Apparatus and method for searching for wireless station locations

A wireless station location searching apparatus for performing calculations for searching a given communication area for locations of a plurality of wireless stations arranged in the communication area, said wireless station location searching apparatus comprising:

• an analysis portion calculating scattering information for each local structural segment based on an analysis performed taking account of near-field components of Maxwell's equations, the scattering information associated with a state of outgoing scattering in response to incidence of radio waves for said each local structural segment of an object constituting a local structure and disturbing propagation of radio waves within the communication area;
• a storage portion to store the scattering information;
• and
• a processing portion repeatedly for carrying out a repetitive arithmetic operation for optimizing the locations of the wireless stations, setting radio wave sending points and radio wave receiving points corresponding to the locations of the wireless stations during the repetitive arithmetic operation, calculating propagation paths between the sending points and the receiving points using a far-field approximation method for Maxwell's equations, extracting a propagation path in which propagation of radio waves is disturbed by the local structure from the calculated propagation paths, modifying the extracted propagation path using the scattering information stored in the storage portion, evaluating communication characteristics based on the modified propagation path, and
• wherein said processing portion carries out said repetitive arithmetic operation repeatedly a given number of times and outputs the locations of the wireless stations that give appropriate communication characteristics.