structure of the visibility relations

Figure 2 shows the arrangement of all visibility relations
computed in the preprocessing and in the prediction. Only the
relations in the first layer of the tree must be computed in the
prediction, all other relations are determined in the preprocessing and can be read from a file.
The visibility relations, determined in the preprocessing (all
layers except of the first layer of the tree) are independent of
the transmitter location and can be used for all predictions with
the same data base. Only the relations in the first layer of the
tree are depending on the location of the transmitter and must
be computed in the prediction process for each transmitter location.
Due to the small number of visibility relations in the first
layer of the tree, the computation times are very fast. Most
time is spent on reading the visibility data from the files. If
more than one transmitter is considered at the same time, the

preprocessed data must only be read once and the prediction

of the second transmitter is even faster than the prediction of
the first transmitter, because the visibility tree is already in the
RAM of the PC.
A further advantage of the new approach is obvious. The
computation time for the prediction is nearly independent of the
size of the prediction area, because the whole tree is computed
once for each prediction and all receiver points are included in
the prediction. Only the time for computing the field strength is
necessary for the evaluation of a prediction point and this time
depends on the location of the point (inside or outside the prediction area). The rays to all preprocessed receiver points are always determined in each prediction. If the size of the prediction
area is reduced, a smaller number of prediction points must be
considered (more preprocessed prediction points are neglected)
and the time for computing the field strength is reduced. But
this part of the computation time is very short compared to the
time for determining the rays and therefore the total computation time is nearly independent of the size of the prediction area.
The number of interactions influences the computation time
because each new interaction corresponds to a further layer in
the visibility tree. Very good results are achieved with a maximum of six interactions (reflections, transmission, and diffractions in different combinations with a maximum of two diffractions in each ray). In some cases a higher number of transmissions is very important for indoor computations and this will
lead to a longer computation times.
In contrast to the indoor model, the urban model does not
consider the penetration of walls. But with this exception the
same algorithms can be used for indoor and urban models.
Area
Nancy
Stuttgart

400 m
x 400 m
2s
2743 s
2s
3127 s

600 m
x 600 m
8s
4607 s
6s
5134 s

800 m
x 800 m
12 s
11232 s
11 s
13428 s

1000 m
x 1000 m
47 s
29548 s
21 s
33541 s

TABLE III: Computation times for the prediction with

preprocessing of the data base (written in
italic) compared to the conservative 3-D
Ray Tracing in two urban test scenarios
The computation times for different urban scenarios are compared to an accelerated 3D model [10] and presented in table III.
They are gained with a maximum of 4 interactions (all combinations of reflections and diffractions with max. two diffractions).
Indoor scenarios are computed with similar acceleration factors
compared to rigorous 3D ray tracing models and the factors are
in the range of 10000 for complex buildings (see figure 7) [12].
The new approach combines the accuracy of the ray tracing
with the idea of the ray launching. Like the ray launching, the
new model follows all rays from the transmitter to the receiver
points. But in contrast to the ray launching, the accuracy and
the resolution are very high, because all rays and their points
of interaction are determined in the preprocessing with the ray
tracing algorithm.

IV. H YBRID PREDICTION MODELS

Ray optical propagation models consider a maximum number of reflections, transmissions, and diffractions. Due to that
limited number, not all prediction points are reached with the
ray optical algorithms (especially far away from the transmitter). This remaining part of the pixels is computed with empirical models, based on the direct ray between transmitter and
receiver [12]. For urban scenarios the Walfisch-Ikegami-COST
231 model is implemented [4], [14] and for indoor environments the model of Motley-Keenan is used [15].
A transition function between the empirical prediction and
the ray-optical prediction leads to a smooth transition between
the two models [4], [12].
An example for the transition function between the two models is shown in figure 3. Depending on the difference between
the ray-optical and the empirical prediction, a weighted sum of
both predictions is computed. The functions for the weight factor are either sin2 (x) or cos2 (x), so that the sum of both functions for all possible values of x is always 1. If the ray-optical
prediction is obviously higher than the empirical prediction (because of the waveguiding), the ray-optical value is used. If the
empirical value is higher, the transition is computed and if the
empirical value is very high compared to the ray-optical value,
the empirical value is chosen.
Weightfactor

