Differentiable ray tracing for radio propagation modeling
(2026)
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Ph.D. manuscript - Jérome Eertmans.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 8.7 MB
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; - Abstract
- (en) Wireless communications are the foundation of modern technologies, such as smartphones, Wi-Fi networks, connected vehicles, and future infrastructures. The design of these technologies relies on accurate models predicting radio wave propagation in complex environments shaped by obstacles, reflections, diffraction, and interference. This book explores differentiable ray tracing for radio propagation modeling, an approach inspired by computer graphics and acoustics. By tracing radio waves through virtual environments and integrating differentiability into the simulation pipeline, this approach enables channel prediction and gradient computation for optimization, inverse problems, and machine learning workflows. The book is organized into three parts: Understanding, Building, and Using. The first part covers the fundamentals of radio wave propagation, including electromagnetic theory, geometrical optics, and diffraction. The second part presents ray tracing algorithms, including GPU-accelerated path tracing and discontinuity smoothing techniques for differentiable simulations. The third part demonstrates applications to channel modeling, localization, material calibration, dynamic propagation via the multipath lifetime map, and machine-learning-assisted generative path sampling. Additionally, the book highlights the link between scientific research and software development through open-source tools and reproducible implementations, showing how modern scientific computing can advance radio propagation modeling and support the design of future wireless systems.
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Citations
Eertmans, J. (2026). Differentiable ray tracing for radio propagation modeling. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/278727