SBIR-STTR Award

Modeling Millimeter Wave Multipath Effects in Urban Environments
Award last edited on: 3/3/2024

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
DOD : Army
Total Award Amount
$1,147,459
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
A16-106
Principal Investigator
Gary Bedrosian

Company Information

Remcom Inc

315 South Allen Street Suite 222
State College, PA 16801
   (814) 861-2543
   rjl@remcom.com
   www.remcominc.com
Location: Multiple
Congr. District: 15
County: Centre

Phase I

Contract Number: W31P4Q-17-C-0084
Start Date: 3/23/2017    Completed: 7/11/2018
Phase I year
2017
Phase I Amount
$149,324
In this proposal, we present a novel solution for simulating wave propagation in urban areas with a key emphasis on dynamic scenarios with moving transmitters and receivers/sensors, and potential for moving vehicles. Based on full three-dimensional ray-tracing, our approach encompasses established techniques that are accurate and handle all aspects of multipath, including reflections, diffractions, shadowing and scattering. This is further enhanced to extend from traditional ray-tracing frequencies, usually designed for UHF up to X-Band, to handle critical atmospheric and environmental effects at millimeter wave bands. The key innovations focus on techniques to calculate results rapidly, using a combination of unique preprocessing, optimized path generation, and parallelization and hardware acceleration, deriving from many years of experience in hardware-accelerated solutions for electromagnetic simulation. This provides accurate predictions of multipath, but does so in a way that can handle dynamic, quickly changing conditions, and offers tradeoffs between fidelity and speed. Results are accurate enough to support complex radar and antenna array applications for modern technologies in defense and industry, emphasizing urban scenarios with multipath between points that are in motion. This will provide a valuable new tool for applications in radar, military and commercial communications, and mobility solutions for telecommunications and automotive industries.

Phase II

Contract Number: W31P4Q-18-C-0061
Start Date: 2/7/2018    Completed: 7/13/2020
Phase II year
2018
Phase II Amount
$998,135
In this Phase II proposal, we present a novel solution for simulating wave propagation in urban areas, emphasizing dynamic scenarios with moving transmitters and receivers/sensors, and moving vehicles. Our new method is based on full three-dimensional ray-tracing to handle all aspects of multipath propagation, including reflections, diffractions, shadowing and scattering. This is further enhanced to extend above X-band frequencies to handle critical atmospheric and environmental effects at millimeter wave bands. The Phase I effort developed and tested techniques to calculate results rapidly, using a combination of unique preprocessing, optimized path generation, parallelization, and hardware acceleration, deriving from many years of experience in hardware-accelerated electromagnetic simulation. This provides accurate predictions of multipath, but does so in a way that can handle dynamic, quickly changing conditions, and offers tradeoffs between fidelity and speed. Results are accurate enough to support complex radar and antenna array applications for modern technologies in defense and industry, emphasizing urban scenarios with multipath between points that are in motion. The Phase II effort is focused on moving from the Phase I prototype to delivered applications that will provide valuable new simulation tools for radar, military and commercial communications, and mobility solutions for telecommunications and automotive industries.