Ray tracing SBR Reception Sphere

Hello, I'd like to ask whether it is possible to change the radius of the reception sphere in the sbr raytracing method. I see that the radius is calculated based on the distance travelled by the ray and the angular seperation of the rays, but I want to calculate it in a different manner.

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

[akshatsood]

Hi @Stavros Tsimpoukis,

I understand that you seek clarification on possibilities of modifying the radius of Recpetion Sphere in the SBR raytracing method. However to my knowledge, it is not possible.

The reception sphere model surrounds a receiver point with a sphere of varying size. Rays that intersect this sphere are considered reaching the Rx and contribute to the total received power. As correctly stated by you, the radius of the reception sphere depends on the angular separation between the rays and how far the rays have traveled. Because the rays spread out as they leave the Tx, the reception sphere must increase size accordingly.

A correct reception sphere size should guarantee the collection of one ray from each wavefront.

• If it is oversized, more than one ray from the same wavefront adds to the received power.
• If it is undersized, the rays of the same wavefront can be missed altogether.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

[Saad Humayun]

Hi, sorry for the super late response.

So far, there is no way of using the Communications/Antenna/RF toolsets to directly change or influence the reception sphere in the SBR method of ray tracing with the built-in MATLAB functions, atleast none that I know of. One possible way to achieve any sort of optimization for the reception is if you can head over to the receiver antennas, and customize them the way you like, to sort of physically contraint them to a certain size. End of the day, you can check your angular separation, and average how far the distance from the transmitter to the receiver is, which are the two direct factors influencing reception sphere size. With that direct mathematical relation, you can sort of come up with a rough idea of how big your reception sphere is currently.