Ray-Optical Modeling Of Wireless Coverage Enhancement Using Engineered Electromagnetic Surfaces: Experimental Verification At 28 GHz

Engineered electromagnetic surfaces (EES) are a class of passive metasurfaces designed to artificially enhance wireless signal coverage. They are fabricated by printing conductive or dielectric ink patterns on substrates such as plastic coatings, window glass, ceramic tile or drywall.

In this paper, results are presented of propagation experiments conducted to verify the accuracy of a novel ray-optical scattering model for EES. Ray tracing is the method of choice for simulating propagation characteristics in complex, electrically large environments such as office buildings and street canyons. Wireless InSite’s implementation of the scattering model is presented along with measured and simulated propagation data for a large indoor office environment. These results demonstrate the feasibility of wireless coverage enhancement by strategically deploying EESs, and of predicting their effects with the aid of ray-tracing software.