Modeling RF Noise in Urban Environments with Spatially Distributed Point Sources

In previous work, we have observed significant variability in radio-frequency (RF) noise within neighborhoods of Boston, MA, USA [1]. Furthermore, the sources of this man-made RF noise appear to be point-like in nature [2]. However, there are no descriptions in the literature describing the relationship between the spatial pattern of sources within a neighborhood and the distribution of measured noise powers in the same area. Therefore, we developed a simple model with completely spatially random (CSR) point sources and compared the modeled results with our measurements from Boston. Our results show that, at the frequency studied, a simple CSR model effectively captures the heavy-tailed behavior present in our measurements. A source density of 280 sources per km2, a mean source power of 1 μW and a standard deviation of 7 dB are a reasonable match to the observed distribution in Boston, MA, USA.