A Kirchhoff Integral Approach to Radio Wave Propagation in Fire

Christopher Coleman* and Jonathan Boan

The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005
E-mail: ccoleman@eleceng.adelaide.edu.au
Introduction
Fires in forest, and scrubland, require the coordination of teams of firefighters over large
areas. Key to this coordination is reliable radio communications. Apart from disruptions
to communications caused by irregular terrain, firefighters must also contend with the
possibility that the fire itself might disrupt communications. Low temperature ionization
of alkali metals, such as potassium, can be the cause significant conductivity in fires that
involve vegetation and this, in turn, can give rise to significant attenuation of radio waves
[1]. The refractive index n of the fire is related its conductivity through

n = 1 j 0 and the conductivity itself is related to the collision frequency , and

the electron density N , through = Ne 2 / m( + j ) where m is the mass of an
electron and e is its charge [2].

Fig. 1. Measured relative signal strength for propagation through a bonfire.

We will be interested in frequencies below 1GHz and, noting that collision frequencies
at ground level are the order of 2 1011 sec 1 , it is clear that Ne 2 0 / m . In the
geometric optics (GO) limit, this implies that the attenuation due to collisions will remain
approximately constant over frequency ( n 1 j 2 0 ). Experiments with real fires,
however, indicate that attenuation can vary appreciably with frequency. Fig. 1 shows the
results from experiments that measured radio propagation losses through a large bonfire
(the height of fuel was approximately 4m and diameter 8m). The relative signal strength
(the signal scaled on the strength before the fire starts) is shown for VHF (around
150MHz), UHF (around 450MHz) and GSM frequencies (around 950MHz). There is
some strong initial attenuation due to the fire and then the signal settles down to a level
that is higher than that before the fire was lit. This higher level occurs because of the
destruction of the fuel heap. The fire causes a much higher decrease in signal strength for
the UHF frequencies, a result that does not accord with a simple explanation in terms of
collision dominated plasma attenuation (as considered in [1]). It is clear that we need to

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investigate propagation through the fire in more detail than a simple GO calculation and
should include diffraction effects. This is the purpose of the current this paper.

An Electrical Model of the Fire

Temperatures at the centre of a fire, consisting of tree and bush vegetation, will be [1]
around T = 1000 o above the ambient temperature T0 (taken to be 300 o K ). The
temperature
profile
within
the
fire
is
modeled
by

T = T0 + T exp (h h f ) ((r rc ) rf )
2

with

r f = 5m

radius

and

height

h f = 10m . (Note that rc is the distance of the radio transmitter from the fire centre.) If

N a be the number density of alkali atoms in the fire, the electron density N , due to
alkali

ionisation,

can

N 2 = ( N a N ) 2mkT h

be

calculated

[3]

from

the

implicit

relation

3
2 2

exp( eVi kT ) where k is the Boltzman constant, Vi

is the ionization potential and h is the Planck constant. For the bonfire of the
experiments, the major contribution to ionisation comes from potassium [1]. A
representative density for this species, in the case of Australian bush vegetation, is
10 23 m 3 when the potassium is spread uniformly through the volume of the fire (note
that Vi = 4.34eV for potassium). The fuel pile is modeled as a dielectric mound and
measurements of propagation through wooded media [4] suggest that its conductivity will
be proportional to frequency. We take as representative parameters for the mound
= 0.0005 (at 1GHz) and rel = 1.05 for the fuel.
Propagation calculations, based on the GO limit, indicate that refractive effects will be
negligible, even though the plasma frequency can be above the radio frequency for both
VHF and UHF situations. The reason for this is that the collision frequency is several
orders of magnitude above the radio frequency and, as a consequence, the dominant
effect is attenuation due to collisions. It is clear that deviations from this picture arise due
to diffraction effects that are ignored in the GO limit. In the next section, we consider an
approach to propagation that incorporates the effects of diffraction.

