Momentum d47 PDF

Contract Number: IST-2000-28088 Project Title: Models and Simulations for Network Planning and Control of UMTS MOMENTUM
estimation n ic atio traff teris arac service ch
n& ratio integ mination disse
Project Acronym:
Information Report Number:
IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D47-PUB
Date of Delivery: Report Title:
2003-10-14 Final Report on Automatic Planning and Optimisation Thomas Kurner (TU-BS) Andreas Eisenblatter (Atesio) Hans-Florian Geerdes (ZIB) Daniel Junglas (TUD) Thorsten Koch (ZIB) Thomas Kurner (TU-BS) Alexander Martin (TUD) Erik Fledderus (TNO) Bernd Heideck (E-Plus) Thomas Winter (Siemens)
Editor: Authors:
Reviewers:
Abstract: This document summarises M OMENTUM s approach on automatic planning of the UMTS RF network conguration of large-scale networks. The approach covers all major aspects of automatic planning including an adaptive propagation model applicable for all relevant deployment scenarios, sophisticated heuristics to reduce calculation times, and mathematical optimisation methods. First results generated by these methods are presented, showing encouraging results. Key word list: UMTS, radio interface, planning, adaptive propagation model, mathematical model, mathematical optimisation, heuristics, optimisation results , IST, Key Action IV, Action Line IV.4.1 Key action: IV, Essential Technologies and Infrastructures Action Line: IV.4.1, Simulation & Visualisation Condentiality: M OMENTUM public
Document History Date 2003-09-02 2003-09-10 2003-09-18 2003-09-27 2003-10-08 2003-10-09 2003-10-10 2003-10-13 2003-10-13 2003-10-14 Version 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 Comment Initial draft Draft Path Loss Propagation Draft Introduction & Conclusion Draft Mathematical Toolbox Draft Optimisation Revision Draft Optimisation Results Review Version Layout Final Version Editor TK TK TK DJ AE TK TK TK AE AE/TK
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Contents
1 2 Challenges in UMTS Radio Network Planning Adaptive Propagation Models 2.1 Setting the Scene for Adaptive Propagation Models . . . . . . . 2.2 Transition between different DTMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Switching between models for small macro cells and micro cells 2.4 Indoor and outdoor propagation mechanisms: Interactions . . . 2.5 Combining the sub-models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Comparison with Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 11 11 15 28 33 39 41 43 43 43 46 46 47 53 54 54 56 62 63 65
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
Scope of Radio Network Optimisation 3.1 Mathematical Optimisation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Input to the Optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mathematical Toolbox 4.1 MIP Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Planning Results 5.1 Coverage and Capacity Shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Optimisation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Assessing the Optimisation Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion
Bibliography
3 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
List of Figures
1-1 1-2 1-3 2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 2-7 2-8 2-9 2-10 2-11 2-12 2-13 2-14 2-15 2-16 2-17 2-18 2-19 2-20 2-21 2-22 2-23 2-24 2-25 2-26 2-27 2-28 2-29 2-30 3-1 5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4 5-5 5-6 5-7 6-1 Fundamental difference between GSM and UMTS Radio Planning . Trial-and-error method in UMTS Radio Planning . . . . . . . . . . Fully automated UMTS Radio Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Propagation environments and congurations . . . . . . . . . . . . Example for statistical data derived from high resolution data . . . . DTMs with different resolution; terrain proles between BS and MS Land use data in 50 m resolution and building vector data . . . . . . Average relative building height in the A2 area . . . . . . . . . . . Macro cell prediction using the transition from A1 to A2 . . . . . . Prole vector and data available for the transition situation BS in A2 Drawing a prole vector between BS and MS from raster data . . . Fitting equally distributed buildings into prole parts . . . . . . . . Distribution of buildings into prole parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Solution for the gap problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Example for regions, where open areas are assigned . . . . . . . . . Prediction using M2-type model and transition for a BS located in A2 Result as in Figure 2-13 aggregated to a resolution of 50 m . . . . . M1-model with statistical database in A2 and land use data in A1 used Building vectors of the area at Berlin centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . Macro cell prediction in A2 area (see Figure 2-16) using model M1 Macro cell prediction using M2 and high-resolution data . . . . . . Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in macro cells . . Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in micro cells . . Results from different micro cell models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components determined by the sub-models . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components determined by the sub-models . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components determined by the sub-models . . . . . . . . . . . . . Total result achieved by superposition of the path loss . . . . . . . . Example of a prediction result for outdoor-to-indoor propagation . . Determining the number of penetrated walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . Example of a prediction result for indoor-to-outdoor propagation . . Flowchart of the adaptive propagation model . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison measurements with predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . Three types of site sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WP - simulation results for Lisbon public scenario . . . . . . . . . WP - simulation results for Berlin public scenario . . . . . . . . . . Scales for result maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Effects of conguration changes, The Hague . . . . . . . . . . . . . Planning result for The Hague (Figure 5-3 for scales and units) . . . Min pathloss map, Berlin Alexanderplatz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Planning result for Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components of automatic optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9 9 12 17 18 20 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 25 25 27 27 28 29 31 32 34 35 35 36 38 38 39 40 42 45 55 56 56 57 58 60 61 63
4 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
List of Tables
2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 2-7 5-1 Examples for concrete realisations of generic models M i . . . . Application areas of models and required extensions . . . . . . Available data layers in 5 m resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Statistical data available in 50 m resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . Assignment of constant parameters to land use classes . . . . . . Relative prediction time for different models . . . . . . . . . . . Availability of Sub-models within the M2- and M3-type models Running time of Set-Covering on The Hague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 14 16 16 19 27 30 59
5 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
List of Abbreviations
2G 3D 3G 3GPP BPM BS CIR COST DTM GSM LOS MIP MPM MS NLOS QoS RF SHO TPM TRX UMTS VPM WCDMA WP XML second generation three-dimensional third generation Third Generation Partnership Project Building Penetration Model Base Station Carrier-to-Interference Ratio Eurpoean COperation in the eld of Scientic and Technical research Digitla Terrain Model Global System for Mobile Communications Line-of-Sight Mixed Integer Program Multi Path Propagation Plane Model Mobile Station None-Line-Of-Sight Quality of Service Radio Frequency Soft Handover Transversal Propagation Plane Model Transmitter/Receiver Universal Mobil Telecommunications System Vertical Propagation Plane Model Wideband Code Division Multiple Access Work Package eXtendable Markup Language
6 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
1 Challenges in UMTS Radio Network Planning

