Mp

X
~p
E~p 5
E
k

FAST 3D RAYTRACING USED

FOR PREDICTING TEMPEST
CLASSIFICATION
Jean-Francois Legendre,1 Thierry Marsault,1 and
Thierry Ollivier2
1
DGA Ma^trise de Iinformation, TEC SPC, BP7,
es, France; Corresponding author:
35998 Rennes, Arme
jean-francois.legendre@dga.defense.gouv.fr
2
SILICOM, 4 rue de Jouanet 35700 Rennes, France
Received 18 June 2013
ABSTRACT: With the growth of high data rate speed cellular
communication systems (UMTS, GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth), prediction of
the electromagnetic propagation becomes a military strategic stake and
an active subject of research. To give fast realistic predictions of the
field strength and delay spread in wireless mobile communication
networks, SILICOM developed the SLC software within the context of
PEA GOLIATH project supported by DGA. This model is based on
parallel three-dimensional raytracing combined with GO/UTD theory.
This article describes our solution and shows its application to TEMC 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PEST classification study of buildings. V
Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:519523, 2014; View this article online
at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.28167
Key words: propagation; raytracing; voxels grid; TEMPEST
1.

(1)

k50

PROPAGATION MODES OF SLC

SLC is a computation engine containing advanced propagation

models that enable to deal with different propagation modes as
shown on Figure 1 and Table 1. To compute the main mode
(mode 1: radiating waves traveling between two antennas), we
use three-dimensional (3D) raytracing and UTD. The main
application is radio planning of cellular communication systems.
At a point p, this model gives the received field which in the
summation of Mp equivalent rays. The magnitude and phase are
computed with UTD [1].

Figure 1 The four propagation models integrated in software SLC.

[Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

SLC also deals with coupling and conduction propagation

modes along cables (modes 2 and 3), as well as radiation of
each induced current elements (mode 4 using raytracing model).
The main application is electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) in
vehicles, ships as well as conducting and radiating cables. To
compute these modes, our raytracing is hybridized with the
NEC2 code (the Numerical Electromagnetics Modeling code
developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, http://
www.nec2.org/) based on the method of moments. NEC2 is a
widely used 3D code based on the method of moments (MoM).
The aim is to find [I] the courant vector along the cable by solving the equation [U] 5 [Z][I] where [Z] is the impedance matrix
computed by MoM kernel and [U] is the excitation vector. SLC
software propagation models 3 and 4 use directly NEC2 model
to compute the current distribution along a cable. All components of vector U are zero except at voltage sources on the
structure. Next, the propagation model 4 computes the radiated
wave (using raytracing) of each equivalent current source. SILICOM has modified NEC2 program to handle not only plane
wave excitation and implement the propagation model 2 which
is and hybridation of NEC2 with the raytracing model. At each
point p of a cable, the raytracing model gives the complex field
Ep and the excitation contribution Up is the tangential voltage
deduced from the relation
~p  D~
Up 5E
lp

(2)

~ p is the tangential direction along the segment with Dl

where Dl
length.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RADIATING WAVES PREDICTION
MODEL

Rayoptical propagation models, used for field strength prediction,

suffer from long computation times when applied to large urban
areas or indoor scenarios. University of Stuttgart has implemented
a fast and accurate model where scene is represented by rectangular tiles [2]. Taking this work as a starting point, SILICOM has
developed its own model, where geometry is fully described with
3D triangular facets. This enables to model any 3D scenes (e.g.,
building, vehicles, ships. . .) without the great amount of RAM
necessary for precise DTM/DEM raster data.
The other main improvement of our approach is to introduce
concepts from digital picture processing, such as use of hierarchical voxels grid, as shown on Figure 2. This preprocessing
allows to improve the computation time of the main raytracing
procedure: the intersection of a ray with the 3D scene. The preprocessing aims at selecting the 3D facets intercepted by a ray.
Each voxel of this grid contains all the 3D facets that lie on it.
Voxels are filled using the incremental line technique and the
two-dimensional polygon filling technique. The chosen resolution L of a voxel is very important. If L is too large, a voxel

