Numerical modelling of electromagnetic wave propagation in a hallway

Abstract

This research involves the numerical modelling of electromagnetic wave propagation, (1) to calculate the electric and magnetic fields at any point in a hallway for a known transmitter and receiver antenna pattern and orientation and (2) to determine the wave normal direction of the electromagnetic wave using the electric fields calculated in (1). The results of the numerical simulation are compared with measurements for two hallways. Both the transmitter and receiver employ vertically oriented /4 dipoles operating at 2.4 GHz. Our work has led to the following new results: (1) The calculated signal power varies as 1/r² whereas the measured data varies as 1/r¹·⁴, where r is the transmitter receiver separation distance, (2) The temporal clustering of calculated multipath arrival times qualitatively agrees with the Saleh-Valenzuela model [1987], (3) For an SNR of 0 dB, the standard deviation of the error in the DOA estimate for the direct path signal is 2̃° and 4̃ ̊for the azimuth and elevation angles respectively. (4) In the presence of multi path, the DOA estimate shows an error of 50 ̊in the elevation and 125 ̊in the azimuth.