With the introduction of UMTS new challenges for radio network planning are coming up. These challenges are forced by two main aspects. On one hand UMTS has been developed mainly to support new data services including higher and variable data rates. This is a clear difference to the second generations (2G) systems, like GSM, where speech trafc is still pre-dominant. Therefore the rules and algorithms for the dimensioning and optimisation of GSM networks are typically based on the characteristics of the speech service. On the other hand particular aspects of the underlying WCDMA radio access method impose fundamental changes in the planning methodology. For GSM good and proper methodologies, algorithms to support the radio planning process have been established. The whole GSM planning process can be sub-divided into three main subsequent steps: coverage, parameter, and capacity planning. Coverage planning consists of the selection of the location and the conguration of the antennas. The coverage area achieved by a single antenna depends mainly on the propagation conditions and is independent from all other antennas in the network. During the following parameter planning process all radio parameters (frequencies, hand-over conguration and power control parameters, etc.) are dened. Once a cell is in operation trafc measurements are made yielding to the prediction of required number of channels. The increased trafc does not affect the coverage area or the parameter settingsat least in a reasonable good rst approximation. In the case an additional TRX has to be installed new parameter settings for this TRX may be required. Only when an additional site may be required for capacity reasons the increase of trafc has a (positive) inuence on the coverage area. For GSM well-developed algorithms both for the synthesis and analysis of networks exist and a lot of appropriate planning tools are commercially available now. In contrast, the situation for UMTS is much more complicated [12, 41]. The cell range in a CDMA system does not only depend on propagation conditions but also on the trafc load of the cell. Furthermore, the amount of interference received from other cells depends on their trafc load as well. Additionally the trafc load of a cell is inuenced by the soft hand-over areas, which are mainly dened during the parameter planning step. Coverage, parameter, and capacity planning are, thus, highly coupled processes yielding integrated planning of these three steps. This fundamental difference between the planning processes in GSM and UMTS is displayed in Figure 1-1. The analysis of UMTS networks taking into account these effects is done using static Monte-Carlo simulations as it has been applied to analyse voice services in cdmaOne networks. Although in the recent past these techniques have been adapted to WCDMA [34, 42], the method is still too time-consuming to analyse large networks. In M OMENTUM work package 2 (WP -) methods to accelerate the analysis process have been successfully developed [39]. Nevertheless these methods are still by far too slow, if a synthesis of a network has to be done. This means that synthesis of networks can be done by trial and error only, when Monte-Carlo simulation is applied. A trail and error approach is already difcult in GSM networks with its independent planning steps. These difculties will increase dramatically, when coupled planning
7 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
GSM
UMTS
Coverage
Traffic Forecast
BSS Parameter Traffic Forecast Path Loss Extension TRX/ location
Coverage
UTRAN Parameter
Change TRX/ location
Figure 1-1: Fundamental difference between GSM and UMTS Radio Planning processes are considered. The trial-and-error- method is explained in Figure 1-2. Based on coverage and capacity requirements a rst educated guess of a reasonable conguration has to be done. This conguration includes the site selection, the number of sectors, all antenna parameters (pattern, direction, height, tilt, etc.) as well as the determination of codes, carriers and SHO parameters. Based on this conguration a network evaluation using Monte Carlo Simulation is done. Propagation predictions and trafc maps are taken into account. After the evaluation an adjustment of parameters is done and the above described procedure starts again. This cycle is repeated until the required quality is achieved. It is obvious that this process is quite time-consuming. Up to now more efcient systematic synthesis methods do not exist for WCDMA. As far as automatic methods in UMTS radio network planning are concerned only preliminary results to this problem based on a characteristic coverage as dened in 2G radio networks exist [17, 23, 37, 40]. These approaches try to achieve a target coverage using as few BSs as possible from a given list of predened ones. The target coverage is dened by the received power level, which depends on the path loss, which is insufcient as explained above. The goal of M OMENTUM WP - has been to develop automatic optimisation and synthesis methods in order to overcome the disadvantages of the above mentioned approaches. These methods have to avoid the time-consuming feedback-loop between evaluation and conguration. This feedback loop has to be replaced by a fully automated optimisation process, see Figure 1-3. In order to achieve this goal as a rst step analytical approaches are needed to get a deeper insight into possible solutions of the optimisation problem from a mathematical point of view. Changes of some input parameters should lead to a predictable behaviour of the output parameters. Based on this deep understanding of the problem a further challenge is to develop fast heuristics, taking into account coverage, cell loading and parameter settings simultaneously and self-consistently. With this generalised UMTS coverage model a general merit function, based on QoS parameters, has to be evaluated and used for the development of computer based optimisation algorithms. Furthermore, a very complicating factor for modelling is the analysis and description of a typical UMTS multi-service environment, since at the beginning of the project no heuristics or analytic approaches
8 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Data/Parameters
Network
Choosing/Changing
Evaluation
Simulation
Figure 1-2: Trial-and-error method in UMTS Radio Planning
Data/Parameters
Network
Choosing/Changing
Evaluation
Fully automated optimization
Figure 1-3: Fully automated UMTS Radio Planning
9 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
exist for the description of such environment. When it comes to automatic radio planning, the optimisation process has to rely completely on the result of the propagation prediction. The accuracy of these propagation prediction methods has a crucial impact on the overall quality of the planning and optimisation results. Within the last decade a couple of single propagation models suitable for the frequency range of UMTS have been developed in various projects, e. g. see COST 231 [9], COST 259 [10], ACTS/STORMS [37], RACE/CODIT [8], besides those appearing in literature, e. g. [5]. The drawback of these models is that they typically only give reasonable agreement when applied to specic areas. First approaches to combine several of these models have been successfully applied to the case of macro-cells using either low-resolution or highresolution data, e. g. [27]. In order to exploit such approaches for UMTS it is necessary to develop further criteria to switch between low- and high-resolution data, as well as automatically selecting between micro- and macro-cell models. Such criteria are not known up to now. However, these criteria are critical in UMTS since the cell range depends on both service type and data rate yielding a large variation of cell ranges even within the same cell. With the successful development of such criteria an adaptive propagation model can be implemented. In order to achieve the goal of an automatic planning of UMTS RF network conguration WP - has identied three major sub-problems: designing an adaptive wave propagation model identifying analytic and/or heuristic network performance measures and developing the algorithms for network synthesis The approach developed in M OMENTUM is described in this document, which is structured as follows: In Section 2 the adaptive propagation model developed in M O MENTUM is described. Chapter 3 describes the input for the optimisation and gives a brief sketch of mathematical model. The mathematical tools applied are briey described in Chapter 4. Finally the results are presented in Chapter 5. Note that Chapters 3 and 4 contain only a short summary, since the detailed material is available in other public deliverables of M OMENTUM WP - [13, 14].
10 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2 Adaptive Propagation Models

There are many planning tools these days for cellular planning purposes, within which propagation models play an important role, for either coverage or interference estimation. In these tools, the radio planner still has a key part, for example when determining in which areas a specic propagation model should be used, since no automatic choice is performed by the tool. An enormous variety of different requirements to the prediction model in the various propagation environments exists. Therefore different propagation models within one large planning area are applied. Although the science of propagation models is an area of intensive research a universal propagation model applicable to all possible propagation situations is not available. There is even no perspective, that such a propagation model will be available in the long term. Reasonable results in propagation modelling are achieved by nding more or less accurate models for the most dominant propagation phenomena observed for specic applications. The specic application area of a propagation model is described for example by the carrier frequency, the typical antenna heights for both base station (BS) and mobile station (MS), the distance between them and the structure of the environment (indoor/outdoor, build-up/open/forested, etc.) in the reception area of the signal. One consequence of the requirements for this specic application is the availability of propagation models applicable only within a restricted validity range. Furthermore, these propagation models require digital terrain models (DTMs) which may be different either in content (e. g. land use data vs. detailed building data), granularity (e. g. different number of land use classes and/or attributes) and/or resolutions. When applying automatic methods as described in this document accurate prediction models are required covering the possible deployment scenarios and operational environments as described for example in [35]. Therefore in M OMENTUM a general framework for a fully automatic and adaptive selection of propagation models has been introduced [6, 33] addressing the integration of different models in terms of different deployment scenarios, use of different digital terrain databases and the identication of parameters for the selection of different models and/or the transition between models. The framework has been tested and applied to M OMENTUMs German reference scenarios [35] using E-Plus specic implementation.
