Fast, Differentiable, GPU-Accelerated Ray Tracing for Multiple Diffraction and Reflection Paths

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Eertmans, Jérome, Lequeu, Sophie, Legat, Benoît, Jacques, Laurent, Oestges, Claude
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Eertmans, Jérome
Lequeu, Sophie
Legat, Benoît
Jacques, Laurent
Oestges, Claude
author_facet Eertmans, Jérome
Lequeu, Sophie
Legat, Benoît
Jacques, Laurent
Oestges, Claude
contents We present a fast, differentiable, GPU-accelerated optimization method for ray path tracing in environments containing planar reflectors and straight diffraction edges. Based on Fermat's principle, our approach reformulates the path-finding problem as the minimization of total path length, enabling efficient parallel execution on modern GPU architectures. Unlike existing methods that require separate algorithms for reflections and diffractions, our unified formulation maintains consistent problem dimensions across all interaction sequences, making it particularly suitable for vectorized computation. Through implicit differentiation, we achieve efficient gradient computation without differentiating through solver iterations, significantly outperforming traditional automatic differentiation approaches. Numerical simulations demonstrate convergence rates comparable to specialized Newton methods while providing superior scalability for large-scale applications. The method integrates seamlessly with differentiable programming libraries such as JAX and DrJIT, enabling new possibilities in inverse design and optimization for wireless propagation modeling. The source code is openly available at https://github.com/jeertmans/fpt-jax.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16172
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fast, Differentiable, GPU-Accelerated Ray Tracing for Multiple Diffraction and Reflection Paths
Eertmans, Jérome
Lequeu, Sophie
Legat, Benoît
Jacques, Laurent
Oestges, Claude
Signal Processing
Mathematical Software
51-08
D.2.2; D.2.8; D.2.13
We present a fast, differentiable, GPU-accelerated optimization method for ray path tracing in environments containing planar reflectors and straight diffraction edges. Based on Fermat's principle, our approach reformulates the path-finding problem as the minimization of total path length, enabling efficient parallel execution on modern GPU architectures. Unlike existing methods that require separate algorithms for reflections and diffractions, our unified formulation maintains consistent problem dimensions across all interaction sequences, making it particularly suitable for vectorized computation. Through implicit differentiation, we achieve efficient gradient computation without differentiating through solver iterations, significantly outperforming traditional automatic differentiation approaches. Numerical simulations demonstrate convergence rates comparable to specialized Newton methods while providing superior scalability for large-scale applications. The method integrates seamlessly with differentiable programming libraries such as JAX and DrJIT, enabling new possibilities in inverse design and optimization for wireless propagation modeling. The source code is openly available at https://github.com/jeertmans/fpt-jax.
title Fast, Differentiable, GPU-Accelerated Ray Tracing for Multiple Diffraction and Reflection Paths
topic Signal Processing
Mathematical Software
51-08
D.2.2; D.2.8; D.2.13
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16172