Simplified analysis for indoor propagation of a WLAN channel

As IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) systems have become widespread over the last few years, a significant research topics has been to investigate how radio waves propagate inside office environments, since local objects like pillars, walls, doors and windows may reduce the link performance of such low power systems (Kara, A. et al., 2001). Ray tracing/shooting techniques based on the geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD) have been widely applied to the analysis of wave propagation modeling for both urban complex and office indoor environments (Bertoni, H.L., 2000; Zhang Ji et al., 2001). However, by using such ray methods, it is not easy to model precisely fields transmitted through dielectric walls and glass. The finite difference time domain (FDTD) method (Taflove, A. et al., 2000) may provide an easy evaluation procedure for the complex propagation behavior inside the dielectric materials. The paper attempts a simple and easy 2D-FDTD analysis of indoor propagation of a WLAN channel. The FDTD numerical experiment for a real indoor model and the simplified measurement of the signal strength at the 2.4 GHz band are both executed.