2.1 Setting the Scene for Adaptive Propagation Models

This section describes the basic ingredients of an adaptive propagation model and also introduces the modules used for the specic implementation. 2.1.1 Basic Components of an adaptive propagation model
In a UMTS network the full range of cell types will be used. This covers macro cells, which are deployed in rural and suburban areas, small macro cells and micro
11 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
cells occurring in urban areas as well as pico cells in hot spot areas like airports and exhibition halls. In the latter case indoor solutions are applied. These indoor base stations are at least a potential interfering source in the outdoor area. Since also signals from outdoor base stations can be received within a certain penetration loss at indoor environments a complete description of the interaction between indoor and outdoor areas is important. Typically low resolution data as dened in [6] is available for all environments, whereas the more expensive high resolution data is typically available for the dense urban areas only. The corresponding areas can be dened as follows: A1: Area where only low-resolution is available. A2: Area where also high-resolution data is available. Subdivision into: A2a : outdoor areas A2b : indoor areas Theoretically all possible combinations of cell types, deployment mode and DTM availability have to be considered.
low resolution data (A1)
M1
high resolution data (A2)
M2(+M4)
M3(+M4) M5
Figure 2-1: Propagation environments and congurations of practical interest However, not all possible congurations are of practical interest. Therefore only the following propagation models will be used in the adaptive UMTS propagation model, see Figure 2-1: macro cell models using low-resolution data (M1), small macro cell models using high-resolution data (M2), micro cell models using high-resolution data (M3), outdoor-to-indoor models using high-resolution data (M4), and indoor-models using high-resolution data (M5) and their extension to the indoor-to-outdoor scenario. The Mi are generic descriptions of prediction models. Concrete realisations for these generic prediction models can be found in Table 2-1, which includes a classication of the prediction models according to [6].
12 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Model COST231-Hata [9] Hata [22] Walsch-Bertoni [43] COST231-Walsch-Ikegami [9] Vehicular Test Environment [1] GENERAL model (MOMENTUM model) [11] Basiles Model [2] Bergs recursive street micro cell model [3] Wiarts model [44] Jakobys model [25] Pedestrian Test Environment [1] Gonc alves Model [7, 20] De Jongs Model [26] Mottley-Keynan-Model [36] Gahleithner-Bonek-Model [18] COST231-Berg Model [4] E-Plus hybrid prediction model for macro cells [31] E-Plus ray-tracing model for dense urban areas [32] Indoor coverage extension to E-Plus ray-tracing model [32]
Generic Description M1 M1 M1, M2 M1, M2, (M3) M1, M2 M1 M1, M2 M3 M3 M3 M3 M3 M5, M4 M5 M5 M4 M1 M2 M4
Table 2-1: Examples for concrete realisations of generic models M i , based on the models given in [6]
13 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2.1.2
General Approach
For a complete interference calculation of the network, a matrix containing the mutual coupling of cells is required. This coupling matrix is computed by a superposition of predictions with different models and DTM. Therefore a couple of model extensions, transition models and switching criteria between models are required. The necessary developments can be grouped into four main tasks: 1. For those cases where the prediction area of a cell covers different DTM appropriate model extensions for the transition between different data sources are required. This includes a model extension of M1-type models in order to exploit high-resolution data in some parts of the prediction area (BS in A1, MS in A2), whereas M2-type models need an extension to low-resolution data (BS in A2, MS in A1). These model extensions are described in Section 2.2 of this document. 2. In dense urban areas three different cell typessmall macro, micro and pico (indoor) cellsmay be deployed. Therefore switching criteria between M2-, M3-, and M5-type are required. Since the decision between M2 and M3 is not binary smooth transition functions are required. Details are given in Section 2.3. 3. The interaction between indoor and outdoor congurations (outdoor coverage by indoor base stations and indoor coverage by outdoor base stations) requires model extensions (M4) to the corresponding models M1/M2/M3 (BS in A1 or A2a, MS in A2b) and M5 (BS in A2b, MS in A2a) respectively. These extensions are explained in Section 2.4. BS location A1 A1 M1 MS location A2a transition of M1 to high-resolution areas (Section 2.2.1) switching between M2 and M3 (Section 2.3) extension of M5 to outdoor areas (Section 2.4.2)
A2a
A2b
transition of M2/M3 to highresolution areas (Section 2.2.2) extension of M5 to outdoor areas (Section 2.4.2)
A2b M1, extension to high-resolution areas + building penetration M4 (Section 2.4.1) M2/M3, extension M4 for building penetration (Section 2.4.1) M5
Table 2-2: Application areas of models and required extensions Table 2-2 summarises the different combinations that are of interest for the adaptive propagation model described in this document, and gives an indication in which part of the document the corresponding model extensions are described.
14 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2.1.3
Basic models used for the specic implementation
In the last years E-Plus has developed propagation models covering the whole range of path loss predictions for outdoor mounted BS in cellular mobile systems in the 2 GHz frequency range [29, 31, 32]. These models will be the basis for the specic implementation of the adaptive propagation model and will be described roughly in this section. The hybrid propagation model for macro cells [31] combines several prediction models in a modular construction system. The selection process of the single modules is completely unsupervised. Input data are mainly terrain height and land use information organised as raster data (resolution 50 m50 m). Additionally street vector data is used in order to take into account the effect of street orientation and to detect line-of-sight situations between BS and MS antennas within street canyons. For typical macro-cellular applications the prediction accuracy in urban areas is sufcient even with such low-resolution data. However, high-resolution building data is more suitable for BS antennas mounted at or only a few metres above roof-top level in dense urban areas [30], where a run-time efcient 3D propagation model [32] is applied taking into account propagation within a vertical plane as well as multi-path signals according to the concept introduced in [28]. Run-time efciency is achieved by taking advantage from the ndings in [32] that for dense urban areas multi path propagation seems to be important only within a distance of up to 500 m to the BS. Therefore at larger distances considering propagation within a vertical plane is sufcient. A further improvement of the prediction accuracy is achieved by considering vegetation effects. Indoor coverage by outdoor BS is considered by empirical and semi-empirical extensions to the outdoor prediction model. 2.1.4 Introduction of Statistical Data
A key issue is the identication of parameters that can be used to perform an automatic selection without the intervention of the user of a planning tool. These parameters are typically derived from digital terrain data bases and depend on the availability of A2-areas and the properties of the data at the specic location. The properties of the data layers available in A2-areas with a resolution of 5 m are listed in Table 2-3. The E-Plus City model [32], applies these high-resolution raster layers. Apart from the pure selection process, some of the models mentioned in Table 2-1 can also make use of a statistical database, which is derived from the layers of a highresolution database. A prominent example of a model requiring such data is Basiles model [2], which will be the basis for the transition model described in Section 2.2.1. The statistical database, which has been derived from the data layers in Table 2-3 and is used for the specic implementation of the adaptive propagation model is described in Table 2-4. An example for the relation between the high-resolution and the (lowresolution) statistical database is shown in Figure 2-2 for the layers Hb , H , and S .
