The coupling of lower hybrid waves to the plasma is a crucial issue for efficient current drive in tokamaks. In this work, the coupling problem is attacked with a new tool in this context: an electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) code, XOOPIC (Verboncoeur J P et al 1995 Comp. Phys. Comm. 87 199). A model for a grill with 32 waveguides is constructed using perfectly conducting walls. The wave propagation in the waveguides and the coupling to plasma is followed. The wave–plasma interaction is studied and the evolution of the launched spectrum is resolved in the near-field of the grill. The reflection coefficients in the individual waveguides are determined.