Microwave interference due to building reflections and orientation of city blocks

Abstract

The interference due to reflections from city structures in terrestrial microwave communications links is examined. The authors demonstrate that the reflected and diffracted energy from such surfaces shows dependence on the orientation of major streets and can vary 25 to 45 dB. A comparison between the scattered energy from a detailed city model composed of buildings and that from a simpler model composed of city blocks shows that salient specular patterns are very similar. A simple method is proposed to identify potentially strong reflections into a point-to-point radio link, a method which will improve frequency coordination procedures.<>