0,5

Ray Tracing

@
R
@

Empirical

/

Diffmin

Diffmax

Difference
Emp. RT

Fig. 3: Transition between ray-optical and empirical prediction

V. T RANSITION BETWEEN URBAN AND INDOOR MODELS
If different data bases are used for the indoor and urban scenarios, a very simple interface can be implemented for the prediction model, because the tiles and segments at the walls surrounding the building define the interface between the two data
bases [12].
If the transmitter is located outside the building, all rays and
their angles of incidence are stored for each tile of the surrounding walls of the building. The further computation of the indoor propagation is very simple with the indoor tool, because it
uses the information of the incident rays on the surrounding tiles
and follows these rays on their way through the indoor visibility
tree.
If the transmitter is placed inside the building, all rays reaching the tiles of the surrounding walls are stored and followed
later with the urban tool on their way through the urban visibility tree.

VI. C OMPARISON WITH MEASUREMENTS

A comparison with measurements shows the performance of
each propagation model. Many measurements in different scenarios (indoor and urban) were therefore used for the analysis
of the performance of the new model [1], [9], [12], [16].
A. Urban Scenarios

Route 0
Route 1
Route 2

Only Ray Tracing

Mean
StandardError
deviation
0.5 dB
8.0 dB
0.1 dB
5.3 dB
-0.6 dB
7.5 dB

Hybrid model
Mean
StandardError
deviation
1.3 dB
6.7 dB
0.8 dB
5.0 dB
-0.2 dB
6.8 dB

TABLE IV: Accuracy of the prediction in Munich

To show the accuracy for urban environments the wellknown scenario in Munich (Germany) was used [1]. Figure 4
presents the the hybrid prediction for the GSM network (900
MHz) and figure 5 shows the difference between the prediction
and the measurement for the same scenario.

Fig. 6: Distribution of the error between prediction and measurement

B. Indoor scenarios
Fig. 4: Prediction for the scenario in Munich (Germany) with ray tracing (frequency 900
MHz)

For indoor environments different benchmarks with measurement campaigns were carried out in different types of buildings. New office buildings like the University of Stuttgart [16],
older office buildings like the University of Vienna [17] and
very old buildings like the Marconi-Villa in Bologna [8] were
used for the comparison. The results concerning accuracy and
performance were compared to other indoor models [11].
Figure 7 shows the result for a new office building at the University of Stuttgart. The difference to the measurement (carrier
frequency 1800 MHz, transmitted power 30 dBm) is shown in
figure 8. The standard deviation is smaller than 6.5 dB and the
mean error is 0.2 dB. Further examples and tables concerning
the accuracy of the ray tracing model are given in [11].

Fig. 5: Difference between prediction and measurement

Table IV shows the accuracy of the propagation model with
the hybrid computation mode (as mentioned in section IV) and
figure 6 shows the distribution of the error if the prediction is
compared to the measurements.
The total area (2000 x 2500 meters) is computed in less than
300 seconds on a standard PC [12]. Compared to other approaches [14], very fast and accurate predictions are possible.
Further comparisons for the city of Stuttgart (Germany) [9] and
Nancy (France) [10] confirm these results.
The influence and improvement due to the hybrid approach
(as described in section IV) is also shown in table IV and compared to the standard 3D ray tracing.

Fig. 7: Prediction for an office building in

Stuttgart

Fig. 8: Difference between prediction and measurement for the office building in Stuttgart
(see figure 7)
VII. C ONCLUSIONS
A very fast and efficient propagation model was presented in
this paper and the prediction results were compared to measurements. The comparison with measurements shows a very high
accuracy of the new model. An empirical model, implemented
in a hybrid approach, improves the accuracy and leads to even
better results.
A very simple interface between indoor and urban propagation models is defined using the visibility information of the
preprocessed data bases.
With this new prediction model it is possible to reduce the
computation times for the planning of mobile radio networks
to a few minutes and to increase the accuracy because more
interactions can be considered with ray-optical models.
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