2350
6, NOVEMBER 2000
Improving the Accuracy of Ray-Tracing Techniques
for Indoor Propagation Modeling
Kate A. Remley, Member, IEEE, Harry R. Anderson, Member, IEEE, and Andreas Weisshar, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Problems with the use of ray-tracing techniques in
indoor propagation environments are identified, and a new set of
widely applicable diffraction coefficients is developed. The limita-
tions on the accuracy of the ray-tracing method in indoor propaga-
tion environments are first assessed. The effects of scatterers with
dimensions approaching the wavelength of operation and of scat-
terers with finite conductivity are considered. The accuracy of ray
tracing is quantified by comparison to a full-wave simulation tech-
nique, which combines the finite-difference time-domain method
with a spatial transformation technique, the Kirchhoff surface in-
tegral formulation. Simulation results demonstrate that when the
magnitude and phase of the received signal components are prop-
erly accounted for, the ray-tracing solution may be accurate down
to a fraction of a wavelength. A new set of diffraction coefficients
is presented for calculations involving obstacles with finite conduc-
tivity. The new coefficients eliminate an artificial dip in the dif-
fracted field strength, which is often encountered when currently
available techniques are used. Validation is provided by compar-
ison with full-wave simulations and measurements. Improved ac-
curacy in both the illuminated and shadowed regions is demon-
strated.
Index Terms—Diffraction, finite-difference time-domain
(FDTD) method, Kirchhoff surface integral, propagation mod-
eling, ray tracing.
I. INTRODUCTION
R AY TRACING [1]–[3] is a commonly used computational
method for site-specific prediction of the radio channel
characteristics of wireless communication systems. The ray-
tracing technique inherently provides time delay and angle of
arrival information for multipath reception conditions. This is
important because the wide-bandwidth signals utilized in many
modern communication systems are particularly sensitive to the
detrimental effects of multipath distortion and dispersion, which
may produce a frequency-selective channel [4]. The ability to
provide a high level of detail in the characterization of multipath
channels makes the ray-tracing technique particularly attractive
for indoor propagation environments. However, some aspects of
ray-tracing implementation must be considered carefully when
modeling propagation in indoor environments or the accuracy
of the method may suffer. This paper addresses some of these
issues.
Ray tracing utilizes the principles of geometrical optics (GO)
[1], [5], where propagation is assumed along discrete ray paths
from transmitter to receiver. In general, this assumption is valid
Manuscript received December 21, 1999; revised June 5, 1999.
K. A. Remley is with the RF Technology Division of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO 80303-3328 USA.
H. R. Anderson is with EDX Engineering, Inc., Eugene, OR 97440 USA.
A. Weisshar is with Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331 USA.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9545(00)10443-8.
0018–9545/00$10.00 © 2000 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 49, NO.
when the wavelength is small compared to the geometrical
dimensions of objects in the propagation environment, the
so-called “high-frequency approximation.” Because of this
inherent high-frequency approximation, the accuracy of the
ray-tracing method may depend on, among other things, the
size of local scatterers as compared to the wavelength of
operation [6], [7]. This is a particularly important issue in
indoor propagation environments, where feature dimensions
may be on the order of the wavelength of operation, especially
at the lower personal communications system frequencies of
900 MHz ( cm) and 1800 MHz ( cm).
A second important aspect of indoor propagation modeling
is the accurate determination of received signal strength for
non-line-of-sight (NLOS) diffracted signals. NLOS conditions
are frequently encountered in indoor applications such as
wireless local-area network systems. Diffraction modeling
in the ray-tracing method is well established for perfectly
conducting wedges through the uniform theory of diffraction
(UTD) [8], [9]. An extension of the UTD for wedges with
finite conductivity has been introduced for a limited range of
applications [10]–[12]. However, many modern ray-tracing
programs use this extension for general calculation of diffracted
fields, often resulting in an artificial dip in received signal
strength [11], [13].
This paper assesses the accuracy of the ray-tracing method
with regard to multipath conditions commonly found in indoor
environments, including those with scatterers having dimen-
sions approaching the wavelength of operation and those with
scatterers of finite conductivity. Techniques are then demon-
strated to significantly improve the accuracy of the ray-tracing
method in situations where these scatterers are found.
