Grid-Based Wireless Channel Emulation: Preliminary Evaluation on Offline Intra-Grid Path Association and Clustering for Channel Interpolation

The accurate evaluation of large-scale wireless communication systems necessitates efficient channel emulation and modeling techniques. While deterministic methods, such as ray-tracing (RT) simulation, offer high accuracy, their computational complexity poses challenges in dynamic environments involving a moving receiver (Rx). To address this, a grid-based channel emulation technique is employed, where the simulation site is divided into grids, and deterministic channel parameters are precomputed at each node. The channel impulse response (CIR) is then synthesized through interpolation of these parameters. However, as path parameters are estimated independently at each node, an effective path association algorithm is required. This work proposes a clustering-based approach that utilizes angular-domain parameters to associate paths. Then, path clustering is performed prior to interpolation to satisfy the hardware constraints of the emulator. The algorithm is validated using an RT-simulated dataset representing a smart office environment at a carrier frequency ( fC) of 28.35 GHz.