Modeling wireless signal strength within a defined environment

Abstract

A disclosed system quantifies the power distribution of a wireless signal within a constrained environment using non-sequential ray tracing. For each ray, one or more ray-reflecting surface is prescreened to identify collision-eligible surfaces and identify a collision surface from the collision-eligible surfaces, wherein the collision surface is the first ray-reflecting surface that a ray collides with. A power distribution component, indicating the position and power of a ray at a particular elevation within the environment, is added to a cumulative power distribution. If a reflected ray corresponding to each collision is calculated and satisfies ray eligibility conditions, a collision surface may be determined for the reflected ray. Collision surfaces may be identified by evaluating a target function for a number of ray positions, where the target function evaluates to zero when displacement between the ray and the ray-reflecting surface is zero.