A Ray-Tracing Model for Millimeter-Wave Radio Propagation in Dense-Scatter Outdoor Environments

Abstract

The future saturation of the electromagnetic spectrum currently allocated for mobile communications has led the scientific and technical communities to consider the use of the vast millimeter-wave frequency band. However, there are technical obstacles limiting the immediate use of this band. In the radio propagation area, there is a research effort to characterize the outdoor urban channel. The developed model described here uses a 2.5 D ray-tracing algorithm based on geometrical optics and uniform theory of diffraction concepts in outdoor environments. The model implements several techniques that could be considered by a future standard of fifth-generation mobile communications for the transmission of ultrawideband signals through line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS channels with a high density of scatterers, such as trees, poles, and diffuse scattering by rough building walls. In addition, simulations and comparisons are performed in environments where measurement campaigns were carried out, considering the following metrics: received power, mean delay, root mean square delay spread, and cross-polar discrimination. The comparison between simulation and experimental results shows a good agreement. Possible model impairments are also discussed.