2.2 Transition between different DTMs

For a complete interference calculation the coupling between cells located in different application areas Ai has to be quantied. In practical network planning the two types
15 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Data ht (xn , yn ) V (xn , yn ) B (xn , yn ) O (xn , yn ) Hb (xn , yn )
w(xn , yn ) r (xn , yn )
Description of data terrain height: absolute terrain height (without buildings) above sea level vegetation occupation: pixel containing vegetation building occupation: pixel containing a building open areas/street occupation: pixel containing neither vegetation nor buildings building height: absolute building height above sea-level; relative building height is calculated as the difference between Hb (xn , yn )andht (xn , yn ) street width; calculated for each raster pixel street orientation; calculated for each raster pixel Table 2-3: Available data layers in 5 m resolution
Data H
Description average relative building heights
standard deviation of average absolute building height
average street width
IV
vegetation index
IB
building index
Data Generation weighted average over all relative building heights within a window of 200 m200 m; available as preprocessed layer standard deviation of the absolute building height calculated along a prole or within a specied prediction area; not available as pre-processed layer; calculated during prediction run-time averaged over all street width values within 50 m50 m; available as preprocessed layer percentage of pixels with pseudo clutter value 2 within 50 m50 m; available as pre-processed layer percentage of pixels with pseudo clutter value 1 within 50 m50 m; available as pre-processed layer
Table 2-4: Statistical data available in 50 m resolution
16 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
5 m re so lu tio n b u ild in g h e ig h ts
5 0 m re so lu tio n
Figure 2-2: Example for statistical data (50 m resolution) derived from high resolution data (5 m resolution): absolute building heights H b (upper left), average relative building heights H (upper right), street width w (lower left) and average street width s (lower right) ; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG of data (A1 and A2, see Section 2.1) are used. Therefore both directions of transitions have to be considered. The transitions have to be taken into account when the terrain proles between the BS and MS are drawn, see Figure 2-3. In both cases it is important that the resolution and the granularity applied to the terrain prole is homogeneous for the whole prole. Otherwise it will not be possible to apply fast proling and line-of-sight-checking algorithms, which typically require most of the computing time of a predictor. The solid parts of the prole lines correspond to those parts where the original data resolution can be used. The dashed lines represent those parts where the data resolution changes. For those parts of the prole transition models are required. Based on this assumption the main task of the transition models is to transform the DTM information available at and near to the MS into the resolution and granularity of the DTM available at the BS. Section 2.2.1 describes the models which can be applied to situations represented by the terrain prole BS1 to MS1, whereas Section 2.2.2 introduces the model extensions required for the prole between BS2 and MS2. Furthermore, in Section 2.2.3 a possibility to speed-up M2-type models based on the transition models is presented. 2.2.1 Transition from low-resolution to high-resolution areas
This transition problem is the less complex one since the data at the mobile end contains more details than the propagation model can process. This means that the precise information (detailed building information) has to be generalised to a lower
stre e t w id th
17 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
A1 MS2 A2 A1 BS2 MS1 BS1
Figure 2-3: DTMs with different resolution and granularity; terrain proles between BS and MS degree of complexity. On the other hand the data should contain still more information as the low-resolution land use data in order to be able to increase the prediction accuracy. Macro cell models exploit the digital terrain height and land use data. The terrain height described is used to determine the large-scale terrain obstacles due to hills, mountains, etc. The variation of this ground height is large compared to the resolution in both DTMs. Therefore the re-sampling of the digital terrain height is trivial and does not require any changes of the prediction algorithms. This is different when land use data is considered. Typically land use data allows only a rough statistical description of the terrain morphology. Land use data is typically exploited by the macro-cellular prediction models by applying clutter loss correction factors [9, 11]. Clutter loss factors are usually determined by a calibration from measurements. A more advanced method is the assignment of geometrical and/or electrical to the land use classes parameters. For more details see [2, 29, 31]. The same set of parameters is assigned to all pixels carrying the same land use class. The advantage of assigning parameters to land use classes is that the clutter loss is not a constant but has an inherent dependency on the specic height of MS and BS as well as the distance between BS and MS. Furthermore, these types of prediction models are able to process also data from a statistical database as described for example in [2, 30]. In [2, 30] the improvements of prediction accuracy achievable by a statistical database are shown. Based on this information the general approach of the transition model can be formulated as follows: 1. In the A2-areas a statistical database is derived in the resolution of the database available in A1 based on the high-resolution information available in A2. The different layers of the statistical database should be picked from Table 2-4 based on the availability of the data layers in the A2 area and also based on the possible input parameters the macro-cell can process. 2. When evaluating the terrain prole the parameters from the data layers of the statistical database are used in the A2-areas (dashed line in Figure 2-3) instead of the land use data.
18 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
3. The prediction model uses this data for the path loss calculation. It should be noted that even prediction models, that apply only clutter loss correction factors can make use of a statistical database. An example how clutter loss correction factors can be derived from geometrical parameters is given in [24]. This general approach is now applied to the E-Plus macro cell model [31]. Instead of using clutter loss correction factor for urban areas the E-Plus model uses set of parameters for the mean relative building height H , the average street width S and the average building separation B is assigned for each of the four different urban land use classes in order to compute the basic path loss in urban areas. The model distinguishes four types of urban land use classes. The assignment of parameters to the four urban type land use classes is shown in Table 2-5. These values are used, Land use class Dense urban Urban Suburban Industrial H [m] 10,1 8,9 8,0 6,3 B [m] 58,5 59,9 50,6 43,4 S [m] 16,8 22,5 18,2 18,2
Table 2-5: Assignment of constant parameters to land use classes in the E-Plus macro cell model [31] if the mobile is located in A1. Otherwise the concrete values from the statistical database are used instead. The average building separation B is derived from the building occupation B. In order to demonstrate the transition model it is applied at the boundary of availability of high-resolution data at Berlin. Figure 2-4 shows the land use data together with building vectors and the areas A1 and A2. The average mean building height within the A2 area is displayed in Figure 2-5. A prediction is done for a BS located in A1 using an omni-directional antenna located 23 m above ground height (mean building height at BS position is 21 m), see Figure 2-6. It can be observed, that the prediction result looks more homogeneous in the A1 area when compared to the rapid variations observed in the A2 area. This is not surprising since the ground terrain height at Berlin is more or less constant. Therefore the path loss is mainly inuenced by the land use. By a comparison of the land use information in Figure 2-4 with the prediction it is obvious that the predicted signals change mainly when the land use class changes. On the other hand heavy signal variations in the A2 area can be observed, where rapid changes of the mean building height occur. 2.2.2 Transition from high-resolution to low-resolution areas
M2-type predictions require high-resolution building data as input. If a BS and MS is located in A2 and A1, respectively, the prole vector drawn from the BS to the MS has to process two types of data in the different parts of the prole vector, see Figure 2-7. A general approach how this problem can be tackled by M2-type models is described in this section followed by the specic implementation at E-Plus.
19 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
A2
A1
Figure 2-4: Land use data in 50 m resolution and building vector data; A1 and A2areas; c Clutter Data (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
Figure 2-5: Average relative building height in the A2 area; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
Figure 2-6: Macro cell prediction using the transition from A1 to A2 for a base station located in A1; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
20 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
A2
detailed building data
A1
land use data
profile points
Figure 2-7: Prole vector and data available for the transition situation BS in A2 and MS in A1 2.2.2.1 General approach. For the general understanding of following problems it is important to know how a prole vector is dened between a BS and MS using raster data, see Figure 2-8. In order to accelerate the proling process standard methods from computer graphics are used, see for example [16]. In these methods the values from the raster pixels located along the direct prole line are assigned to prole points, which are generated by projection of the pixel centres. Therefore the distance between the prole points is not equidistant. The prole points along the prole line together with their attributes (height, land use class, etc.) are called the prole vector.
