Simulation of Wireless Propagation in a High-Rise Building

Abstract

With the introduction of wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) in many organizations, it became much easier to intercept confidential files and personal health records. The present study focused on radio frequency propagation in a high-rise building, specifically, the attenuation between floors, and the possibility of intercepting signals through the floors. The current work is based on simulations using the Urbana software tool. It is used to predict the contour of the power levels of signals for a given physical model of the environment using high-frequency ray-tracing methods. The simulation results indicated that the signal levels for a 1 W transmitter could only be detected at the 70 dBm level within two floors (above or below). Even within the two floor range the signal distribution was very nonuniform due to the effects of multipath. The results indicated that closing doors reduced the signal levels, but only slightly for wood doors. Signals escaped the building through the window and were able to travel between floors via this path. The ray tracing accounted for only single diffraction, and therefore rays diffracted two or more times were not included.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA429698

Entities

People

  • Lotfi Boukraa

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computer Programming
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Computers
  • Diffraction
  • Frequency
  • Geometry
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Local Area Networks
  • Losses
  • Multiple Access
  • Operating Systems
  • Power Levels
  • Radio Frequency
  • Ray Tracing
  • Reliability
  • Simulations
  • Wireless Networks

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Electromagnetic Wave Scattering and Antenna Radiation Engineering
  • Radio communications and signal processing.
  • Wave Propagation and Nonlinear Chaotic Dynamics.