On the Limitations of Ray-Tracing for Learning-Based RF Tasks in Urban Environments

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Manukyan, Armen, Khachatrian, Hrant, Ghukasyan, Edvard, Raptis, Theofanis P.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Manukyan, Armen
Khachatrian, Hrant
Ghukasyan, Edvard
Raptis, Theofanis P.
author_facet Manukyan, Armen
Khachatrian, Hrant
Ghukasyan, Edvard
Raptis, Theofanis P.
contents We study the realism of Sionna v1.0.2 ray-tracing for outdoor cellular links in central Rome. We use a real measurement set of 1,664 user-equipments (UEs) and six nominal base-station (BS) sites. Using these fixed positions we systematically vary the main simulation parameters, including path depth, diffuse/specular/refraction flags, carrier frequency, as well as antenna's properties like its altitude, radiation pattern, and orientation. Simulator fidelity is scored for each base station via Spearman correlation between measured and simulated powers, and by a fingerprint-based k-nearest-neighbor localization algorithm using RSSI-based fingerprints. Across all experiments, solver hyper-parameters are having immaterial effect on the chosen metrics. On the contrary, antenna locations and orientations prove decisive. By simple greedy optimization we improve the Spearman correlation by 5% to 130% for various base stations, while kNN-based localization error using only simulated data as reference points is decreased by one-third on real-world samples, while staying twice higher than the error with purely real data. Precise geometry and credible antenna models are therefore necessary but not sufficient; faithfully capturing the residual urban noise remains an open challenge for transferable, high-fidelity outdoor RF simulation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_19653
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Limitations of Ray-Tracing for Learning-Based RF Tasks in Urban Environments
Manukyan, Armen
Khachatrian, Hrant
Ghukasyan, Edvard
Raptis, Theofanis P.
Networking and Internet Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
We study the realism of Sionna v1.0.2 ray-tracing for outdoor cellular links in central Rome. We use a real measurement set of 1,664 user-equipments (UEs) and six nominal base-station (BS) sites. Using these fixed positions we systematically vary the main simulation parameters, including path depth, diffuse/specular/refraction flags, carrier frequency, as well as antenna's properties like its altitude, radiation pattern, and orientation. Simulator fidelity is scored for each base station via Spearman correlation between measured and simulated powers, and by a fingerprint-based k-nearest-neighbor localization algorithm using RSSI-based fingerprints. Across all experiments, solver hyper-parameters are having immaterial effect on the chosen metrics. On the contrary, antenna locations and orientations prove decisive. By simple greedy optimization we improve the Spearman correlation by 5% to 130% for various base stations, while kNN-based localization error using only simulated data as reference points is decreased by one-third on real-world samples, while staying twice higher than the error with purely real data. Precise geometry and credible antenna models are therefore necessary but not sufficient; faithfully capturing the residual urban noise remains an open challenge for transferable, high-fidelity outdoor RF simulation.
title On the Limitations of Ray-Tracing for Learning-Based RF Tasks in Urban Environments
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.19653