BS, MS profile center of pixel
Figure 2-8: Drawing a prole vector between BS and MS from raster data using standard methods from computer Graphics In order to be able to apply M2-type models in A1-areas a distinction has to be made according to the land use type for the terrain prole drawn from 5 m resolution: Land use type urban. Generic buildings are tted into the terrain prole at the points of land use type urban. The corresponding parametersbuilding height h, street width w, building separation b (compare Table 2-5)have to be assigned to the different land use classes. The tting process always starts at MS-end of the terrain prole assuming that the MS is located in the middle of the street. Hence the distance from the MS to the rst building seen towards to the BS is w/2, see Figure 2-9. The parameter dlanduse in Figure 2-9 denotes the length of the path along subse-
21 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
dlanduse
b
dbuilding
w 2
W
building
w 2
profile points
Figure 2-9: Fitting equally distributed buildings into prole parts of clutter type urban quent pixels of the same land use class. Note that in the general case the distance of the prole point representing the MS and the next prole point representing a building is not w/2. In those cases the MS position is moved towards the BS to the next prole point which has a distance of w/2. This guarantees consistency with M1-type models like [31], where the mobile is assumed to be in the centre of the street. A consequence of that rule may be a slight inaccuracy in the distance dependent path loss term. However, this can be neglected at the relatively large distances to the BS where this transition model is applied. In order to guarantee a smooth transition between areas of different land use classes also buildings on the very left-hand side of this land use class (see land use class dense urban area in Figure 2-10) should have ideally also a distance of w/2 to the beginning of the next land use class or the beginning of the detailed building data.
w 2
open area
urban area
dense urban area
Figure 2-10: Distribution of buildings into prole parts with different land use classes; possible occurrence of gaps Note that w is constant for all pixels of the same land use class. Hence this procedure of producing buildings out of land use data is applied as long as the condition dw is fullled, where d = dlanduse nb n = [dlanduse /b] (2.2) (2.3) (2.1)
22 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
If the relation in equation 2.1 is not fullled large open areas (gaps) within the urban areas may occur at the boundary between two different land use classes resulting in an underestimation of path loss in those regions due to the large street width assumed, see Figure 2-11. This problem is resolved by introducing a smaller building of the width dbuilding = d w (2.4)
An example showing the solution of the gap problem is shown in Figure 2-11. Land use type forest. The prole points from pixels carrying the land use type forest are marked as pixels with vegetation occupation.
dlanduse d*
dbuilding*
w 2
w 2
Figure 2-11: Solution for the gap problem
land use type open
land use type urban
open area assignment
Figure 2-12: Example for regions, where open areas are assigned although the land use type is urban
Land use type open. The prole points from pixels carrying the land use type open are marked as pixels with open area occupation. In order to have a smooth transition between open and urban area land use classes prole points within an urban land use class located between pixels an open area land use class and the rst building are assigned to open area occupation as well, see Figure 2-12.
23 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2.2.2.2 Specic implementation using E-Plus models. The general approach is applied to the E-Plus ray-tracing model [32]. Some adjustments are made in order to achieve consistency in the transition region between the M1- and M2-type models [31, 32]. The following rules are introduced in detail: At pixels carrying the land use type open path loss is calculated according to the path loss calculation for open areas in the macro cell model [31]. At pixels carrying the land use type forest the lateral wave approach used in [31, 29] is used, if the path length through vegetation is larger then 300 m and the distance between the beginning of the vegetation area and the MS is at least 400 m. In all other cases the vegetation sub model from [32] is used. Note that the extension to lateral wave propagation is now also applied within A2-areas. In those situations within the ray-tracing model, where the COST-231-Walsch-Ikegami-Model is selected and the multi path sub model is not applied, the path loss is reduced by 8.7 dB as a heuristic derived from the ndings in [21]. At distances larger than 2 km the method described in Section 2.2.3 is applied. 2.2.2.3 Results. Figures 2-13 through 2-15 show the prediction results for a base station (antenna height 23 m above ground level, omni-directional antenna) located in the A2-area. The results produced by an M2-type model and a 5 m5 m resolution are depicted in Figure 2-13. The same prediction result aggregated to a resolution of 50 m50 m is displayed in Figure 2-14. Both predictions reveal a shadowing effect into 45 north direction which is caused by a single high building (see arrow in Figure 2-13 to Figure 2-15). For a comparison Figure 2-15 shows the result achieved by the macro cell model (M1-type) and the statistical database, where this shadowing can not be predicted.
BS
Figure 2-13: Prediction using M2-type model and transition for a BS located in A2 (prediction resolution 5 m); area taken as zoom from Figure 2-4. The arrow points to a building higher than the BS; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
24 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
Figure 2-14: Same prediction result as in Figure 2-13 aggregated to a resolution of 50 m; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
BS
Figure 2-15: Prediction for same BS as used in Figure 2-14; M1-model with statistical database in A2 and land use data in A1 used; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
25 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2.2.3
Application of the transition model to speed up M2-type applications
Although the initial idea of developing the transition model has been to predict path loss prediction inside A2 areas, when the BS is located in A1areas, the model can be applied to scenarios where the BS is in A2 areas as well. This approach has the potential to reduce calculation times for large areas dramatically. In [32] it is shown that multi-path propagation in urban areas delivers a signicant contribution only within a circle of about 500 m around the base station. At larger distances the relevant part of the signal energy propagates within a so-called vertical plane. On the other hand for large distances path loss is inuenced by the large-scale variation of building height in conjunction with the building height and street width at the MS position rather than by the detailed height of each individual building. Both the largescale behaviour and the mean building height and street width can be retrieved from a statistical database. Therefore the following rule can be applied in order to speed-up prediction times: M2-type prediction model is used within a circle of 2 km around the base station Transition model A1A2 (see Section 2.2.1) is applied for distances larger than 2 km. M2-type prediction models typically provide predictions with a resolution of 5 m5 m, whereas the transition model provides results in a 50 m50 m grid. Depending on the specic task of further processing and the capabilities of the radio planning tool in terms of processing mixed grid resolutions an adaptation of the resolution is necessary. This means that either the 5 m5 m results have to be aggregated to a 50 m x 50 m resolution (averaging over 100 pixels) or the 50 m x 50 m pixels have to be split into 5 m5 m (assigning identical values to each pixel of a 5 m5 m grid). Results for the area (total size 8 km 10 km) shown in Figure 2-16 are depicted in Figure 2-17 and Figure 2-18. The prediction based on the statistical database is only presented in Figure 2-17, whereas the combination according to the above mentioned rule is shown in Figure 2-18. The dashed circles in these two gures represent an area of 2 km around the BS. Although the prediction model used for calculating the result in Figure 2-18 changes at a distance of 2 km to the BS a hard transition is not observed. The gain in terms of calculation time using this approach is demonstrated by Table 2-6. The reference calculation time of 3500 sec, which corresponds to 100%, has been determined using the E-Plus ray-tracing model producing a path loss grid of 5 m5 m resolution and a prediction radius of 2 km. It can be seen that the computing time for the transition model can be neglected compared to the computing time of the ray-tracing model. The multi path sub-model is applied only for distances less than 500 m. Since the relative increase in computing time from 200 m to 500 m is larger compared to the increase observed between 500 m and 2 km it is obvious that the multi path sub-model requires most of the computing time.
26 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
prediction radius [m]
100 200 500 1000 2000 5000 20000
Relative prediction time [%] M2-type model M2-type model + transition model transition model A1 A2 A1 A2 4 4 0.1 14 14 0.1 86 86 0.1 88 88 0.1 100 100 0.1 514 100 0.2 101 0.4
Table 2-6: Relative prediction time for different models; reference M2-type model with prediction radius 2000 m: 3500 s measured at a SUN workstation (Ultra60, 360 MHz, 1 GB RAM)
Figure 2-16: Building vectors of the area at Berlin centre, co-ordinate grid size resolution 1 km 1 km; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
BS
Figure 2-17: Macro cell prediction in A2 area (see Figure 2-16) using model M1 and the statistical database. Dashed circles indicate a radius of 2 km
27 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
Figure 2-18: Macro cell prediction using M2 and high-resolution data for distances less than 2 km (results aggregated to 50 m grid); same area as used in Figure 2-17
2.3 Switching between models for small macro cells and micro cells
In dense urban areas the base station antenna may be deployed either above or below roof-top levels. Depending on the height of the base station antenna relative to the height of the surrounding buildings the cell is classied as being a small macro (antenna mounted above average rooftop level) or micro cell (antenna mounted below average rooftop level), see e. g. [9]. A number of prediction models exist in the literature, that can handle these two deployment scenarios, see [6] for a detailed list of these models. However, most of these models have been developed for only one of these two deployment scenarios. In this section it will be shown, how the corresponding models can be combined into a more general model covering both scenarios focusing on the denition of automatic criteria for the selection of the corresponding components. 2.3.1 Propagation mechanisms and sub-models
The dominant propagation phenomena for small macro and micro cells have to be identied. Based on this identication the sub-models can be dened. In this context a sub-model is a part of an M2- or M3-type model. This allows a classication of the models from Table 2-1 in terms of available sub-models. With such a classication it will be possible to compose the general model by combination of different submodels. 2.3.1.1 Propagation phenomena. Following the approach in [28] the propagation in dense urban areas can be sub-divided mainly into three different parts: 1. Propagation in a Vertical Plane, characterising the energy transported along a prole between the BS and MS covering diffraction over roof-tops in noneline-of-sight (NLOS) cases as well as reection processes and free-space propagation in line-of-sight (LOS) cases.
