Novel approaches to indoor channel characterisation

Indoor channel characterisation is important for a variety of reasons. This includes its use in the planning of indoor mobile telephone networks and also the development of high-speed wireless communication systems. In this thesis two novel approaches to channel characterisation are investigated. The first approach utilises the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method whilst the second is based on the Rayleigh-Gans approximation. The application of FDTD to channel characterisation has been motivated by its success in solving other electromagnetic problems. Here issues involved in applying FDTD to channel characterisation are described as are techniques for how simulations may be performed. Further, results from both narrowband and wideband channel simulations are presented and these are compared to actual measurements. Investigations into the Rayleigh-Gans approach have been motivated by the observation that the indoor environment is different from the outdoor environment in that many of the structures within buildings are approximately the size of a wavelength making channel characterisation based on high frequency techniques not strictly applicable. In this thesis details of the Rayleigh-Gans approximation are provided. Actual indoor propagation measurements are also provided to allow preliminary discussions on the accuracy of the Rayleigh-Gans approximation to be given