TABLE 1 The Four Propagation Models of SLC

Mode
1
2
3
4

Model

Involved Method

Application

Radiating waves
Coupling waves on cables
Conducted waves on cable
Radiating wave from cable

Raytracing/UTD
Raytracing/UTD 1 MoM
MoM
MoM 1 Raytracing/UTD

Radio planning
EMC
EMC
Radiating cables coverage

DOI 10.1002/mop

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2014

519

may contain a great part of the 3D scene and there is no

improvement. If L is too short, this leads to a great amount of
memory to store these 3D facets, and to a computation overlay
during intersection tests. Assuming a uniform distribution of N
facets on a total surface S, the adaptive value L used by SLC is
L 5 0.5 V(S/N). However, when detailed buildings (with inner
walls and furniture) are included in the 3D scene (for outdoorindoor application), a single grid of voxels is not efficient. SILICOM implemented hierarchical grids of voxels [3] with different resolutions typically: one grid for the DTM ground, one grid
for each building. Intersection tests of the (A, B) line with the
surroundings involve three steps:

Figure 2 Hierarchical voxels grid and incremental line (in transparent

gray). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available
at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 3 DTM with three levels and voxels grid of level 1. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

520

 SLC checks if the borders of each grid are intersected using

Liang Barsky parametric line-clipping algorithm.
 SLC creates the incremental line of voxels from A to B to
get all the 3D facets that may be intersected by this line (A,
B).
 Finally, the geometrical test [4] of line (A, B) intersection
with each facet is done.
This preprocessing enables to handle very complex 3D scenes
that contain millions of facets. Figure 3 shows a realistic example
with three levels of details: outdoor, indoor (inner walls produced
from architect plan using computer-aided design (CAD) tool), and
furniture (personal computer, table, chair from CAD library). The
corresponding voxels on grid are shown where red zones mean a
lot of triangular facets and blue zones only few.
The first stage of our raytracing is based on a preprocessing
of the database. Rays are thrown from the transmitter toward
the center of a facet (for reflection) and the center of the three
wedges for diffraction, as shown in Figure 4. For each facet, the
reflection image of the transmitter is computed and the 3D
beam formed by the image point and facet is stored in a special
voxels grid (build by XY projection of each bundle, like its footprint with a zenith sun). For double reflection, we just have to
check if the center of the second facet lies in a voxel containing
the beam and perform a vectorial intersection test [4] between
former reflection image and this new center. Such a dedicated
voxels grid avoids to test all the beams, with the well-known
sphere test. Figure 5 shows an example where red zones contain a lot of beams (near transmitter), and blue zones only few.
We proceed in the same way for diffraction on wedges; Kellers
cone is stored in the same dedicated voxels grid. For indoor or
mix models, transmission through walls is take into account.
For each receiver location, the (dynamic) prediction stage
consists in selecting diffraction or reflection rays interception
thanks to the voxels grid process. Once a ray is found out, its
magnitude, phase, and delay are computed with GO/UTD coefficients [1]; they depend on dielectrical characteristics of material
stored in GIS attributes of each facet.

Figure 4 Raytracing principles. [Color figure can be viewed in the

online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2014

DOI 10.1002/mop

Figure 5 Reflection bundle and the associated voxels grid. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
3.

BROADBAND FREQUENCY VALIDATION FOR TEMPEST

To validate the approach described above, a measurement campaign (the digital terrain model is illustrated on Fig. 3) using
broadband continuous wave (CW) signals (from 10 to 1000
MHz) with two identical ARAs discone antennas was performed. The transmitter antenna is placed into a room where
furniture is fully described as shown on Figure 6. The Receiver
antenna (height 5 1.5 m) is outside about 80 m away from transmitter shown on Figure 7 with 21 different positions around the
office. Our model takes into account the variation of dielectrical
characteristics and antenna gain with frequency. Figure 6 shows
the received signal power for one receiver position where the
raytracing parameters are the following : three reflections, seven
diffractions, and 30 transmissions maximum for each ray. It
illustrates how SLC results match with broadband measurements
of propagation attenuation at point P12.
Now, let define TEMPEST attenuation. First, a reference
measurement is done in free space between two antennas (ARA
SAS-210/C, ARA SAS-11/E-1)1 m above a dry ground; A
Rhode and Schwartz SMGL broadband generator emits a power

