PREDICTION OF INDOOR WIRELESS COVERAGE BY LEAKY
COAXIAL CABLE USING RAY TRACING
Samuel P. Morgan
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
700 Mountain Avenue
Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, U.S.A.
spm@research.bell-labs.com
Abstract — Coaxial cable having a slotted or perforated
outer conductor can be used as a base-station antenna for
indoor wireless systems. This paper explores the use of
ray-tracing software to predict the radio coverage that can
be achieved by leaky coax in a building with given wall
geometry. For either coupled-mode or radiating-mode
cable, a model that represents the cable as a sequence of
’’fluorescent-bulb’’ elements, each of which radiates dif-
fusely with a Lambert’s-law radiation pattern, is found to
work well. However, the coupling-loss parameter, which
defines the effective power radiated by each element,
appears to depend significantly on whether the cable is laid
in a rich scattering environment or a barren one.
I. INTRODUCTION
Leaky coaxial cables have been used for many years as
wireless feeders in coal mines and vehicular tunnels [1]. More
recently, leaky coax has been employed as a base-station
antenna for in-building wireless systems [2]. This paper
explores the use of ray-tracing software such as WiSE [3] to
predict the radio coverage that can be achieved by leaky coax
in a building with given wall geometry.
The two major kinds of leaky coax are shown schemati-
cally in Fig. 1. Actual cables have insulation between the
inner and outer conductors, and an insulating outer sheath.
The older kind, called coupled-mode, has closely spaced slots
milled in a corrugated outer conductor. The newer kind,
called radiating-mode, typically has a foil outer conductor
with nonuniformly spaced slots arranged in a periodic pattern.
Coupled-mode cable is a slow-wave structure. In free
space its external fields are closely bound to the cable and do
not radiate, except for minor end effects. Radiation depends
on scattering of the local fields by nearby random objects [1].
The effective coupling to distant receivers is impossible to
compute a priori, so it must be determined empirically.
Radiating-mode cable with a nonuniform periodic slot pattern
will radiate in free space [4]. However, radiating-mode cable
also has strong local fields, and it is probable that in any envi-
ronment where coupled-mode cable radiates effectively by
random scattering, the principal mechanism by which
radiating-mode cable works is also random scattering.
It is unpromising to look for a detailed model of scattering
from the leakage fields of a cable, because environments are so
varied. Instead, we assume heuristically that each element of
the cable surface radiates diffusely, like a fluorescent light
bulb. In practice, we model the cable as a moderate number of
discrete segments. Each segment is approximated by a point
source that radiates incoherently with a Lambert’s-law pattern.
(a) Coupled-mode cable
(b) Radiating-mode cable
Fig. 1 Leaky coaxial cables (schematic)
The power radiated from each segment is determined by the
standard coupling loss, which is defined as the ratio in dB of
the power carried by the cable to the median power received
by a half-wave dipole at a standard distance from a long cable.
The nominal value of the standard coupling loss is given by
the vendor. However, the actual coupling loss appears to
depend strongly on the cable’s immediate surroundings, so for
the present it may have to be determined by measurements
near the cable in a particular environment.
The fluorescent-bulb model undertakes to predict the
median power level over a region whose dimensions are com-
parable to a wavelength. Local fluctuations in the field ampli-
tude are expected to be Rayleigh distributed, as would result
from scattering of the leakage fields by nearby inhomo-
geneities located at random along the cable [1].
For radiating-mode cable we have tried a second model,
which takes account of the periodicity of the slot sequence.
We represent the cable as a sequence of coherent point sources
with a spacing equal to the period of the slot sequence (a little
greater than 1 m in our example). Each source has a far-field
radiation pattern equivalent to the pattern of a single period of
the slot sequence, treated as a nonuniformly spaced linear
array excited by a traveling wave in the cable. In the absence
of scattering by random nearby objects, the deterministic
model should predict the fields of the leaky cable at distances
greater than a few meters from the cable. However, the dif-
fuse, fluorescent-bulb model seems to agree better with mea-
surements of radiating-mode cable than the deterministic
model. The deterministic model might work better in those
cases, if any, where there are essentially no external scatterers
near the cable and a coupled-mode cable would radiate poorly.
Sections II and III describe the diffuse and deterministic
models in more detail. Section IV describes measurements
with coupled-mode and radiating-mode cable in an office
building at 900 MHz and with coupled-mode cable in a ware-
house at 1.9 GHz, and compares the experimental data with
predictions. Section V summarizes the conclusions.
 -2-
θ  
(a) Diffuse element pattern (Lambert’s law)
θ ing the radiation pattern of one period of the slot sequence
(b) Deterministic element pattern at 900 MHz
Fig. 2 Diffuse and deterministic radiation patterns
II. DIFFUSE MODEL
In this model, we assume that the cable radiates diffusely,
according to Lambert’s law, through a cylindrical surface of
some radius that is larger than the physical radius of the cable
but small compared with the distance to the receiver.
The mean power flow per unit solid angle in a given direc-
tion from a diffusely radiating surface element is proportional
to cos γ, where γ is the angle of emission with respect to the
normal. It follows that the power flow per unit solid angle
from a thin cable element is proportional to sin θ, where θ is
the angle between the viewing direction and the cable axis.
The equivalent electric field generated at distance r by a thin
cable element is proportional to
E = S(θ)/ r , S(θ) = √

