RF Propagation Software basics

This page covers RF Propagation Software basics.It mentions developers of RF propagation software.

As we know when the signal is propagated from source to the destination it will incur path loss as well as other losses due to reflection, differaction and scattering. Following are some of the characteristics of RF propagation.
• Dry/flat environment exhibits different RF propagation characteristics compare to wet/hilly environment.
• Rural less populated environment exposes different propagation compare to urban dense populated environment.
• Same place under different weather conditions will exhibit different RF propagation characteristics.

RF propagation need to be considered by network simulation designers before planning the cellular network roll-out. In order to receive the data correctly sufficient SINR (Signal to Interference Noise Ratio) need to be maintained. The RF propagation models are divided into small scale fading and large scale fading.

Small scale propagation models will characterize rapid fluctuations of received signal strength over short distance/short time duration. Large scale propagation models predict mean signal strength for given transmitter & receiver separation distance. It is used to predict RF coverage for larger distance and for large time period. Large scale fading models include Friis free space path loss model, two ray ground reflection model and log distance path loss model with shadowing.

RF Propagation Software Developers

There are various RF propagation prediction software available for Ham radio. Following are the RF propagation software based simulator providers/developers:

RF network simulators which support both small scale fading and large scale fading are GloMoSim, OpNET, NS-2 and QualNET.

Useful product vendors or manufacturers

RF and Wireless Terminologies