A Novel Estimation Method of Radio Propagation Characteristics Based on Color Images

This paper proposes a novel estimation method of radio propagation characteristics in outdoor urban environments based on color images. The proposed method considers only direct waves and single scattered waves. In order to detect single scattering walls, each wall of buildings in an evaluation area is assigned to a different RGB color. We create two types of color images that are viewed from a transmission point and reception points. By analyzing and comparing the colors of these images, the visible colors from both transmission and reception sides corresponding to the single scattering walls are detected all at once. The numbers of pixels on the scattering walls with the visible colors are used to calculate a received power of the single scattering waves. Comparison with measurement results of path loss shows high estimation accuracy of the proposed method with root mean squared error of 7.9 dB, and its calculation time is extremely short.