Urbana™ 3-D Wireless Toolkit
Applications
Urbana Propagation
SAIC's Urbana™ toolkit provides wireless system planners with a powerful tool to simulate propagation in outdoor rural and urban settings. Network designers are frequently confronted with a complex environment that is difficult to characterize with simple formulas. This leaves the engineer with two options: 1) trial-and-error and 2) propagation analysis tools. While trial-and-error is always an available solution, it is usually expensive, it does not provide any insight into physical causes, and it does not lend itself to "what if" scenarios. Urbana toolkit's capability to analyze multiple "what if" scenarios adds an essential tool for the development of new systems based on new concepts. See photo
Specifically, Urbana 3-D wireless toolkit can be used to:
- Predict area field coverage, fading, and co-channel interference
- Conduct parametric antenna pattern and polarization studies
- Predict multiple propagation paths, distinguished by signal strength, angle of arrival, and delay
- Perform comparative studies for base station placement
- Visually establish 3-D line-of-site paths with respect to buildings, terrain, trees, etc.
- Visually identify multi-path and diffraction propagation mechanisms
Indoor/Outdoor Propagation
The Urbana toolkit also handles challenging indoor/outdoor propagation problems. As the results in the following image illustrate, the Urbana toolkit ray tracing engine can account for the complex, cascading multi-bounce effects introduced by multiple walls and other partially penetrable boundaries. For this type of environment, the tool can be used to calculate field distributions throughout and around multiple buildings due to both indoor and outdoor antennas. High fidelity CAD models of buildings which include details such as doorways, wall thickness, stud locations, multi-layered window panes, and associated material properties are used to accurately characterize the complexities associated with a building structure. See photo
The indoor/outdoor capability is well-suited to predicting building coverage by stations in wireless local area networks (WLAN). It also has applications for assessing interference. For examples, designers can predict whether they will introduce unacceptable signal levels to the external environment. Conversely, external electromagnetic sources could disrupt critical electronic systems contained within a building. See photo
Collision Avoidance Radar
In addition to its propagation modeling capabilities, Urbana toolkit also features a high-fidelity radar signal scattering solution based on multi-bounce physical optics, also known as Shooting & Bouncing Rays (SBR) method. This model is specifically designed to handle radar systems deployed in complex scenes with numerous scattering features generating radar returns, such as in the automotive collision radar application.
The following image illustrates a scenario modeled using the Urbana toolkit. A car (blue) equipped with forward looking radar approaches an intersection with multiple vehicles. The radar antenna pattern appears as a gold-colored bulge pointing out the front of the vehicle. The figure on the bottom right shows the predicted back-scattered signals received by the radar as a function of range and scenario time. By looking at the signal in two dimensions, scene features can be identified as trend lines whose intensity and slope correspond roughly to vehicle size and velocity. See photo
Antenna Studies
Urbana toolkit allows users to study antenna designs and locations to determine the optimal configuration for a particular application. Antenna radiation patterns can be directional or near omni-directional depending upon their design. Directional antennas are designed to focus the electromagnetic energy while omni-directional antennas radiate equally in all directions. Depending upon the application, designers choose the type of antenna which meets their requirements. However, in complex environments multi-path effects can allow energy to propagate in unintended directions. Urbana toolkit allows the user to perform trade studies based upon antenna type and the location of the antenna. This provides valuable insight into how an installed system will behave before it is purchased and positioned. See photo
Additionally, Urbana toolkit can be used to analyze and mitigate interference problems due to multiple systems operating at similar frequencies. The tool can be used to analyze the amount of isolation between a transmitting and a receiving system or it can be used to calculate carrier to interference levels. Once an interference problem has been determined the user can then attempt to solve the problem by adjusting various parameters such as the antenna pattern, location, power levels, and polarization.
Notice: Urbana™ and Xpatch® are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Science Applications International Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
- Urbana™ 3-D Wireless Toolkit
- Overview
- Applications