Efficient ray-tracing model for propagation prediction for microcellular wireless communication systems

In this paper, we present a novel heuristic quasi 3-D ray-tracing model by taking into account the advantages of both the image theory and shooting-and-bouncing ray tracing methods. This new model is based on preorder-creating a new visibility virtual source tree together with modified polar sweep algorithm. As it is fundamentally a point-to-point ray tracing method and efficient acceleration techniques are introduced, all possible ray paths in the environment microcell can be found and the reduction of the numbers of intersection calculation can also be achieved. Meanwhile, the proposed method can avoid memory leaks and increase the accuracy of the prediction. The prediction results by this new model are compared with published reference, which indicates the improved model bears higher efficiency and precision.