The Kirchhoff Integral Approach

The Kirchhoff integral approach [5], is based on an integral equation of the form

E (r 0 ) =
S

E K (r , r 0 ) dS

(1)

It describes the electric field E close to surface S in terms of its values on S . Kernel K
is given by

K (r , r 0 ) =

j
4

exp( j d )
exp( j r )

+R
s
s
d
r

(2)

with R the ground reflection coefficient, the phase distance (between r 0 and r ) and
s the geometric distance (note that subscript d denotes the direct path and subscript r
the ground reflected path). If the propagation region is divided by a series of surfaces, a
suitably discretised version of equation (1) can be used to develop the electric field E
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between these surfaces. The major modification to the work of [4] is that the refractive
index will now be complex ( n = n + jn ) and this will lead to additional attenuation
due to the effect of electron collisions in the plasma. In essence, we replace the phase

distance in (5) by the complex phase distance given by = nds + j n ds . Integration

is along the direct path from r 0 to r for d and along the ground reflection path for r .

Propagation Simulations
The parameter values, given in the first two sections, were used to calculate the complex
refractive index profile for a bonfire having infinite extent orthogonal to the propagation
direction. (For short propagation paths, this should provide results that are indicative of
the experiments.) Fig. 2, Fig. 4 and Fig. 6 show simulated propagation losses for a
transmitter that is located 10m from the fire centre and Fig.3, Fig.5 and Fig. 7 show the
propagation losses without the fire. In terms of the experimental results, these simulations
represent the peak of the fire and end of the fire.
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show propagation loss on VHF frequencies and from which it will be
noted that there is significant recovery due to diffraction. In the case of UHF (Fig. 4 and
Fig.5) and GSM (Fig. 6 and Fig. 7) frequencies, however, the recovery is a lot less. The
results are summarized in Fig. 8 which shows the change in signal loss due to the fire.
The values are taken at a distance of 20m from the transmitter. For the height of the
antennas in the experiment (about 1.8m) the results show the same trends as those from
the experiment (i.e. a peak in loss at UHF). The propagation losses exhibit numerous
nulls, due to the destructive interference of direct and reflected propagation. All
frequencies exhibit anomalous changes in loss around these nulls, a result of energy
diffracted into the nulls. This possibly explains the smaller changes observed in the GSM
band. Fig. 9 shows the change for a receiver that is located 50m from the transmitter. It
will be noted that the extra distance has allowed some further recovery in the signals at
both VHF and UHF. Signals in the GSM band, however, are still strongly affected.

Fig. 2. Loss at VHF without fire.

Fig. 3. Loss at VHF with bonfire.

Fig. 4. Loss at UHF without fire.

Fig. 5. Loss at UHF with bonfire.

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Fig. 6. Loss in GSM band without fire.

Fig. 7. Loss in GSM band with bonfire.

Fig. 8. Change in signal loss (short range).

Fig. 9. Change in signal loss (long range).

Conclusion
Experiments have shown that fire can significantly attenuate radio signals and that the
effect can vary appreciably with frequency. Although there is significant loss due to
collisions in the fire plasma, this cannot fully explain these results as it is independent of
frequency. The current paper has used a modified Kirchhoff Integral approach to simulate
the effects of fire upon radio waves. The simulations have shown that diffraction over the
fire, especially at lower frequencies, can compensate for collision attenuation and help
explain the observed frequency dependence. Simulations have also shown that diffraction
can fill out propagation nulls and this could help explain the lack of fire induced
attenuation at GSM frequencies. Since the current simulations only use a 2D model of the
fire, they can only be regarded as a first step and the work is currently being extended to
a full 3D simulation. In addition, more precise data needs to be gathered concerning the
electrical properties of the fire and fuel.

References:
[1] K. Mphale, UHF/VHF Propagation Prediction in Australian Bushfires. PhD Thesis,
James Cook University, Australia, 2004.
[2] J.Schneider and F.W.Hofmann, Absorption and Dispersion of Microwaves in
Flames, Phys. Rev., vol. 116, pp. 244-249, 1959.
[3] L.S.Frost, Conductivity of Seeded Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas, J. Appl. Phys.,
vol.32, pp. 2029-2036, 1961.
[4] CCIR report number 1145, Propagation over irregular terrain with and without
vegetation, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, 1990.
[5] C.J.Coleman, A Kirchhoff Integral Approach to Estimating Propagation in an
Environment with Nonhomogeneous Atmosphere and Complex Boundaries, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., Vol. 53, pp. 3174-3179, 2005.

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