In Section II, the accuracy of the ray-tracing technique for
characterizing propagation environments with electrically small
scatterers is assessed. This is accomplished by comparison to a
“standard,” that is, a solution of known accuracy. The standard
is generated in this case using a full-wave computational tech-
nique. Results are presented for propagation channel configu-
rations including those in which both reflection and diffraction
play dominant roles, and those in which diffraction dominates.
Simulation results demonstrate that when the magnitude and
phase of the received signal components are properly accounted
for, the ray-tracing solution is accurate for feature sizes down to
a fraction of a wavelength. A clear explanation for these results
is given in terms of ray path-length and its correspondence to
the Fresnel zone.
In Section III, it is shown that a set of heuristic diffraction
coefficients commonly used in ray-tracing programs can give
inaccurate results for certain propagation configurations when
REMLEY et al.: ACCURACY OF RAY-TRACING TECHNIQUES FOR INDOOR PROPAGATION MODELING 2351

scatterers are made of materials with finite conductivity. A

simple modification of the diffraction coefficients is shown to
greatly enhance the accuracy of ray-tracing in the character-
ization of both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight diffracted
signals arising from objects with finite conductivity. Section IV
concludes this paper with a summary and conclusion.

II. ACCURACY OF THE RAY-TRACING METHOD FOR

ELECTRICALLY SMALL SCATTERERS
As stated in the introduction, ray tracing is a technique
that utilizes the high-frequency approximation in site-specific
characterization of electromagnetic wave propagation. In other
words, the size of local scatterers relative to the wavelength of
operation may be an important consideration in the accurate
implementation of the ray-tracing method. As feature size
decreases relative to the incident wavelength, limits on the
accuracy of GO emerge [6], [7]. This paper extends these dis-
cussions and relates them directly to requirements for accurate
ray tracing implementation.
In this section, the accuracy of ray tracing for local scatterer
sizes approaching the wavelength of operation is quantified. A
comparison is made between simulation results based on ray
tracing and those provided by a full-wave computational tech-
nique. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method [14],
[15] provides a very accurate portrait of the received signal
for moderately sized grids [16]. It is, however, computation-
ally intensive and, therefore, generally not practical for site-spe-
cific modeling and/or for use with large computational domains.
For larger computational domains or to facilitate arbitrary re-
ceiver placement, the FDTD method may be combined with a
near-to-near or near-to-far field transformation technique such
as the Kirchhoff surface integral formulation [17], [18]. In this
paper, the FDTD method and the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff
technique are used as standards for verification and validation
of the ray-tracing technique.
A. Description of the Comparative Simulations
Comparative simulations designed to illustrate the depen-
dence of the ray-tracing method on the feature size of local
scatters are described. First, the physical configuration of the
multipath environment used in the comparative simulations
is given. Then important implementation aspects for both the
ray-tracing method and the full-wave method used in these
simulations are discussed.
1) The Simulation Environment: The simulated multipath
environment consists of a vertical wall offset between transmit
and receive antennas of equal height, as shown in Fig. 1. The
wall is of variable width. To assess the effects of scattering
from the vertical faces of the wall, reflections from the floor
are neglected. The wall is made sufficiently high and deep to
ensure that diffraction over the top and around the back may
be neglected. With this configuration, up to four rays may be
generated, corresponding to the direct path, a specular reflection,
and two corner diffractions from the vertical edges of the wall.
Two configurations are considered for assessment of scat-
tered ray interactions: First, the transmitter and receiver are
Fig. 1. Typical spatial configuration used in simulations.
equally spaced on either side of the wall, yielding diffraction
and specular reflection (Section II-B). Then, the receiver is
positioned in the incident field shadow region, yielding a
diffraction field only (Section II-C).
2) The Ray-Tracing Method: The ray-tracing approach used
to find the scattered field in this experiment incorporates an ap-
proximation called the relative phase method [19], [20]. The rel-
ative phase method involves vectorially combining the contribu-
tions from individual scattering elements on a single structure.
Historically, this technique has been used to find the radar cross
section (RCS) of a complex scatterer when it is not feasible or
efficient to use a more accurate method, for example, the elec-
tric field integral equation or the magnetic field integral equa-
tion method (e.g., [21] and [22]). The relative phase method is
described in more detail in the Appendix. The use of this tech-
nique in this paper provides a simple method for approximating
the received signal strength from a single, physically small scat-
terer. The ray-tracing program MCS [23] is used to generate the
“experimental” data.
3) The FDTD Method: The implementation of the FDTD
method is constrained by the desire to determine the effects
of scattering from the front face of the wall only. To mini-
mize diffraction over the top of the wall, a grid cell size of
m and m is chosen.
