Computing Exact Closed-Form Distance Distributions in Arbitrarily-Shaped Polygons with Arbitrary Reference Point

Abstract

We propose and implement an algorithm to compute the exact cumulative density function (CDF) of the distance from an arbitrary reference point to a randomly located node within an arbitrarily shaped (convex or concave) simple polygon. Using this result, we also obtain the closed-form probability density function (PDF) of the Euclidean distance between an arbitrary reference point and its neighbor node when nodes are uniformly and independently distributed inside the arbitrarily shaped polygon. The implementation is based on the recursive approach proposed by Ahmadi and Pan [1] in order to obtain the distance distributions associated with arbitrary triangles. The algorithm in [1] is extended for arbitrarily shaped polygons by using a modified form of the shoelace formula. This modification allows tractable computation of the overlap area between a disk of radius centered at the arbitrary reference point and the arbitrarily shaped polygon, which is a key part of the implementation. The obtained distance distributions can be used in the modeling of wireless networks, especially in the context of emerging ultra-dense small cell deployment scenarios, where network regions can be arbitrarily shaped. They can also be applied in other branches of science, such as forestry, mathematics, operations research, and material sciences.