Mechanistic modelling of single-floor office environments

Engineering high performance indoor wireless communication systems requires sound system deployment strategies. In order to deploy systems effectively, propagation models that can reliably and yet efficiently characterise radio propagation behaviour are needed. This thesis describes the philosophy, the logical development, and the performance of a mechanistic modelling approach which is intended for use in system planning. In the investigation, the deployment of a single base station in a single-floor office environment is considered. The environment is systematically divided into several generic canonical geometries including an open plan office and corridor, a single corner, a double corner, and a discrete obstacle which are then separately analysed. The dominant mechanisms which govern the energy propagation in each canonical geometry have been identified using both the ray and the FDTD methods. Mechanistic models with different levels of complexity (i.e. by including different mechanisms) for a real office environment have been formulated. In particular, the detailed internal layout and the effect of environmental clutter have been considered. A mechanistic model which has shown to balance the model accuracy and complexity is identified. The performance of the mechanistic model is then evaluated by comparing with existing indoor propagation models and the experimental measurements. Mechanistic models are shown to be most efficient when a line-of-sight path exists or when the material of internal partitions is nearly electromagnetically transparent. In these cases, direct and a singly-reflected components are found to be the dominant mechanisms which need to be considered. In the presence of a single corner which causes shadowing to a subset of receiving locations, the complexity of the mechanistic models is shown to increase as none of the propagation components is universally dominant. In particular, five components including direct, up to doubly-reflected, a diffracted, and combined reflected diffracted components appear to be significant in different parts of the shadowed region. Reflected components tend to be more significant as the operating frequency increases. Regardless of the attenuation caused by the environmental obstruction, when a double corner or a centrally-located discrete obstacle is present the majority of the energy is evidenced to propagate around rather than transmit directly through.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Lai, Chi-Ken

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Neve, M
• Williamson, A

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/6409

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/6409