An electromagnetic method for calculating radio coverage in urban environments using Physical Optics and Physical Theory of Diffraction

This paper presents a novel two-dimensional electromagnetic method, developed to calculate the radio coverage in urban microcellular environments. Our model uses the analytical methods of Physical Optics (PO) and Physical Theory of Diffraction (PTD) to calculate the first and second order electromagnetic fields at the receiving antenna due to reflections from surfaces and diffractions from corners of the objects that the geometrical model consists of. A shadowing algorithm has been developed for the definition of the illuminated and non illuminated regions from every primary and secondary source (scattering centers or diffraction wedges). The radio coverage results which are in the form either of power density, path loss or electric field strength, are compared with their counterparts using other methods of calculation [Geometrical Optics (GO) - Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD)] and good accuracy is obtained.