A Time-Efficient Near-Field Scattering Method Applied to Radio-Coverage Simulation in Urban Microcellular Environments

An accurate and time-efficient method for the calculation of the scattered electromagnetic (EM) field from rectangular plates (walls) in the near and Fresnel zone areas is presented in this letter. The proposed method, which is based on the analytical method of physical optics, is subsequently applied for the purpose of time-acceleration of radio-coverage prediction codes in urban microcellular systems, which incorporate near\Fresnel field calculations. Comparisons of the results obtained through this method with the corresponding results based on different EM techniques, as well as the incorporation of this method into a radiocoverage simulation program, recently published in the literature by the authors' research group, prove both the excellent accuracy of the proposed method and the significant reduction of the computation time.