The cell size of 0.025 m corresponds to approximately 13 at
the carrier frequency of 900 MHz utilized in the simulations.
The overall grid size is 79 91 50. The large -dimension is
required to ensure that there is no diffraction around the back side
of the wall for the duration of the simulation. The computational
domain is terminated in perfectly-matched layer PML boundary
conditions [24]. Calibration between the FDTD simulation
and the ray-tracing simulation is accomplished by equating the

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2352
Fig. 2. Spatial configuration used for consideration of diffraction and specular
reflection. Transmitter and receiver are spaced equally from the center of the
wall. The edges of the wall move laterally in equal increments with respect to
transmitter and receiver.
Fig. 3. A comparison of the scattered field signal strength found using the
ray-tracing method and the FDTD method for a metal wall. The ray-tracing
solution is calculated with and without the diffracted rays. Signal levels are
referenced to the direct ray.
amplitude of the received direct path signal generated with each
technique.
The excitation used in the FDTD method is a pulse-modu-
lated carrier with Gaussian pulse defined by
where ns defines the pulse width, and ns is
a time offset. The pulse width has been selected to be narrow
enough for accurate resolution of the scattered pulse when com-
pared to the direct received pulse, yet wide enough to allow co-
incident illumination of the wall and associated corners. Pulse
spreading of the scattered pulse due to the separate effects of
reflection and diffraction is thus minimized.
B. Case 1: Diffraction and Specular Reflection
To assess the accuracy of ray tracing in simulations that in-
volve both reflected and diffracted rays, the transmitter and re-
ceiver are located equal distances on either side of the wall, as
shown in Fig. 2. The width of the wall varies from 0.2 to
10 . The wall is made of a metal with very high conductivity,
which can be considered a perfect electrical conductor (PEC)
material. Results comparing the scattered field signal strength
using the both the FDTD method and the ray-tracing method
are shown in Fig. 3. The ray-tracing result is in good agreement
with the full-wave method, especially for wider wall widths.
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(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. The (a) magnitude and (b) phase of the scattered field received signal
for the metal wall case shown in Fig. 3. The received signal strength is minimum
when the reflected and diffracted rays are 180 out of phase (reflector size !

0) and is maximum when they are in phase (reflector size 4), as shown by
the solid line in (b).
Theoretically, as the width of the wall increases, the curves in
Fig. 3 should converge to the value of the specularly reflected
signal. This is because the diffracted rays each have a signifi-
cantly longer path length than the reflected ray, so their contri-
bution will be negligible for wide wall widths.
Fig. 3 indicates that the ray-tracing technique under the rela-
(1) tive phase method approximation provides an accurate represen-
tation of the scattered field strength, even when the dimension of
the scattering wall is a fraction of a wavelength. Since the spec-
ularly reflected ray in the ray-tracing method is independent of
scatterer size, it can be concluded that as feature size is reduced
the contribution from the diffracted rays becomes increasingly
important in providing an accurate total received field solution.
Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows the components of the ray-tracing
signal plotted on a linear scale. For smaller reflector sizes, the
magnitude of the two diffracted rays combined using the rela-
tive phase method is significant, as shown in Fig. 4(a). The solid
curve in Fig. 4(b) shows that the diffracted and reflected signals
are out of phase for small wall sizes, so the total received signal
is of small magnitude. Likewise, when the two signals are in
phase, the total received signal is maximum. The point at which
the two rays (diffracted and reflected) are in phase (wall size of
approximately ) is the point where the extra path length (epl),
i.e., the difference in path length between the diffracted and re-
flected rays, is 2. This is also the edge of the first Fresnel
zone [25], as shown in Fig. 5. The Fresnel zones describe the
spatial regions where signals add either constructively (e.g., for
REMLEY et al.: ACCURACY OF RAY-TRACING TECHNIQUES FOR INDOOR PROPAGATION MODELING
Fig. 5. Definition of the first Fresnel zone. An ellipsoid of revolution is formed
around the line connecting the image (T X ) of the transmitter (TX ) with the
specular reflection point (S ) and the receiver (RX ). The focal points are at TX
and RX . (Note that the center of the Fresnel zone would, in the example cited
in the text, correspond to S since R =R .)
Fig. 6. Spatial configuration used to assess accuracy in the diffraction region.
