Parallelization of Propagation Model Simulation

In this paper a sequential radio wave propagation simulator has been parallelized in order to speed up the execution. Only outdoor propagation in microcells is considered in this simulator. The simulator combines a vertical plane model which simulates the wave propagation over the building roofs and a horizontal plane model which simulates the wave propagation in the street canyons between the buildings. The horizontal plane model is implemented as a ray tracing model using multiple diffraction. Two different parallel implementations have been used in two parallel platforms. Digital workstation with POSIX threads and Cray T3E with distributed memory were used. Simulator for Cray was implemented by using message passing since threads can not be used in distributed memory computer. Parallelization of the vertical and horizontal plane models reduces the execution times considerably as they are the most time consuming parts. Results for different environments are very promising. Significant speedup can be achieved in both tested parallel environments. Work required to gain good improvements is minimal compared to the received speedups.