MCMC Methods for Realistic Indoor Wireless Optical Channels Simulation

Abstract

This paper presents two new simulation algorithms of the optical wireless channel based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. They allow to generate correlated three-dimensional light paths, keeping into account the nature of the simulation environment, taking advantage of its complexity such as transmitter and receiver position and orientation, the geometry, and the nature of the surfaces (diffuse, specular, etc.). Like Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, these new algorithms are adaptive. They automatically do more calculation where light paths transport more power. Hence, they optimize their convergence speed, reducing the required number of paths to achieve a given accuracy threshold for the channel impulse response calculation. This paper shows that, compared to previous classical Monte Carlo solutions, these new algorithms reduce the computation time, up to a factor 225 for a fixed quality according to our experiments.