28 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2. Multipath Signals, characterising signals that propagate between BS and MS via single or multiple scattering or reection processes occurring on building walls. 3. Propagation in a Transversal Plane, characterising the energy transported in a propagation plane perpendicular to the vertical plane covering mainly diffraction around the building corners. It has to be noted that in some models listed in Table 2-1 the sub-models are not mutually exclusive. For example, some semi-empirical micro cell models exist, e. g. [44], which takes into account contributions from both scattering (multi-path signals) and diffraction around building corners (propagation in a transversal plane). Theoretically a general prediction model can consider signals from all three components, whatever the location of BS and MS are. However the required computational effort for the determination of the multi-path signals and the possible propagation paths in the transversal plane does not allow such a brute force procedure. In order to achieve reasonable calculation times, i. e., acceptable for practical application the consideration of propagation phenomena has to be restricted to those scenarios where a signicant contribution to the complete signal can be expected. Based on the propagation phenomena described above three basic sub-models can be dened: Vertical Propagation Plane Model (VPM) Transversal Propagation Plane Model (TPM) Multi Path Propagation Model (MPM) As a supplement to these basic sub-models also models for the consideration of vegetation (VM) as dened in [32] or for the penetration through buildings (building penetration model BPM) as introduced by de Jong [26] can be applied.
Multipath Model (MPM) Vertical Plane Model (VPM)
BS
MS
Figure 2-19: Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in macro cells The distribution of the models applicable in dense urban areas (M2- and M3-type) is set up in Table 2-7 according to their sub-model classication. Since some of the
29 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Model Walsch-Bertoni [43] COST231-WalschIkegami [9] Vehicular Test Environment [1] Basiles Model [2] Bergs recursive street micro cell model [3] Wiarts model [44] Jakobys model [25] Pedestrian Test Environment [1] Gonc alves Model [20, 7] E-Plus ray-tracing model for dense urban areas [32] De Jongs model [26]
VPM LOS x x x x x x x x x x
VPMN NLOS x x x x
MPM
TPM
BPM
VM
x x x
x x x x
x x x x
Table 2-7: Availability of Sub-models within the M2- and M3-type models from Table 2-1 models presented there consider the vertical plane for LOS only the VPM sub-models are distinguished also by their capability to handle LOS and NLOS situations. The VPM is selected for all types of scenarios. For small macro cells, see Figure 2-19, the path loss by diffraction around the corners is much higher than diffraction over roof-tops, which is quite obvious when the number of diffraction points and the corresponding diffraction angles are considered. Therefore the TPM is omitted for macro cell scenarios. However, the MPM is important, if the distance between MS and BS is below 500 m, see [32]. In micro cell scenarios, see Figure 2-20, also propagation in the transversal plane has to be considered. 2.3.2 Composing the General Model
The composition of a general model reduces to two sub-problems. The rst subproblem consists of nding the criteria for the selection of the appropriate sub-models. The second sub-problem is to dene the rules for the superposition of the sub-models. Solutions to both sub-problems depend heavily on their characteristics picked from the list in Table 2-7. In this paper the discussion will be restricted to a rough description of the specic implementation only. A more detailed overview is given in [33]. 2.3.2.1 Sub-models used in the specic implementation. The specic implementation uses the E-Plus ray-tracing model, which already contains the VPM and MPM. This model is completed by a TPM model from the list in Table 2-7 contain-
30 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Multipath Model (MPM) Vertical Plane Model (VPM)
BS
MS
Tranversal Plane Model (TPM)
Figure 2-20: Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in micro cells ing ve different models usable as a TPM. Note, that the Berg-model is included as TPM in the Pedestrian Test Environment model as well. Therefore only the models from Berg, Wiart, Jakoby and Gonc alves have been considered further. Prediction results achieved by these four models for a typical micro cell scenario (BS antenna 5 m above ground level, omni-directional antenna) are shown in Figure 2-21. The models from Jakoby and Gonc alves include a VPM as well, whereas the other two models are pure TPMs. The results from Bergs and Wiarts show at which parts signicant TPM contributions are expected since the terrain processing is the same for all four models. Gonc alves model did not show TPM contributions at all parts, where Wiart and Berg do, which is mainly due to the fact, that Gonc alves mainly predicts signal enhancements at the street crossings.The signal levels for NLOS of the remaining three models reveal that Wiart predicts more optimistic values when compared to Berg. On the other hand Jakoby is more pessimistic than Berg. Finally Berg s model has been selected for the specic implementation, which has also been selected by 3GPP for the Pedestrian test Environment [1]. Apart form the three basic sub-models VPM, TPM and MPM also the Vegetation Model (VM), see [32], is applied to all three sub-models. Furthermore, de Jongs model for penetration through buildings (BPM) is applied as an add-on to the TPM. 2.3.2.2 Criteria for the selection of sub-models. The VPM exists in all scenarios. Hence no selection criterion is required. However, depending on the selection of the concrete models from the list in Table 2-7, a distinction between different VPM implementations is required. Therefore a differentiation between LOS/NLOS and micro cell/ macro cell scenarios has been made. The MPM is selected based on a distance criterion, that is only, if the distance between BS and MS is below a certain threshold the MPM is selected. Selecting the TPM is the most complex one. As a rst criterion the TPM is selected only if the MS is within the same distance to the BS as specied for the MPM. The second criterion makes a decision according to the base
31 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 2-21: Results from different micro cell models; upper left: Bergs recursive street micro cell model [3]; upper right: Wiarts model [44]; lower left: Jakobys model [25]; lower right: Gonc alves model [20]; same legend as in Figure 2-25; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
32 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
station height relative to the building heights and considers the street width at the MS location as well. Therefore a decision function [33] is introduced. The decision function k gives values between 0 and 1, where k = 1 for a pure micro cell scenario and k = 0 for a pure macro cell scenario. The TPM is selected only if k is larger than a threshold kth . k is calculated as the product of k1 , k2 and k3 (0 < ki < 1). k1 = 1, if the BS antenna height is below the average building height at the BS location. k 2 depends on the BS antenna height, the average building height and the standard deviation of the building heights along the prole between BS MS. k 3 depends on the street width. 2.3.2.3 Superposition of the sub-models. The superposition is done in the following way by calculating the total path loss L total : Ltotal = where L1 = min L2 , LV P M L2 = 10 log 10 10
LV P M /10
L1 , L3 ,
if LOS exists between BS and MS else
(2.5)
(2.6) + 10
LM P M /10
(2.7) (2.8) (2.9)
L3 = 10 log 10 10LV P M /10 + 10L4 /10 L4 = min LM P M , LT P M
and LV P M is the path loss in the vertical plane, L T P M is the path loss in the transversal plane, LM P M is the path loss in the vertical plane and L V P M is the path loss in the vertical plane taken from a micro-cell model (M3-type) when k > k th . The predicted received power achieved by the three different sub-models and the BPM are shown in Figure 2-22 to Figure 2-24 at three antenna heights (5 m, 20 m, 25 m). The mean building height at the BS location is 21 m. The three antenna heights have been selected in order to have all three possible scenarios: a distinguished micro cell scenario (5 m), a distinguished macro cell scenario (25 m), where the TPM is switched-off (because of k1 = 0) and one scenario where the antenna height is around roof-top level (20 m). Figure 2-24 contains the results from the VPM and MPM components only. An interesting result from the lower two antenna heights is that at most locations, where a signal from the transversal plane can be received a multi path signal with at least comparable strength is received as well. This is an interesting result by itself. This means, that most of the energy in micro cells propagates via scattering processes. In this case the signal strength determined by scattering processes only (using MPM) is approximately the same as computed using models for a combined consideration of both diffraction around the building corners and scattering processes (using TPM).