sin θ . (1)
S(θ) is plotted in Fig. 2(a).
Let P dipole be the power received by a half-wave dipole
parallel to and at a distance D from the axis of a long diffuse
radiator with negligible attenuation. Let Π be the power radi-
ated per unit length in the polarization to which the dipole
responds (typically a diffuse source radiates equal power in
both polarizations). A straightforward calculation, allowing
for the radiation patterns of the cable and the dipole, yields
P dipole = ( 8Π/πD) (λ/4π) 2 , (2)
where λ is the free-space wavelength. For dipoles in other ori-
entations, the numerical coefficient differs somewhat from
8/π, but the differences are less than the uncertainties in the
model and will be ignored.
The standard coupling loss L is defined by
L = 10 log 10 (P cable / P dipole ) , (3)
Table 1 Coordinates of cable slots (cm)
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
n  z n  n  z n  n  z n  n  z n 
______________________________________________
 1  0.7  5  7.  9  14.15  13  24.85 
______________________________________________
       
______________________________________________
2  2.05  6  9.65  10  17.2  14  27.5 
______________________________________________
3  3.85  7  11.45  11  19.85  15  30.6 
      
______________________________________________
4  6.5  8  12.75  12  20.35  16  38.25 
where P cable is the cable power, and D is conventionally either
2 m or 20 ft. Equations (2) and (3) relate the cable power, the
standard coupling loss, and the effective radiated power per
unit length.
III. DETERMINISTIC MODEL
In the deterministic model of radiating-mode cable, we rep-
resent the cable as a line of coherent point sources, each hav-
excited by a traveling wave. The field pattern of a source is
E = S(θ)/ r, S(θ) = S 0 (θ) S 1 (θ) , (4)
where S 0 (θ) is the pattern of a single slot and S 1 (θ) is the
array factor of a single period of the slot sequence.
The slot pattern S 0 (θ) is expected to have the same spatial
dependence as the pattern of a complete circumferential slot
on a dielectric-sheathed coaxial cable [5], since the angle-
dependent terms in the complete solution contribute only to
the fields in the immediate neighborhood of the slot. Calculat-
ing the amplitude of the dominant term from theory would be
laborious, but it can be determined empirically if necessary.
The array factor S 1 (θ) simplifies if we assume that the
slots are symmetrically placed, at ±z n , with respect to the mid-
point of the cable element, and are all excited with equal
amplitudes. In the present case there are 32 slots, so
16
S 1 (θ) = Σ cos [ (k cos θ − k c ) z n ] ,
n =1
(5)
where
k = 2π/λ , k c = 2π/λ c , (6)
and λ and λ c are the free-space wavelength and the cable
wavelength respectively. The vendor gives λ c /λ = 0. 88, and
the 16 values of z n are listed in Table 1. We measured the slot
spacings approximately on our purchased cable.
A plot of S(θ)at 900 MHz, including both the slot pat-
tern and the array pattern, is shown in Fig. 2(b). The slot pat-
tern has a narrow null along the axis of the element, and the
array pattern has a smooth endfire lobe at this frequency, in the
direction that the wave in traveling in the cable.
Finally, an installed cable may include several repetitions
of the slot pattern, separated by a constant distance (in our
case, 106.8 cm). The distant field of the cable, if one were
were far enough away to see it, would have the array factor of
a uniformly spaced array with a constant phase shift superim-
posed on the pattern of a single element [4]. The field of a
long uniform array can be quite spiky if the spacing is large
compared with the wavelength.
 -3-
IV. PREDICTIONS VS. MEASUREMENTS Table 2 Mean and Standard Deviation
of Prediction Error (dBm)
A. Office building ____________________________________
Propagation measurements were made at 900 MHz in a 5- _____________________________________
 Mean  Std 
___________________________________
   
story office building with sheetrock walls and concrete floors. 
 Coupled  0.9  5.2 
A plan view of the second floor of the building is shown in ________________________
   
