Indoor Channel Characterization: FDTD

Simulations and Measurement

* + + * *
L.A.R. Ramirez , A.D. Carvalho , L.C. Trintinalia , F.J.V. Hasselmann and L.A.R. Silva Mello
*
CETUC-Centro de Estudos em Telecomunicações da Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro
Rua Marquês de São Vicente 225, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22451-900, Brasil
{luis, flavio, smello}@cetuc.puc-rio.br.
+
Escola Politécnica, Universidade de São Paulo
Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, Travessa 3, nº 380, São Paulo, SP 05508-970, Brasil
{andrea,trinti }@ lcs.poli.usp.br

Abstract— Application of FDTD (with companion UPML) to the

coverage analysis and (wide band) channel characterization of
actual indoor scenarios is explored and results compared with
measured data pertaining to an office space at the University of
São Paulo (USP), Brazil.

I. INTRODUCTION
The growing interest in broadband wireless local networks
and high transmission rates requires an increasingly reliable
modelling of radio propagation channels, specially for indoor (a) Outdoor aerial view of buildings by GoogleTM
scenarios.
In this work the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD)
method [1] is implemented with companion of Uniaxial
Perfect Matched Layers (UPML)[2] to access the power delay
profile and the coverage analysis of an indoor scenario at the
Electrical Engineering building of the Polytechnic School of
São Paulo University (USP), Brazil, in a wide band range
centered at typical WiFi frequencies. Simulated results will be
compared with measured data, validating the channel
characterization. This is an extension of the work in [5], where
(filled) office rooms in smaller scenarios were considered and
the adequacy of FDTD simulations was ascertained via
comparison with EM field tracking along rays traced in the
scenario and with measured data.
(b) Indoor floor plant of (47 x 40 x 3 m) scenario
The equipment used in this measurement, some of which
similar to professional (and expensive) equipment commonly Fig. 1 Polytechnic School of São Paulo University (block D and corridor that
connects with block C)
employed in wideband measurements [4], was developed at
USP Labs [3] and main characteristics are summarized in
section III.

II. MODELLING
A. Scenario modelling
In the scenario in Fig. 1, corresponding to blocks "C" and
"D" of the Polytechnic School of São Paulo University, only
the walls, doors and stairs are represented. Walls are of
different materials as concrete and reinforced one, some
covered with glass, while all doors are made of wood. B. Antenna Modelling
Although indoor furniture is omitted at this stage, floor and
ceiling were taken into account, emphasizing the 3-D structure Both transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx1 and Rx2 in Fig. 1)
of the simulation. Relevant constitutive parameters are show antennas are omnidirectional discones operating in vertical
in Table I. polarization; dimensions are illustrated in Fig. 3. Generated
driving signal in (1) has a central frequency (fc) of 2.4 GHz
over a band (fb) of 150 MHz and t0=5 ns denotes the initial
delay; signal (normalized) amplitude and its frequency
contents are illustrated in Fig. 2.
Ez(t) = E0 sin [2π fc (t - t0)]exp[-(2π fb (t - t0))2] (1)
Fig.2. Pulse excitation of Tx antenna and its frequency spectrum
The Tx antenna, shown in Fig. 3, was inserted in the FDTD
grid and components of electric field tangential to (metallic)
elements considered null, with excitation as in (1).
Fig.3. Dimensions of transmitter and receiver antennas
III. FDTD COVERAGE SIMULATIONS
As for the implementation of the FDTD method,
discretization of the computational domain followed an
uniform grid with spatial step Δx = λ/10, which, for a working
frequency of 2.4 GHz (wavelength λ=0.1249 m), corresponds
to Δx = 0.0125 m. Numerical dispersion was thereby avoided
and, by proper choice of the temporal step (Δt= 0.0217 ns)
calculated according to Courant criteria [1] used in central
difference approximation of Maxwell equations, numerical
stability was assured. Also, for the truncation of the domain, 5
UPML layers were implemented accordingly [2].
For the scenario (47 x 40 x 3 m) scenario at hand and a
spatial step of 0.0125 m, a total of 2.3149 x108 FDTD cells
are represented, each cell associated to six (electric and
magnetic) field values as well as to six flags indicative of the
type of material present at each spot. Also, field values are 4
bytes real numbers while flag lengths are 1 byte each,
implying a memory need of 30 bytes per cell and a total
memory requirement of circa 7 GBytes to address the present
problem, which was perfectly handled by available 12 GBytes
(RAM) processors. With the time step used, however, 23500
iterations were necessary to address the 508 ns duration of the
simulations displayed above, rendering approximately 5 days
of computer time. In order to remedy this problem, it is being
addressed a modification of the present C language source
code to CUDA (Nvidia) + C, which should allow (in theory)
allow the reduction of computer time to minutes.
IV. MEASUREMENTS
The data acquisition was made by a recently validated
method [3] that obtains the amplitude of the channel
frequency response by comparing the transmitted and received
signals, and its phase through the processing of this data,
allowing the use of a spectrum analyzer instead of a vector
network analyzer, in order to render the process less expensive.
The measurement apparatus (Fig. 4) consisted of a
spectrum analyzer with tracking generator connected to a
personal computer and two discone antennas. One of the
antennas was connected via a 50 meter long coaxial cable,
which allowed for the channel analysis to take place in several
points of the building.
The spectrum analyzer used was a Rohde & Schwarz FSH3,
set for a 150 MHz range and centered at 2.4GHz; the
frequency response was sampled every 0.5 MHz. Whereas the
resolution of the equipment is 300 points within the band, this
measurement resulted in an impulsive response accuracy
equal to 3.33ns in time, corresponding to a spatial resolution
of 1 m.
Fig.4. The measurement apparatus.
The mobile transmitting part, consisting of a discone
antenna, was connected to three Microcircuit amplifiers
(model ZX60-4016E+), with approximately 17dB of gain each,
placed in series to compensate for the loss generated by the
coaxial cable.
The measurement campaign was carried out at various
points along the corridors that connect the blocks C and D of
the Electrical Engineering building of the Polytechnic School
of São Paulo University.
Since the channel suffered great variations along distances
equivalent to one wavelength, due to the existence of many
reflecting objects at random locations, each measurement data
point was obtained by measuring 9 points, arranged as a 3 x 3
matrix on a vertical plane and spaced by one wavelength (12.5
cm).
V. RESULTS
Fig 5. illustrates the coverage of the scenario past the first
instants of signal evolution, when its strongest components
have been transmitted into adjacent rooms. The effectiveness
of UPML at the boundary of the longitudinal corridor may
also be appreciated.