Fig. 7. Top view of the simulation space for the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff
technique showing the diffracting wall and receiver placement. Fifty receivers
(circles) are spaced every 5.4 over the 270 arc. The transmitter location is
also shown.
epl ) or destructively. These regions alternate every mul-
tiple of 2 of the epl. However, the magnitude of the oscillatory
effect decreases as the extra path lengths get larger, and thus the
effect is not noticeable for larger wall sizes in Fig. 4.
C. Case 2: Diffraction Only
To characterize the received signal in the shadow region, the
simulation configuration shown in Fig. 6 is utilized. Observa-
tion points are placed in a 270 circular arc centered around the
diffracting corner. For the ray-tracing simulations, observation
points are placed every 1 around the diffracting corner. For the
full-wave simulations, 50 observation points are spaced every
5.4 over the 270 arc (see Fig. 7). The observation points are
placed near to the corner at a radius of 0.75 m (2.25 ) to mini-
mize diffraction around the back of the wall.
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2353
Fig. 8. The location of source scatterers when the Kirchhoff surface integral
formulation is used for indoor propagation modeling.
Fig. 9. Comparison of the FDTD simulation and the ray-tracing simulation for
a PEC wall of various sizes. RSB refers to the reflected field shadow boundary
and ISB refers to the incident field shadow boundary (defined in Fig. 10).
For accurate receiver placement in the FDTD simulation, it
is useful to extend the FDTD domain via a spatial transforma-
tion technique such as the Kirchhoff surface integral formula-
tion. Details of this technique can be found in [18] and [26].
Receiver placement is then not limited to FDTD grid point lo-
cations. To implement the Kirchhoff surface integral formula-
tion in this case, the scatterer (wall) and transmitter are enclosed
by the integration surface (Fig. 8). The field found using the
Kirchhoff formulation at an arbitrary observation point will
be the same as would be generated by the original configuration
of transmitter and scatterer.
Even with only one ray-tracing diffraction considered, results
in the shadow region are again comparable to results found using
the FDTD/Kirchhoff method, with a mean squared error of ap-
proximately 5% over the range of the incident field shadow re-
gion. This result indicates that scatterer size does not necessarily
limit the accurate use of ray tracing.
In this section, the significance of the high-frequency approx-
imation on the accuracy of ray tracing for electrically small scat-
terers has been investigated. Another approximation commonly
used in ray tracing involves a heuristic modification of equations
used in the uniform theory of diffraction for modeling diffracted
fields from dielectric wedges. An extension of this approximate
technique is developed in the next section.
Fig. 9 compares the received signal generated by the com-
bined FDTD/Kirchhoff technique for several different wall
2354
Fig. 10. Geometry of the diffraction problem. The 90 (n
3=2) wedge
problem is illustrated, with the “0” face and the “n” face denoted.
widths to the received signal generated by the ray-tracing
method, since only one noninteracting diffraction is generated
by ray tracing in this case. The wall size is inconsequential in
the diffraction region. The magnitude of the diffracted signal
found using the FDTD/Kirchhoff method in the incident field
shadow region [for angles greater than that of the incident
field shadow boundary (ISB), see. Fig. 10] shows very little
dependence on the wall width until the wall size is a small
fraction of a wavelength. This behavior is in agreement with
results presented in [6] and [7].
III. DIFFRACTION MODELING FOR DIELECTRIC OBSTACLES
The uniform theory of diffraction [8] and [9] is the basis for
diffraction modeling in many ray-tracing programs. The UTD
accurately predicts diffracted fields arising from abrupt material
discontinuities for obstacles made of PEC material.
While there are well-established diffraction modeling
methodologies for PEC wedges, the development of a uniform
diffraction coefficient for wedges with finite conductivity is the
subject of continuing research. A limited number of methods
have been proposed. An asymptotic solution for diffraction
from lossy wedges was originally developed by Maliuzhinets
in 1953 [27]. Subsequent improvements to this technique have
been proposed in [28]–[30], among others. This technique has
not been widely incorporated into ray-tracing programs due to
the computational intensity involved [11].
A second method, proposed by Luebbers in 1984 [10], intro-
duces a heuristic modification to the UTD equations. Fresnel re-
flection coefficients corresponding to the dielectric material of
the diffracting wedge are incorporated into the UTD coefficient
terms associated with the reflection field shadow boundary, de-
noted RSB in Fig. 10. Further discussion on this work can be
found in [11], [12], and [31]and related work in [32]. As a
third solution, several numerical diffraction coefficients have
also been proposed, e.g., in [33] and the references therein.
