A Simulation Study of Radio Frequency Propagation for an Indoor Naval Vessel Environment

The indoor environment on a naval vessel is challenging for the operation of wireless systems due to the challenges of radio frequency (RF) propagation through its steel structure, which attenuates electromagnetic (EM) waveforms and produces reflections and diffractions of walls and other objects. This paper presents a simulation study of RF propagation on the USS Wisconsin, which was implemented using the Altair Feko software. Specifically, a realistic model of the berthing area on the USS Wisconsin was rendered in Feko using actual measurements and material characteristics, and simulations for two case studies were completed. The case studies correspond to a single-input single-output (SISO) system operating in the 2.4 GHz frequency band, and and to a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system operating in the 3.5 GHz frequency band, respectively, and simulation results illustrate the variation of path loss, received RF power, field strength, and throughput over the chosen study area. The numerical values obtained from simulation are consistent with values reported in recent studies in the context of wireless local area networks (WLAN) and indicate that wireless service can be provided throughout the entire berthing area (except for some limited hard to reach zones) with a single access point.