Figure 6 Radiating field inside the office. [Color figure can be viewed
in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

DOI 10.1002/mop

of 36 dBm between 10 and 1000 MHz. The distance between

these antennas is 20 m. The TEMPEST attenuation in dB is
defined by the difference between a propagation measurement
minus this reference curve. A statistical treatment is performed
to compute zone TEMPEST zone number 10, 1, 2, or 3. For
each receiver position, SLC prediction broadband propagation
link and computes the TEMPEST zone number.
This method has been applied with the 21 receiver positions.
The Table 2 gives the statistical parameter of TEMPEST attenuation (mean error and standard deviation) and the simulated and
measured TEMPEST zone number. Except for P01, P05, Z15,
and Z16 positions (see Figs. 912), SLC is accurate with only
four errors, a confidence of 81% for a good classification. We
observe that error is generally 11 because SLC propagation
model tends to be pessimistic. These errors are strongly correlated with a huge mean error of TEMPEST attenuation

Figure 7 Twenty-two points of measurement around the office. [Color

figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2014

521

TABLE 2 Statistical Error of TEMPEST Prediction and Zone

Number
TEMPEST Attenuation

TEMPEST Zone
Number

Point n

Mean
error

Standard
Deviation (dB)

Simulated

Measured

P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
P12
P13
Z2
Z3
Z9
Z12
Z14
Z15
Z16
Z17
All points

2.2
1.7
20.7
23.6
11.6
20.5
29.1
1.2
23.4
22.2
22.4
2.5
3.1
1.6
20.6
21.7
3.5
25.7
7.3
7.6
25.6
0.3

7.3
0.1
8.3
7.7
9.0
9.9
12.8
10.9
9.7
8.7
8.7
7.4
7.3
6.9
8.2
9.8
7.1
8.8
11.7
10.4
10.3
10.1

1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
0
1
1
2
2
0
1
2
2
2

2
1
2
2
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
0
1
1
2
2
0
1
3
3
2

(DEP05 5 111.6 dB, DEZ15 5 17.3 dB, and DEZ16 5 17.3 dB).
On the opposite, when mean error is optimistic DE < 25dB
(positions P07, Z14, and Z17), this does not produce an error on
the TEMPEST classification. As the propagation is pessimistic
especially, we have compared results taken into account only
one diffraction instead of seven. In this case, we find the right
TEMPEST zone for point P05 and Z15. With this propagation
model, confidence rises up to 90%.
Spatial TEMPEST zoning can be computed by SLC; for
each receiver point of the XY matrix with a resolution of 1 m, a
broadband link budget computation is done and a TEMPEST
classification is given after postprocessing this frequency
dependant result. Figure 13 shows the TEMPEST cartography
around the office where measurements have been done.

Figure 8 Propagation attenuation (dB) at point P12. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

522

Figure 9 TEMPEST attenuation (dB) at point P01. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 10 TEMPEST attenuation (dB) at point P05. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
4. CONCLUSION

In this article, a deterministic raytracing model for outdoor/

indoor scenario is presented. The model is based on a hydrid
accelerated raytracing (with voxels grid concept) enables DGA
to predict TEMPEST zone.
This document outlines how the zoning is TEMPEST calculated with SLC. The prediction of TEMPEST area is fairly

Figure 11 TEMPEST attenuation (dB) at point Z16. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2014

DOI 10.1002/mop

IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile

Radio Communications (PIMRC), Osaka, Japan, 1999.
3. P. Slusallek, Computer graphicsRayTracing II, Universitat des
Saarlandes, 2003.
4. D. Sunday, Intersections of rays and segments with triangles in 3D,
May 2001.
5. J.F. Legendre, New propagation model using fast 3D raytracing
Application to wifi, ECPS 2005 Conference, Brest, France, 2005.
C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V