Fig. 7. Received data at Rx1 ( 36.08, 39.0, 1.70 m ) LOS.

Fig.5. Coverage simulation past 15.58 ns of antenna excitation.

Comparisons between measured and simulated results in

Figs. 6 and 7 reveal similar behaviors of corresponding power
delay profiles for the two receiver antennas in No Line of
Sight (NLOS) and in Line of Sight (LOS) situations.
Amplitude discrepancies at certain instants of time in Figs.(6,7)
may be credited to probable modelling imperfections, since ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
the furniture inside the rooms was not taken into account.
This work was supported by CNPq under covenant
573939/2008-0 (INCSF) and FAPERJ under fellowship E-
26/100.078/2008.

REFERENCES
[1] J. A. Taflove, and S. C. Hagness, “Computational Electrodynamic: the
Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method”, 3rd Edition., Arthec House
Publishers, 2005.
[2] S. D. Gedney, “An anisotropic perfectly-matched layer-absorbing
medium for the truncation of FD-TD lattices,” IEEE Transaction
Antennas Propagation., vol. 44, pp. 1630–1639, Dec. 1996.
[3] A.D. Carvalho, "Experimental Characterization of the Indoor Radio
Propagation", MSc Dissertation, Polytechnic School, University
of São Paulo, 2008 (in Portuguese).
[4] J.H. Reed, "An Introduction to Ultra Wideband Communication
Systems", Prentice Hall, 2005.
[5] Ramirez, L. A. R., Silva Mello, L. A. R. and Hasselmann, F. J.
V.,“Application of FDTD to the analysis of Indoor Coverage”,
Proceedings of 3rd European Conference on Antennas and
Propagation, Berlin, 2009.

Fig. 6. Received data at Rx1 ( 26.06, 13.0, 1.70 m ) NLOS

Table II shows three channel statistical parameters: the

mean excess delay (τm), the root mean square delay (τrms) and
the maximum excess delay (τmax), calculated from
corresponding power delay profile data. Both measured and
simulated NLOS values are larger than corresponding LOS
ones, since the former situation involves considerably more
propagation paths subject to (furniture) scattering interference.