Because the heuristic model can be easily and efficiently
implemented in a computer program, this formulation is
currently used in many ray-tracing propagation programs,
including [2], [23], [34], and [35]. As discussed by Luebbers
[10], [12], the accurate use of these heuristic diffraction coef-
ficients is restricted to applications meeting certain conditions:
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The obstacles (wedges) must have large interior angles, the
observation points must be near shadow boundaries (defined in
Fig. 10), and the observation angles must be greater than the
angles of incidence. In cases where these conditions are not
satisfied, a nonphysical dip in the diffracted field may result for
certain angles of observation [13].
In this section, the Luebbers formulation is modified by re-
defining the angular dependence of the diffraction coefficients
in a more physical way. This new set of diffraction coefficients,
described in detail in [18], enables more accurate prediction of
diffracted fields for a wider range of wedge interior angles and
for any observation angle. The new diffraction coefficients are
validated by comparison to results generated with the combined
FDTD/Kirchhoff method and to measurements.
=
A. Description of the Original Luebbers Formulation
To describe the Luebbers formulation for diffraction coef-
ficients, a wedge with interior angle defined by (2 ) (see
Fig. 10) is considered. Fresnel reflection coefficients, which cor-
respond to the incidence face (“0” face) or to the diffraction face
(“ ” face), are incorporated into the two UTD diffraction coef-
ficients associated with the RSB, i.e.,[2]
(2)
Here, the terms and are the Fresnel reflection coeffi-
cients corresponding to perpendicular ( ) and parallel ( ) po-
larization, respectively. Superscript “0” refers to the illuminated
wedge face (toward the incident field), and superscript refers
to the diffraction face. is a Fresnel integral to correct for
the singularities at the shadow boundaries and is a normalized
distance. The two diffraction coefficient terms with argument
correspond to the RSB. The other two terms of (2)
correspond to the ISB through the relation .
As a demonstration of the nonphysicality that can result when
the Luebbers formulation is used (erroneously) for arbitrary
diffraction calculations, a ray-tracing simulation is carried out
utilizing an infinite wedge made from a lossy dielectric with
S/m and . In these simulations, observation
points are located every 1 on a circular ring centered around
the diffracting corner, similar to the configuration shown in
Fig. 7. The angle of incidence is 22 from either the zero face
( ) or the face ( ). The transmitter and
observation point locations are m and
m from the diffraction corner, respectively, corresponding to
and at the frequency of 900 MHz.
REMLEY et al.: ACCURACY OF RAY-TRACING TECHNIQUES FOR INDOOR PROPAGATION MODELING
(a)
(b)
Fig. 11. The ray-tracing field components vs. observation angle  for a
dielectric wedge with  =
0:1 S/m,  = 15:0, with (a) transmitter at
 = 22 and (b) transmitter at  = 248 . The dip in the diffracted ray is
nonphysical.
Results in Fig. 11(a) and (b) show the ray-tracing field com-
ponents over the entire range of observation point angles. In
the illuminated region, the interference pattern between the re-
flected ray (short-dashed line) and the direct ray (dash-dot) is
apparent in the total received signal (solid line). The reflected
ray has a constant value since the total path length is constant
for all observation points.
The dips in signal strength of the diffracted rays occurring in
the illuminated region ( RSB) in Fig. 11(a) and in the shad-
owed region ( ISB) in Fig. 11(b) are erroneous. The dif-
fracted ray solution should decrease monotonically. Note that
in Fig. 11(a), the inaccuracy may not be apparent since the di-
rect and specularly reflected rays dominate the total received
signal in the illuminated region. To eliminate the inaccuracy
and increase the versatility of the Luebbers diffraction coeffi-
cients, a new set of diffraction coefficients has been developed
by comparing ray-tracing results to diffraction field results cal-
culated using the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff method. Perpen-
dicular polarization is considered without loss of generality.