Fig. 4. Both coupled-mode and radiating-mode cable † were 
 Office bldg  Radiating   
-1.3  4.9 
 900 MHz ________________________
used. Each cable was laid on top of the false ceiling of the diffuse 
  Radiating 
second floor, in an east-west, north-south, east-west  
 1.5  8.3 
configuration as indicated by the line of dots in Fig. 4. The 
_____________________________________
determ. 
___________________________________ 
cable was fed at its center point, with 7.4 dBm going into each 
  Coupled  1.5  8.4 
side. The total length of cable shown in the figure is approxi-  Warehouse  (cell A)   
mately 110 m.  ________________________
  

The received power level, for a constant input to the leaky  1.9 Ghz  Coupled  -1.9  7.9 
coax, was measured by mobile equipment on a tea cart and ____________________________________
 (cell B)   
logged by an automated system. The mobile antenna was an
Table 3 Coverage at Different Thresholds
end-fed half-wave monopole on a telephone handset, moved _________________________________________________
automatically in a roughly circular path to average out fast  ___________________
Threshold (dBm) 
fading. Data were taken on at least three visits to each of a set   -60  -70  -80 
of 75 locations on the second floor, indicated by small circles __________________________________________________
________________________________________________
 
in Fig. 4. At each location, the cart was stopped and the    Meas  0.30  0.63  0.88 
Coupled 
______________________________________
received power averaged over a period of at least 25 seconds.  Pred  0.22  0.76  0.96 
 Office bldg  Radiating  Meas  0.39  0.81  1.00 
Ray-tracing prediction were made using the WiSE system     
[3] as follows. The receiving antenna pattern was assumed to diffuse  Pred  0.24  0.84  1.00 
 900 MHz ______________________________________
be isotropic, since the received power was averaged over many   Radiating  Meas  0.39  0.81  1.00 
different orientations. The leaky coax was modeled as a line  determ.  Pred  0.43  0.82  0.99 
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
   
 Coupled  Meas  0.29  0.62  0.95 
of sources spaced approximately 1 m apart. Both the diffuse

and the deterministic radiation patterns were used for the  Warehouse ______________________________________
(cell A)  Pred  0.30 0.70 0.89 
 