2.4 Indoor and outdoor propagation mechanisms: Interactions

This section presents prediction models for describing the interactions between indoor and outdoor propagation. Outdoor-to-indoor propagation is dealt with in Section 2.4, while indoor-to-outdoor progagation is handled in Section 2.4.2.
33 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 2-22: Components determined by the sub-models in the specic implementation (BS antenna height 5 m). upper left: VPM; upper right: MPM; lower left: TPM; lower right: BPM; same legend as in Figure 2-25; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
34 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 2-23: Components determined by the sub-models in the specic implementation (BS antenna height 20 m). upper left: VPM; upper right: MPM; lower left: TPM; lower right: BPM; same legend as in Figure 2-25; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
BS
BS
Figure 2-24: Components determined by the sub-models in the specic implementation (BS antenna height 25 m). left: VPM; right: MPM; TPM and BPM not applied in this situation; same legend as in Figure 2-25; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
35 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Figure 2-25: Total result achieved by superposition of the path loss from sub-models for the three different antenna heights: 5 m (top), 20 m (bottom left) and 25 m (bottom right); c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
36 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
2.4.1
Calculation of indoor coverage from outdoor base stations
An detailed description of a general model that is extended for indoor coverage predictions can be found in [32]. This model can be applied to any prediction model that is able to predict outdoor path loss based on high-resolution building data. This section gives a brief summary of the general approach and the specic implementation. 2.4.1.1 General approach. Indoor coverage prediction can be done as an add-on to any outdoor M2-type path loss prediction model, which is able to predict outdoor path loss values based on high-resolution building data. The basic calculation steps can be summarised as follows: 1. Check for LOS between all walls intersected by the terrain prole between BS and MS of considered oor and the BS. 2. If LOS exists, use a LOS-model based on [4]. 3. In the NLOS case the indoor path loss for the oor level is calculated based on the outdoor path loss at ground oor of all pixels surrounding the building by applying a constant building penetration loss. 4. For the higher oors an empirical height gain is applied. 5. In both LOS and NLOS only one average value per oor and building is determined since no additional information about the interior structure of the buildings is available. In those cases, where only a prediction based on low-resolution data (including a statistical database) is available, the constant building penetration factor is applied to all buildings within the low-resolution pixel. This applies for example to models described in Section 2.2.1. 2.4.1.2 Specic implementation. The specic implementation is the one that is described in [32], where also a detailed verication with measurements can be found. The constant building penetration loss applied is 22 dB. An example for the complete indoor and outdoor coverage prediction is given in Figure 2-26 for the same base station as used in Section 2.3. 2.4.2 Calculation of outdoor coverage from indoor base stations
The fraction of outdoor path loss, where the antenna is mounted inside a building in order to provide dedicated indoor coverage, is usually quite high due to the high penetration losses. In conjunction with the relatively low transmission powers of such cells the signals are receivable (even as an interferer) only within a very small distance outside the building. Therefore a quite simple approach based on the MultiWall-Model introduced by Mottley-Keenan [36] is sufcient.
37 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
BS
Figure 2-26: Example of a prediction result for outdoor-to-indoor propagation; indoor and outdoor coverage for a macro cell using a base station at 23 m height; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG 2.4.2.1 General approach. If a BS antenna is deployed indoor the path loss is calculated by the following equation [36]: Ltotal = Lf reespace + nw Lwall where Lf reespace nw Lwall free space loss number of walls penetrated penetration loss of each wall (2.10)
The number of walls penetrated is determined by counting the number of intersections between buildings and the prole vector drawn between the BS and MS, see Figure 2-27.
Figure 2-27: Determining the number of penetrated walls
2.4.2.2 Specic implementation. In the specic implementation the indoor-tooutdoor prediction model is automatically selected, if the BS is in A2-areas, the BS
38 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
location is inside the building vector and the antenna height above ground level is below the height of the building. This means that the co-ordinate of the antenna has to be chosen carefully (located slightly outside the building), if antenna is mounted on the wall, but outside the building in order to prevent this indoor mode for outdoor micro cells. The wall penetration loss (L w all) is set to 22 dB. This value ensures the consistency to the outdoor-to-indoor propagation model.
Figure 2-28: Example of a prediction result for indoor-to-outdoor propagation; indoor and outdoor coverage for a base station antenna deployed within a building; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG An exemplary result is shown in Figure 2-28. In this gure only the signal outdoor and inside the building of deployment is shown. However, also the outdoor-toindoor model described in Section 2.4.1 can be applied yielding an indoor-outdoorindoor-model.
2.5 Combining the sub-models

All the prediction model extensions, switching criteria and transition models described in Sections 2.22.4 have been integrated into one adaptive propagation model. The overview illustrating the work ow is available in Figure 2-29. This adaptive propagation model automatically analyses the availability of digital terrain data, processes the digital terrain and makes decisions on the models and sub-models to be used based on the location and antenna height of the BS and MS. The only selection the user has to make is the grid size of the path loss results. The grid size is distinguished into high-resolution (p = 5 m in the specic implementation) and low-resolution (p = 50 m in the specic implementation). The owchart of the adaptive model is displayed in Figure 2-29. The rst decision is made based on the BS location, where an M1-type prediction model is selected, if the BS is in A1-type areas. If parts of the prediction areas cover A2-areas as well additionally the transition model from Section 2.2.1 is applied. For those cases where the BS is in A2a areas the ray-tracing-model, described in Section 2.3 is applied, if the MS is in A2areas and at a distance of less than 2 km. Figure 2-30 summarises also the relevant
39 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
start
A1
BS location
A2b
A2a A1 MS location A1 Macro cell model (M1) + Transition Model A2 MS location
A2
Indoor-to-Outdoor-Model
M2-type-model (VPM) + Transition Model
Macro cell model (M1) > 2000 m Distance BS->MS chapter 4 < 500m M2-type-model (MPM) M2-type-model (VPM) + Trans. Model
500m < d < 2000m
k>kth
no
high
yes
M2-type-model (TPM) Generate highresolution grid M2-type-model (VPM)
Figure 2-29: Flowchart of the adaptive propagation model (p corresponds to the grid size of the path loss grid)
low
Superposition of VPM/MPM/TPM Apply M4-type model to all indoor locations
high
low
Aggregate to lowresolution grid
ready
40 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
selection criteria and the superposition. For distance larger than 2 km the VPM of the ray-tracing model is applied to the statistical database according to Section 2.2.1. In case the MS is located in A1-areas the transition model introduced in Section 2.2.2 is used. The Indoor-to-Outdoor model (Section 2.4.2) is applied, if the BS is in A2b (indoor deployment). Based on the required resolution of the resulting path loss grid the generated grids are either split into high-resolution grids or aggregated into lowresolution grids in those cases where the grid size is not identical to the output grid size. Additionally, in those cases, where a high-resolution grid is selected both outdoor and indoor coverage is determined in A2 areas. If only a low-resolution path loss grid is selected the mean outdoor path loss is determined for each pixel of the grid. The owchart in Figure 2-29 is valid for both the general approach presented in this document as well as for the specic implementation, of course.