B. Development of the New Set of Diffraction Coefficients
The basis for the modification of the original formulation is
the determination of the angle at which the Fresnel coefficients
and are calculated. In the original formulation [10], is
calculated at and is calculated at . For a
wedge with an interior angle of 90 , commonly associated with
objects in indoor propagation modeling, . In the
new diffraction coefficient formulation, remains dependent
on . However, since the relationship between the observation
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2355
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF ANGLES INVOLVED IN THE CALCULATION OF
THE ORIGINAL LUEBBERS DIFFRACTION COEFFICIENTS AND THE NEW
DIFFRACTION COEFFICIENTS
(a)
(b)
Fig. 12. The ray-tracing field components vs. observation angle  for a
diffracting dielectric corner with  = 0:1 S/m,  = 15:0. (a)  = 22
[compare to Fig. 11(a)] and (b)  = 248 [compare to Fig. 11(b)].
point and the RSB depends on both and , the new coeffi-
cients, in general, contain both of these quantities.
Four different cases for and are considered. They depend
on whether the angle of incidence is greater than or less than
180 (measured from the zero face), and whether the observa-
tion point is in the illuminated region, where ,
or in the shadow region. Table I compares angles and
for the original and new diffraction coefficient formulations for
these four cases.
Simulation results incorporating the new set of diffraction
coefficients are presented in Fig. 12(a) and (b). The three
components of the ray-tracing solution are again shown. With
the new diffraction coefficients, the diffracted rays always
decrease monotonically away from the shadow boundaries.
Simulations have been carried out for many different angles of
incidence and for a variety of dielectric materials. All show the
same smooth, monotonically decreasing behavior. Simulations
for wedges with interior angles other than 90 demonstrate a
similar level of improvement.
2356
(a)
(b)
Fig. 13. Comparison of the original Luebbers formulation, the improved
formulation, and the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff method for  248
for (a) dielectric with  = 0:1;  = 15:0 and (b) dielectric with
 = 0:001;  = 3:4.
C. Validation of the New Diffraction Coefficients
To validate the new set of diffraction coefficients, comparison
is made to simulations utilizing the FDTD/Kirchhoff technique.
The incident field shadow region is considered. To approximate
an infinite wedge in the full-wave model, the transmitter and
observation points are placed close enough to the wedge to pre-
vent diffraction around the back of the wedge for the duration
of the simulation. Transmission through the dielectric material
is not significant, as determined by examination of mesh field
plots from the FDTD simulations. The configuration shown in
Fig. 7 is used, with 50 observation points located in a 270 cir-
cular arc centered around the diffracting corner. The transmitter
and observation points are located at m and
m, respectively, away from the diffracting corner. These dis-
tances correspond to 2.4 and 2.25 at the carrier frequency of
900 MHz. The Kirchhoff surface integral formulation is used to
determine the field at the observation points. Note that the ob-
servation points located within the Kirchhoff surface must be
disregarded. The FDTD/Kirchhoff solution is valid up to ap-
proximately 260 . The FDTD grid cell dimensions are again
m( ), with to prevent
diffraction over the top.
Fig. 13(a) and (b) compares the full-wave simulation results
with the ray-tracing results in the diffraction region for
. Two different materials are considered: Dielectric 1, with
S/m, , and Dielectric 2, with S/m,
. The curves corresponding to the original formulation
in Fig. 13(a) and (b) were calculated at ten times these distances
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Fig. 14. Comparison of the original Luebbers formulation (dashed), the
improved diffraction formulation (solid), and measured data from [13] (circles).
Here,  = 265 ,  = 0:01 S/m, and  = 4:0.
( m and m) and the received signal level
adjusted to better illustrate the dip effect, which becomes more
pronounced at larger distances. The improvement in the ray-
tracing results with is readily apparent, since the
dip in the diffraction region has been eliminated.
To further validate the new formulation, a comparison is
made with measured data and simulations presented in [13].
Diffraction from a right-angled brick wedge with conductivity
of and relative permittivity of is considered.
The transmitting antenna is an open-ended waveguide excited
= at 30 GHz and located 1.5 m, or approximately 150 , from the
diffracting corner. The angle of incidence is 5 from the face of
the wall, i.e., in this case. Measurements are taken at
a distance of 10 m. Results are presented in Fig. 14 for
the incident field shadow region. Comparison is made between
the measured results from [13] (circles), the original Luebbers
formulation calculated in [13] (dashed line), and the improved
formulation (solid line). Good agreement is seen between the
measurements and the new formulation.
The implementation of the new diffraction coefficients re-
quires only a simple modification of the original formulation
as shown in Table I. It remains computationally efficient when
compared to the original. Further, the proposed modification
provides increased accuracy in both the diffraction and illumi-
nated regions, and it enables simulations over a wider range of
angles than does the original formulation.
IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper opened with an investigation of the accuracy of
the ray-tracing method for local scatterer sizes approaching the
wavelength of operation. Simulation results were presented for
two different cases involving 1) diffraction and specular reflec-
tion and 2) diffraction only. The received signal predicted by the
ray-tracing method was compared to results generated using the
FDTD and the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff methods. The use
of the combined FDTD/Kirchhoff technique provides a stan-
dard against which the ray-tracing technique can be evaluated
and improvements developed. Simulation results demonstrated
good accuracy of the ray-tracing method for scatterer sizes down
to a fraction of a wavelength. An explanation for the ray-tracing
results was provided in terms of the path length difference be-
tween the diffracted and reflected rays.
REMLEY et al.: ACCURACY OF RAY-TRACING TECHNIQUES FOR INDOOR PROPAGATION MODELING
The development of a new set of diffraction coefficients was
then presented. These new coefficients are adapted from a set of
heuristically modified UTD coefficients. The original heuristic
coefficients were developed for use in a limited set of diffracted
field modeling applications involving scatterers with finite con-
ductivity. They have inherent inaccuracies when used otherwise.
The new set of coefficients eliminates the inaccuracies and thus
enables application of this ray-tracing formulation to a wider
range of propagation modeling problems. The results presented
in this work show that ray-tracing may be used with confidence
for accurate characterization of multipath environments such
as those found in indoor propagation channels, including those
with dielectric obstacles.
APPENDIX
THE RELATIVE PHASE METHOD
Utilizing the relative phase method, the radar cross section
due to scattering elements on a body is given by
(3)
where is the RCS of the th component and is the relative
phase angle of the th component. The RCS is related to the
electromagnetic fields by
(4)
where , are the scattered electric and magnetic fields,
respectively, and , are the incident fields.
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Kate A. Remley (S’92–M’99) was born in Ann
Arbor, MI, in December 1959. She received the B.S.
degree (magna cum laude), the M.S. degree, and the
Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering
from Oregon State University, Corvallis, in 1993,
1995, and 1999, respectively.
She was a Broadcast Engineer in Eugene, OR,
between 1983 and 1992. She joined the Radio-Fre-
quency Technology Division of the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, in 1999,
where she develops metrology for characterization
of nonlinear devices used in wireless communication systems.
2358 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 49, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 2000

Harry R. Anderson (M’79) received the B.S.E.E. Andreas Weisshaar (S’90–M’91–SM’98) received
degree from the University of California, Santa Bar- the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from
bara, in 1972, the M.S.E.E. degree from Oregon State the University of Stuttgart, Germany, in 1987 and the
University, Corvallis, in 1985, and the Ph.D. degree in M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer en-
electrical engineering from the University of Bristol, gineering from Oregon State University, Corvallis, in
U.K., in 1994. 1986 and 1991, respectively.
From 1972 to 1980, he was with Hammett & Since 1991, he has been on the Faculty of the
Edison, Inc. a consulting firm, where he worked Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
on designing a variety of communication systems at Oregon State University, where he is currently an
including AM, FM, and TV broadcast, paging, Associate Professor. His current research activities
and microwave, and developing novel computer are in the areas of computer-aided design of RF/mi-
algorithms for automating propagation prediction and other engineering crowave circuits and components, interconnects, electronic packaging, and
studies. From 1980 to 1981, he was with Harris Corporation, where he wireless communications. He has authored or coauthored more than 90 journal
was responsible for designing and supervising the construction of several and conference papers in these and related areas.
large broadcast communication projects in the United States, Africa, South
America, and Asia. In 1981, he joined the consulting firm of H.R. Anderson
& Associates, where his work included data communications for utility load
management and system automation, two-way MMDS and microwave system
design, and developing advanced physical propagation models for VHF,
UHF, and microwave frequencies. In 1985, he founded EDX Engineering,
Inc., a software company that develops wireless system planning tools for
communication technologies operating in the 30 MHz to 100 GHz frequency
range. At EDX, he pioneered the use of ray-tracing propagation models for
broadband wireless system design. He is currently President and CEO at EDX.
His research now focuses on broadband fixed wireless systems, including
propagation and channel models, system capacity using adaptive antennas and
power control, optimum channel allocation schemes, and site-specific system
resource allocation.
Dr. Anderson has published more than 40 papers in IEEE TRANSACTIONS and
other journals, including two papers that have won IEEE TRANSACTIONS Best
Paper of the Year awards. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in California
and Oregon.

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