Figure 12 TEMPEST attenuation (dB) at point Z15. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

DESIGN OF BROAD-STOP BAND LOW

PASS FILTER USING A NOVEL
QUASI-YAGI-DGS-RESONATORS AND
METAL BOX-TECHNIQUE
Ahmed Boutejdar
Department of Microwave and Communication Engineering, Otto
von Guericke University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany;
Corresponding author: ahmed.boutejdar@ovgu.de
Received 18 June 2013
ABSTRACT: A novel 1.8 GHz compact microstrip low pass Filter
(LPF) based on quasi-Yagi defected ground structure (DGS) and compensated capacitors is proposed in this article. The filter has a very
sharp cut-off frequency response with low insertion loss and achieves a
wide reject band with overall 20 dB attenuation from 2.8 GHz up to 10
GHz. The equivalent circuit model of Yagi-DGS unit is derived using
AWR software and the circuit parameters are extracted by using a simple circuit analysis method. The advantage of this structure is that the
reject band can be controlled by tuning the dimension of yagi-arms at
higher frequency rang. To improve the filter characteristics in reject
band, a new metal box has been used to minimize the loss in pass band
and to extend the reject band. The proposed LPFs are designed and fabricated. The compact filter occupies an area of (0.45 kg 3 0.35 kg)
with kg 5 44 mm. A comparison between simulation and measurement
results confirms the validity of the LPF configuration and design proceC 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett
dure. V
56:523528, 2014; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
DOI 10.1002/mop.28190

Figure 13 TEMPEST zoning around the office. [Color figure can be

viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

reliable (error of about 10%) even though the demonstrator

tends to produce impairments TEMPEST pessimistic. Indeed,
the calculation of zoning can be considered as a filter as inputs
the decision. It is noted that if the propagation model is optimistic, this does not induce an error in the calculation of zoning. If
a misclassification occurs because of a pessimistic prediction of
the spread, it generally leads to a classification to the upper
zone (e.g., prediction of the zone 3 instead of zone 2).
SLC has been upgraded to enables WIFI indoor planification
and optimisation by SILICOM [5]. Starting from CAD plans,
SILICOM engineers build the digital terrain model and can predict WIFI coverage and find the optimal number of Access
Points.
REFERENCES
1. J.F. Legendre, Etude de mode`les de prediction de la propagation
bases sur la theorie geometrique de la diffraction, Thesis, INSA,
Rennes, 18th January 1995.
2. G. Wolfle, R. Hoppe, and F.M. Landstorfer, A Fast and Enhanced
Ray Optical Propagation Model for Indoor and Urban Scenarios,
Based on an Intelligent Preprocessing of the Database, In: 10th

DOI 10.1002/mop

Key words: low pass filter; quasi-Yagi-resonator; broad-stop band;

metal box

1. INTRODUCTION

Newly, Photonic structure, defected microstrip structures and

defected ground structures (DGSs) have been gained much interests for its planar topology and easy and inexpensive fabrication
with photolithographic technique or printed-circuit board technology [1, 2]. Periodic or no periodic DGSs show a good
repressed reject band in some frequency, thus restrain spurious
response by repressing harmonic in the microwave circuits [2, 3].
The DGS unit can have a simple geometry (rectangular as by
Ahn et al.) or a complicated shape (fractal as by Boutejdar et al.)
to improve the reject band of a low pass filter (LPF) [1, 2]. The
most DGS-structures are used to design and improve filters [1],
patch antennas [3, 4], branch line couplers, dividers, and
improved efficiency of power amplifiers [5]. A DGS technique is
realized by etching a few defect patterns in the backside metallic
ground plane under the microstrip line. This defect disturbs the
shield current distribution in the ground. This disturbance modifies the transmission line characteristics (increase of effective
inductance and capacitance) and achieves slow-wave effect and
band-stop property.

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