Accelerating Radio Wave Propagation Predictions by Implementation on Graphics Hardware

Fast radio wave propagation predictions are of tremendous interest, e.g., for planning and optimization of cellular radio networks. We propose the use of ordinary graphics cards and specialized algorithms to achieve extremely fast predictions. Our implementation of the empirical COST-Walfisch-Ikegami model allows the computation of several hundred predictions in one second in a 7 km urban area. Further, we present a ray-optical approach exploiting the programming model of graphics cards. This algorithm combines fast computation times with high accuracy.