Narrow-Band Radio Propagation Prediction Based on a Highly Accurate Three-Dimensional Railway Environment Model

Abstract

In this paper, radio propagation predictions were performed by a self-developed ray tracing simulator based on highly accurate three-dimensional (3D) environment models obtained by oblique aerial photography (OAP). In order to support ray tracing computations, the highly complex environment models were managed by three steps, including model separation, electromagnetic parameter assignment, and model lightweighting. Simulations and real-world experiments were conducted to test the proposed method. The results show that the root mean square errors (RMSE) in the predicted received signal strength curves were achieved 4 dB with comparably low computational complexity in the selected railway scenarios.