Deterministic Ray Tracing: A Promising Approach to THz Channel Modeling in 6G Deployment Scenarios

Terahertz (THz) communication is considered to be
a key enabling technology for 6G due to its abundant available
spectrum resources. One prerequisite for implementing THz communication
systems is to understand and model the THz radio
channel in 6G deployment scenarios. However, new radio characteristics
in THz bands (e.g., channel sparsity, near-field propagation,
and large-scale antenna configuration) have brought new opportunities
and challenges to channel modeling in terms of modeling
complexity and accuracy. In this work, we aim to address these
opportunities and challenges with the deterministic ray tracing
(RT) approach. First, the propagation characteristics in THz
bands are discussed. We elaborate on why deterministic RT can
be a promising approach to model the propagation characteristics
in THz bands for 6G. Second, an RT-based channel modeling approach
is presented, which uses channel measurement data to calibrate
simulation parameters. Third, the performance of the RTbased
channel modeling approach is demonstrated through a comparison
between simulations and channel measurements. The
comparison results show that the RT-based channel modeling approach
can well describe the propagation characteristics, i.e., the
delay and spatial dispersion, channel sparsity, near-field propagation,
and non-stationarity, with reduced simulation complexity in
THz bands.