radiating-mode cable, while only the diffuse pattern was used  1.9 GHz  Coupled  Meas  0.30  0.73  0.99 
for the coupled-mode cable. An arbitrary power level was     
assumed for the two sources adjacent to the feed point, and the  (cell B)  Pred  0.28  0.61  0.86 
_________________________________________________
vendor’s values were taken for the attenuation and phase con- model predictions is reflected in the higher standard deviation
stants of the cable. After the ray-tracing calculation was com- of its prediction error.
plete, all the power levels were adjusted so that the average Table 3 shows the percentage coverage of the 75 sites at
predicted power (in dBm) received by four locations near the various thresholds, according to prediction and measurement.
feed point was equal to the average measured power at those Experimentally, radiating-mode cable gives significantly
locations. Alternatively, the radiated power level could be higher coverage than coupled-mode cable with the same input
deduced directly from the input power and the standard cou- power, at least in the present study.
pling loss L, given a reliable value of L. In addition to the measurements reported here, field-
Figures 4 and 5 show the predicted power levels given by strength measurements were made on each of the other floors
the diffuse and deterministic models of radiating-mode cable, of the 5-story building while the leaky coax was in place on
using the color scale of Fig. 3. The diffuse model predicts a the second floor. The concrete floors appeared to introduce 15
smoother distribution of power than the deterministic model. to 20 dB of additional attenuation per transit. At this writing,
In particular, the deterministic model predicts a low-power WiSE handles floor losses in a semiempirical fashion.
region near the feed point, just below the center of Fig. 5,
because the endfire lobes of the radiation patterns (Fig. 2(b)) B. Warehouse
point away from the feed point. Since the irregularity of the
deterministic model is not apparent in our experimental data, Measurements were made in a single-story warehouse with
we recommend the use of the diffuse model for both coupled- a corrugated sheet metal roof about 23 ft above the floor. The
mode and radiating-mode cable. warehouse was filled with rows of shelves up to 20 ft high,
The top section of Table 2 shows the mean and standard packed with many kinds of merchandise used for home con-
deviation of the prediction error (predicted dBm minus mea- struction and landscaping. In the WiSE wall file, the shelves
sured dBm) over the 75 measured sites on the second floor of were modeled as narrow rectangles enclosed by a special wall
the office building. The irregularity of the deterministic- type designed to approximate the estimated losses due to the
shelves. The wall reflectivity and transmissivity were adjusted
______________
† The coupled-mode cable was RADIAX RXP4-1, made by Andrew Corpora- to match the received power from a point-source (patch)
tion, and the radiating-mode cable was RADIAFLEX RLK4.4/11.1 CuH, antenna behind two sets of shelves. This special modeling
made by Radio Frequency Systems Hannover Division of kabelmetal electro effort was considered reasonable because there are many ware-
GmbH. houses with similar shelving.
 -4-
The objective was to determine the coverage achievable at
1.9 GHz with a coupled-mode leaky coax† suspended below
the roof across steel girders spaced several feet apart. The
mobile receiver was a handset with a small patch antenna.
The receiver was waved at arm’s length for 12 seconds, to
average out fast fading. This procedure was repeated up to
four times if the measurements were unstable. In the WiSE
modeling, the receiver pattern was assumed to be isotropic.
Figure 6 shows WiSE-predicted power levels for a 200-ft
leaky coax in cell A, where cell A is defined by the 105
receiver sites shown. The cable was center-driven, with +16.3
dBm going into each side. The diffuse radiation model
assumes a progressive wave in each half of the cable, with an
attenuation constant of 12.3 dB/100 ft estimated from the
vendor’s data. The radiated power level in the ray-tracing
model was based on matching the average received power in
dBm at 5 sites near the center of the cable to the predicted
power at the same 5 sites. This procedure is equivalent to
assuming a particular value for the standard coupling loss.
In the warehouse installation, the left-hand end of the cable
had a nonradiating termination, while the right-hand end had a
radiating termination to increase the coverage. The termina-
tion was assumed to radiate 16.3 - 12.3 = 4.0 dBm isotropi-
cally, although this may be an overestimate of the radiated
power. The termination does not alter the fields near the cen-
ter of the cable enough to affect the estimate of the standard
coupling loss. Figure 6 shows only the results with the radiat-
ing termination; without it, the predicted field at the right-hand
end is similar to the predicted field at the left end.
A second set of measurements, at 120 experimental sites,
was made in another part of the warehouse (cell B), also illu-
minated by a 200-ft coupled-mode leaky coax. Again, the
effective coupling loss was determined by matching the aver-
age power at 5 sites near the center of the cable. The lower
part of Table 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of the
prediction error for the two warehouse cells, and the lower part
of Table 3 shows the measured and predicted fractions of sites
covered at various thresholds.
The agreement of the ray-tracing model with the ware-
house measurements is less good than the agreement with the
office measurements. Visually, in Fig. 6 the terminal radiator
appears to overilluminate the right side of the plot. Including
the terminal radiator in the model improves the agreement
between predicted coverage and measured coverage (Table 3).
However, the terminal radiator does not change the standard
deviation of the prediction error (Table 2), although it does
reduce the mean prediction error. The mean value of the pre-
diction error in the warehouse is 1.5 to 2 dB and the standard
deviation is about 8 dB, compared with a mean error of 1 to
1.5 dB and a standard deviation of 5 dB for the diffuse models
in the office building.
A possible shortcoming of the model is the assumption that
the cable power drops off exponentially in both directions as
one moves away from the feed point. One would expect the
received power along a line more or less directly below the
cable to fall off similarly with distance. However, the experi-
______________
† RADIAX RXP4-2, made by Andrew Corporation. Radiating-mode cable
was not tested at 1.9 GHz.
Table 4 Standard Coupling Loss (dB)
__________________________________________
___________________________________________
 Vendor  Empirical 
_________________________________________
   

 Coupled  66  55 
 Office bldg _______________________________
  
 900 MHz  Radiating   
 63
__________________________________________
 49 

__________________________________________
diffuse
  
 Coupled 
  
 Warehouse _______________________________
62 68
(cell A)   
 1.9 GHz  Coupled   
  62  72 

