Wireless propagation in buildings: a statistical scattering approach

A new approach to the modeling of wireless propagation in buildings is introduced. We treat the scattering by walls and local clutter probabilistically through either a relaxation-time approximation in a Boltzmann equation or by using a diffusion equation. The result is a range of models in which one can vary the tradeoff between the complexity of the building description and the accuracy of the prediction. The two limits of this range are ray tracing at the most accurate end and a simple decay law at the most simple. By comparing results for two of these new models with measurements, we conclude that a reasonably accurate description of propagation can be obtained with a relatively simple model. The most effective way to use the models is by combining them with a few measurements through a sampling technique.