Near ground wave propagation modeling for wireless network applications

As many applications with antennas placed near an interface are getting developed, it becomes necessary to take properly into account the impact of this interface in the wave propagation. In this article, it is shown that the classical ray-tracing approach may lead to inaccurate results, so a rigorous modeling must be envisaged. The Green's functions of this problem, written as Sommerfeld integrals, offer the possibility to deduce important guidelines which help to better understand and handle this kind of propagation.