__________________________________________
(cell B)   
mental measurements do not show such a dropoff on the left-
hand side, which has a nonradiating termination. If the cable
is uniform, then the assumption of an exponentially damped
traveling wave is suspect. One might look for a more sophisti-
cated model of the waves in the cable, although if a predictive
model has to have much a posteriori tuning to make it work, it
is of limited usefulness.
C. Standard coupling loss
In practice, the ray-tracing calculations were done by
assuming an arbitrary value for the power Π radiated per unit
length by the cable elements adjacent to the feed point, and
then adjusting Π to match the average received power at some
measured sites. From (2) and (3), the standard coupling loss L
corresponding to the adjusted value of Π is
L = 10 log 10 [ (πD /8Π) ( 4π/λ) 2 P cable ] , (7)
where D is the distance at which the standard coupling loss is
defined, and P cable is the cable power at the feed point.
Table 4 shows the equivalent values of standard coupling
loss L that were used for the coupled-mode cable and the
radiating-mode cable (diffuse model) in the office building,
and for the coupled-mode cable in the warehouse. The stan-
dard distance D was taken as 20 ft for the coupled-mode cable,
and 2 m for the radiating-mode cable. The vendors’ values of
L at the operating frequencies are also given in the table.
The standard coupling loss is lower (i.e., more radiated
power) than the vendors’ values in the office building, even
allowing for the conventional ±10 dB uncertainty in the ven-
dors’ values. The low effective coupling loss may be due to
the fact that the cables were laid above a false ceiling, among a
great many metallic structures that could scatter the cable
fields. The standard coupling loss for leaky coax in the ware-
house is higher than the vendor’s value, although not strictly
outside the ±10 dB range. In the warehouse, the cable was
strung across steel girders in a largely open space below the
roof, relatively far from potential scatterers.
V. SUMMARY
The paper reports comparisons between measurements and
predictions for both radiating-mode and coupled-mode leaky
coax in an office building at 900 MHz, and for coupled-mode
cable in a warehouse at 1.9 GHz. In the office building, the
two cables were laid in the same position above a false ceiling.
Experimentally, the radiating-mode cable gave better coverage
than the coupled-mode cable for the same input power. Using
 -5-
a diffuse (‘‘fluorescent-bulb’’) model of radiation for both
radiating-mode and coupled-mode cable, the mean prediction
error for both kinds of cable was 1 to 1.5 dB and the standard
deviation was 5 dB.
In the warehouse, two sets of measurements were made Fig. 3 Color scale (dBm)
with a coupled-mode cable strung across girders below a cor-
rugated steel roof. Using a somewhat ad hoc electromagnetic
description of the shelving that is a principal feature of the
site, the mean prediction error of the ray-tracing model was
1.5 to 2 dB and the standard deviation was 8 dB.
A significant finding is that the effective standard coupling
loss, which we obtained by matching the predictions of the
ray-tracing program to measurements at a few points near the
center of the cable, can differ from the vendor’s mean value by
10 dB or more in either direction. High scattered power, cor-
responding to low coupling loss, occurs when the cable is in a
rich scattering environment, for example, above a false ceiling
where there are many metal objects. Low scattered power,
corresponding to high coupling loss, occurs in a barren scatter-
ing environment, for example, when the cable is suspended
transverse to steel girders in a large open space.
The range of possible values of coupling loss is wider than
one would like for predictive purposes. Therefore, in order to Fig. 4 Predicted coverage of office building by radiating-
use ray-tracing tools effectively, one needs more experience mode cable at 900 MHz (diffuse model)
with leaky coax in different environments so as to choose real-
istic values of coupling loss for a given site, or else one needs
to make a few on-site measurements with the cable in a partic-
ular building, in order to calculate the coverage through the
rest of the building.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The 900 MHz measurements were made by R. A. Boehm

and M. K. Walker and the 1.9 GHz measurements by C. M. De
Santis at Lucent Technologies. S. J. Fortune at Bell Laborato-
ries put a number of special features into WiSE for this study.
Mark Davies of RFS Hannover provided information about
RADIAFLEX cable. My thanks to all.

REFERENCES

[1] P. Delogne, Leaky Feeders and Subsurface Radio Com-

munications, Peregrinus, 1982. Fig. 5 Predicted coverage of office building by radiating-
[2] A. J. Motley and D. A. Palmer, ‘‘Directed Radio Coverage mode cable at 900 MHz (deterministic model)
Within Buildings,’’ IEE Conf. on Conservation of Radio
Spectrum II, No. 224 (September 1983).
[3] S. J. Fortune, D. M. Gay, B. W. Kernighan, O. Landron,
R. A. Valenzuela, and M. H. Wright, ‘‘WISE Design of Indoor
Wireless Systems: Practical Computation and Optimization,’’
IEEE Computational Science and Engineering, Vo1. 2, No. 1
(Spring 1995), pp. 58-68.
[4] Andre Levisse, ‘‘Leaky or Radiating? Radiation Mecha-
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[5] J. R. Wait and D. A. Hill, ‘‘On the Electromagnetic Field
of a Dielectric Coated Coaxial Cable with an Interrupted
Shield,’’ IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., Vol. AP-23, No. 4 Fig. 6 Predicted coverage of warehouse by coupled-mode
(July 1975), pp. 470-479. cable at 1.9 GHz