Prediction of Radio Wave Propagation Loss in Ultra-Rugged Terrain Areas

When designing and maintaining a wireless network, engineers need to first evaluate the impact of a specific propagation environment on radio wave propagation. Currently, although many popular propagation models (PMs) are available for reference, their analysis and validation in ultrarugged terrain areas (uRTAs) are still underexplored. This article aims to implement an uRTA PM (uRTAPM), which consists of two modes, i.e., the point-to-point (uRTAPM-P2P) and the point-to-area (uRTAPM-P2A) modes, to meet the requirements of practical applications. First, we consider the digital elevation model (DEM) data sets and three types of propagation, i.e., line of sight (LOS), non-LOS (NLOS), and multiobstacle propagation. Second, we propose a cone multipath model to simulate the NLOS diffraction behavior caused by mountains. Third, we utilize a triangulated irregular network (TIN) to finely divide the terrestrial surface of uRTAs. Finally, based on numerical calculations, compared with the existing commonly used PMs, the uRTAPM is found to reveal more details about the propagation loss (PL) caused by the terrain in uRTAs. The measurements demonstrate that the mean absolute error (MAE), root-mean-square error (RMSE), and standard deviation (SD) between the uRTAPM predicted values and the actual measured values are lower than those of other methods.