Radio Propagation in the Urban Scenario

This practical book provides fundamentals of electromagnetic wave propagation and its unique application for the design of mobile wireless systems in complex urban environments. It supplies telecommunication engineers with the proper theoretical and practical tools to: plan radio coverage in cellular networks; design a radio link; predict connectivity in a wireless network and ensure that the system to be designed fulfills regulations on exposure of general public to electromagnetic fields.   You’ll understand the latest propagation models and be equipped to address the challenges facing wireless propagation for the most recent 5G mobile systems, including how to cope with new propagation scenarios/frequencies in 5G wireless channel modelling. You’ll also find unique coverage of the problems of human exposure to electromagnetic fields and the corresponding international and national regulations, including the most recent ICNIRP guidelines.   The book brings theory, algorithms, and applications into focus with some practical examples. Specific attention is devoted to laying the mathematical foundations of the asymptotic techniques that are presented; of the propagation over a flat and spherical Earth; and also of the propagation in complex environment in order to provide a cohesive exposition of the underlying principles.   With its strong theoretical background on fundamentals of electromagnetic propagation along with an application-oriented approach, this is a must-have book for researchers working on applied electromagnetics and engineers working on wireless network planning at an advanced level. It is also rich in details and clear, making it an excellent textbook for advanced and graduate-level students.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 1.1. Historical notes 1.2. Electromagnetic spectrum 1.3. Radio, Television, mobile telephony, wireless networks 1.4. Challenges in the (electromagnetic) design of modern wireless networks References   2. Fundamentals of electromagnetic propagation and radiation 2.1. Maxwell equations 2.1.1. Maxwell equations in the frequency domain 2.2. Electromagnetic properties of materials 2.2.1. Power losses in materials, power flux, and energy conservation 2.2.2. Dielectric materials 2.2.3. Conductors 2.2.4. Perfect electric conductors 2.2.5. Plasma 2.2.6. Boundary between two media and boundary condition on PEC’s surface 2.3. Plane-wave propagation, reflection and transmission 2.3.1. Homogeneous plane waves 2.3.2. Non-homogeneous plane waves 2.3.3. Plane waves for arbitrarily time-varying fields 2.3.4. Narrowband signals and group velocity 2.3.5. Plane wave reflection and transmission at a plane boundary 2.3.6. Plane wave propagation in layered media 2.3.7. Plane wave propagation in anisotropic media 2.4. Radiation 2.4.1. Elementary source 2.4.2. Radiation from an arbitrary current distribution 2.4.3. Far field 2.4.4. Equivalent problems and magnetic sources 2.5. Transmitting and receiving antennas 2.5.1. Parameters of a transmitting antenna 2.5.2. Parameters of a receiving antenna 2.5.3. Some commonly used antennas 2.5.4. Arrays of antennas, phased arrays and beamforming 2.6. Friis formula for free-space radio links 2.6.1. Antenna noise temperature and receiver noise figure 2.6.2. Example: downlink in a satellite communication system References   3. Asymptotic techniques 3.1. Geometrical optics 3.1.1. Fermat’s principle 3.1.2. GO in homogeneous media 3.1.3. Interface between homogeneous media: reflected and transmitted ray congruences 3.1.4. Example of inhomogeneous media: stratified medium 3.2. Fresnel Ellipsoids 3.3. Stationary phase method 3.3.1. Finite integration interval 3.3.2. Transition function 3.4. Diffraction 3.4.1. Stationary phase point contribution: the GO field 3.4.2. End-point contribution: the edge diffracted field 3.5. Geometrical theory of diffraction and its uniform extension 3.5.1. Diffraction from a perfectly conducting wedge: GTD and UTD solutions 3.5.2. Lossy dielectric wedge 3.6. Rough-surface scattering 3.6.1. Mean value of the scattered field 3.6.2. Variance of the scattered field References   4. Propagation over a flat or spherical Earth 4.1. Ground wave propagation and two-ray model 4.1.1. Example: link between two walkie-talkies 4.1.2. Effect of surface roughness 4.2. Effect of the Earth curvature 4.3. Atmospheric effect: ray curvature and effective Earth radius 4.3.1. Example: link between two walkie-talkies, effects of Earth curvature and atmospheric refraction 4.3.2. Atmospheric ducting and tropospheric scattering 4.4. Atmospheric attenuation: clear air, fog, rain 4.4.1. Attenuation by rain, fog and snow 4.5. Ionosphere 4.5.1. Ionospheric reflection and sky wave 4.5.2. Effect of the Earth’s magnetic field on ionospheric propagation 4.5.3. Ionosphere and electromagnetic wave propagation: summary   5. Propagation in complex environments 5.1. Line-of-Sight and Non-Line-of-Sight propagation 5.1.1. Reflection on and transmission through a homogeneous wall 5.2. Multipath 5.2.1. Narrowband characterization of the multipath channel 5.2.2. Wideband characterization of the multipath channel 5.3. Fading 5.3.1. NLOS: Rayleigh fading 5.3.2. LOS: Rician fading 5.3.3. Slow fading: lognormal distribution 5.3.4. Example: outage probability in Rayleigh fading 5.4. Delay spread 5.4.1. Example: delay spread in urban areas and mobile telephone systems References   6. Propagation in urban areas 6.1. Urban area propagation scenarios: outdoor and indoor 6.2. Empirical propagation models 6.2.1. Outdoor 6.2.2. Indoor 6.2.3. Example: downlink in a 4G LTE mobile phone system 6.2.4. Coverage area and location probability 6.3. Urban canyon as a “roofless waveguide” 6.4. Ray-tracing methods References   7. An example of ray-tracing tool 7.1. Vertical Plane Launching implementation 7.1.1. Ray definition 7.1.2. Space scanning 7.1.3. Electromagnetic modeling 7.1.4. Coherent vs. incoherent summation 7.2. Input, output, and processing time 7.2.1. Input 7.2.2. Output 7.2.3. Processing time 7.2.4. Advantages and limits 7.3. The measurement issues 7.4. Comparison of solver predictions and measured data References   8. New propagation scenarios in 5G Telecommunication systems 8.1. Description of 5G networks and expected performances 8.2. Millimeter-wave propagation 8.2.1. Empirical channel models 8.2.2. Ray tracing 8.2.3. Example: downlink in a high-band 5G wireless system 8.3. Beamforming References   9. Regulations on the exposure of general public to electromagnetic fields 9.1. ICNIRP guidelines 9.1.1. Basic restrictions 9.1.2. Reference levels 9.2. IEEE standard 9.2.1. DRLs 9.2.2. ERLs 9.3. Exposure limits in countries across the world 9.3.1. Exposure limits in Italy 9.3.2. Exposure limits in the USA References   10. Conclusion and future perspectives Authors’ biographies