An inter-vehicle communication system for the 720 MHz band that is designed to prevent car crashes at intersections has recently been proposed in Japan. This paper presents an analysis of the propagation characteristics of an intersection surrounded by concrete block walls in a residential area. The propagation characteristics were analyzed for the first time using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. We investigated the influence of wall thickness and source locations on the propagation characteristics. The results of our investigation showed that the most commonly used wall thickness and source locations do not strongly affect propagation loss. Furthermore, we analyzed the power delay profile and delay spread by taking into consideration the structure of the concrete block walls.

In order to increase communication capacity, the use of millimeter-wave and terahertz-wave bands are being actively explored. Non-radiative dielectric waveguide known as NRD guide is one of promising platform of millimeter-wave integrated circuits thanks to its non-radiative and low loss nature. In order to develop millimeter wave circuits with various functions, various circuit components have to be efficiently designed to meet requirements from application side. In this paper, for efficient design of NRD guide devices, we develop a topology optimal design technique based on function-expansion-method which can express arbitrary structure with arbitrary geometric topology. In the present approach, recently developed two-dimensional full-vectorial finite element method (2D-FVFEM) for NRD guide devices is employed to improve computational efficiency and several evolutionary approaches, which do not require appropriate initial structure depending on a given design problem, are used to optimize design variables, thus, NRD guide devices having desired functions are efficiently obtained without requiring designer's special knowledge.

In this paper, the topology optimization method is first applied to obtain high gain characteristics of dielectric flat lens. The topology optimization method used in this study is based on the gradient method with adjoint variable method. The FDTD method is used as the analysis method of electromagnetic fields. Results are compared with those obtained by using metaheuristic methods GA and PSO. As a result, it is shown that the proposed method can efficiently design a high gain dielectric flat lens in a wide frequency band.

In this letter, the formulation of dispersive characteristics associated with an orientation polarization is discussed. The formulation is appropriate for use in the finite-difference time-domain (FD-TD) method and is based on the equation of polarization. The validity of the formulation is verified by comparing the calculated complex dielectric constant with analytical values.

Recently, computer speed and memory capacity have been advanced. Therefore, applicable space size or equivalently the frequency in the FDTD method has been increased similar as the ray-tracing method for radio wave propagation. The ray-tracing method can obtain easily important parameters such as path loss, delay profile and angular profile. On the other hand, the FDTD method seems difficult to obtain an angular profile. We can overcome this problem by applying the DOA estimation method to the FDTD method. In this paper, we show that the FDTD method can be used as a counterpart of the ray-tracing method to analyze radio wave propagation of large space by using DOA estimation method such as MUSIC method.

In the development of inter-vehicle communication systems for a prevention of car crashes, it is important to know path loss characteristics at blind intersections in urban area. Thus field experiments and numerical simulations have been performed. By the way, transparent waves from building walls are not considered in many cases. The reason why is that it is the worst case in terms of the path loss at blind intersection surrounded by buildings in urban area. However, it would be important to know the effect of transparent wave on the path loss in actual environments. On the other hand, path loss models have been proposed to estimate easily the path loss in urban environment. In these models, the effect of transparent wave is not clear. In this paper, the effect of transparent wave from building walls on path loss characteristics at blind intersection in urban area is investigated by using the FDTD method. Additionally, the relationship between transparent wave and path loss models is also investigated.

Inter-vehicle communication (IVC) system using 700 MHz band to prevent car crashes has been proposed recently. In this paper, we first apply the FDTD method to the analyses of propagation characteristics at an intersection for IVC. We investigate the propagation characteristics considering the electrical conductivities, thickness and windows of building wall and pedestrians. As a result, it is shown that the electrical conductivities and thickness of building wall have a slight influence. In contrast, windows and pedestrians have a great influence on the propagation characteristics. Furthermore, the azimuth delay profiles are obtained by using the MUSIC algorithm.

In the development of inter-vehicle communication systems for the prevention of car crashes, it is important to know radio propagation characteristics at blind intersections. In field experiments and numerical simulations to investigate radio propagation characteristics, a half wavelength dipole antenna is assumed to be the wave source in many cases. However, a directivity of car antenna is changed by the effect of both car body and antenna position on car. In this paper, path loss characteristics considering antenna positions on car body at a blind intersection in urban area for inter-vehicle communications using 700MHz band are investigated. Additionally, simplified car models are proposed for the efficient analysis of radio propagation. Here, the hybrid method using both FDTD and ray-tracing methods is used for the radio propagation analysis.