2.6 Comparison with Measurements

Since the specic implementation is based on E-Plus sub-models, which are published and compared with measurements in the open literature a separate verication of the models has not been done. However, for some parts of the reference scenarios of M OMENTUM also measurement data is available. Figure 2-30 shows an example from a measurement run for a small macro cell located in the Karlsruhe reference scenario. In this case the City-Prediction model [32] has been selected by the adaptive propagation model. Additionally the prediction by the simple M OMENTUM prediction model [6, 11] has been included. The M OMENTUM model has been used to produce the path loss grids of the public scenarios [15, 19]. The M OMENTUM model consists basically of a combination of Okumura-Hata-Model and a knife-edge model using a rene effective antenna height module and the four clutter classes open, forest, urban and water. It can be observed, that the City prediction model follows most of the variations of the measurement, which is not the case for the simple model, although it is able to predict the general tendency.
41 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
-30 -40 -50 received power / dBm -60 -70 -80 -90 -100 -110 -120 1 101 201 301 401 measurement bin 501 601
Measurement Adaptive propagation model(as used for reference scenarios) Simple MOMENTUM model (as used for public scenarios)
Figure 2-30: Comparison measurements with predictions by the City prediction model [32] and the simple MOMENTUM model [6, 11]
42 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
3 Scope of Radio Network Optimisation

As stated before one goal of WP - is to develop automatic planning and optimisation methods for the radio network interface with focus on the static installation of radio base stations. We are thus concerned with the following decisions: which of the candidate sites to use as base station locations; what sectorisation to use at each site; which antenna types serve the individual sectors; what are the heights and the tilts of the antennas; and how much power to allocate to the pilot signals. These decisions are to be taken for each site in a planning area. The goal is to design a network that is capable to support the offered trafc at a minimum cost.
3.1 Mathematical Optimisation Models

The corresponding optimisation problem is formalised in different ways in the mathematical optimisation problems presented in [13, 14]. In both cases, the satisfaction of users demand is of primary importance and the cost minimisation is subject to meeting this goal. The second model, in [13] strictly enforces that all user demand is satised so that the optimisation may not choose to leave areas with trafc uncovered. As a consequence, the latter model requires a planning situation in which the available network infrastructure is in principle able to cope with the trafc. We will come back to this later. Formalising the optimisation problem is not solving it, but formalising the problem is often a good step towards solving the problem. Lets rst explain why simply providing a sound mathematical model in the form of a mixed integer linear programming model does not solve the problem. Although there has been stunning progress in developing general purpose mixed integer programming solvers (academic and commercial) over the past decade, the M OMENTUM network optimisation problems are simply too challenging for state-of-the-art solvers. Nevertheless, we use these models for solving the planning and optimisation tasks in several ways. On the one hand, the model presented in [13] is indeed often solvable using mixed integer programming solvers for subproblems of larger planning problems. In Section 4.1 we sketch how the ability to solve small problems can be used when solving the large M OMENTUM network planning scenarios. On the other hand, the mathematical models also serve as guidelines or role models for the development of heuristic methods. Such methods do not guarantee to produce an optimal solution to the planning problem, but ideally they empirically produce good results within reasonable running times. Several examples of heuristic network planning methods are presented in Chapter 6 of [13]. An overview of these methods is also provided in Section 4.2.
3.2 Input to the Optimisation

Prior to successfully mastering the planning and optimisation task, the mere generation of all required input to the planning and optimisation process turns out to be a challenge itself. In addition to most of the input required for classical (static) network simulation, see WP - , automatic network planning requires a whole new dimension
43 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
of input data. While a xed network conguration is given for network evaluation, the task of network planning is to come up with a good network design. For doing so, all degrees of freedom and all limitations have to be specied explicitly or implicitly. It has to be specied which sites to set up Node-B equipment are available which Node-B equipment is available which antenna locations are available at a site, e. g. roof-top corners whether certain sector numbers are required per site which antenna types may be used whether restrictions occur in setting azimuths and tilts which antenna heights may be used per site which costs are associated with planning decisions which service (mix) is the network to be planned for which additional planning guidelines to obey These are some examples from a potentially very detailed list of specications for a planning task. The ability to answer these questions is built into the M OMENTUM XML formats [15], and we make extensive use of this ability in dening the M O MENTUM planning scenarios in [35]. Chapter 3 of [13] provides a good overview of what enters the denition of a planning task and how this data is retrieved from the XML data les. One issue concerning the input data provision shall be pointed out specically, namely, the denition of reasonable antenna installations for each site (consisting of an antenna location, type, height, azimuth, electrial and mechanical tilt). We take a semi-automatic approach to derive suggestion for such congurations, which we call installation site sets. Three types of site sets are used during WP - optimisation: Star. A star is a set of installations with at most one installation per azimuth (in steps of 10 ). That is, each feasible azimuth direction is represented by one candidate installation with a specic antenna type, height, electrical and mechanical tilt. Blossom. A blossom is a subset of a star, where all installations are separated in azimuth by at least 30 . Clover leaf. A clover leaf is again a subset of a star, it contains at most three installations, all of them separated in azimuth by at least 90 . These concepts are illustrated in Figure 3-1. A star, a blossom, and a clover leaf are provided as part of the optimisation input for each potential site. An extension to the regular M OMENTUM XML format is used for this purpose. The stars, blossoms, and clover leaves are determined via an analysis of path loss and trafc conditions around a site.
44 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
(a) Stars
(b) Blossoms
(c) Clover leaves
Figure 3-1: Three types of site sets used for planning, Berlin Alexanderplatz; c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
45 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
4 Mathematical Toolbox
This section deals with solving the mathematical optimisation problems derived from network planning tasks. We sketch how the application of mathematical programming techniques as well as heuristic planning methods are employed to obtain cheap UMTS radio networks that are nevertheless capable of supporting the users demand (as specied as part of the planning task). The mathematical optimisation models given in [13, 14] are used in four ways: we solve the original model using mathematical programming techniques on small subproblems we solve the original model using heuristics on the original problem we solve modied/simplied models using mathematical programming techniques on small subproblems we solve modied/simplied models using heuristics on the original problem The use of the rst and the third approach is addressed in Section 4.1, while the second and the fourth approach are addressed in Section 4.2. All approaches discussed in the following suffered from a serious aw in most of the planning tasks designed within WP -. The user demand to be served turned out to be excessively high, much too high to be served by any reasonable network conguration on the basis of the available sites and hardware.
4.1 MIP Approach

This sections explains how the mathematical optimisation problem obtained from the planning task as indicated in Section 3.2 is solved using mathematical programming techniques. The basic idea is to apply a standard mixed integer linear program solver, ILOG CPLEX Version 8.0 in our case, to mixed integer programs (MIPs) associated with subproblems of the original planning tasks as follows: 1. All potential sites are pre-congured with clover leaves (see Section 3.2), and the solution to the MIP is used to determine which sites to be used in the nal network design. 2. Each of the sites selected in the rst step is supplied with a blossom of installations (again, see Section 3.2); and the corresponding MIP is used to determine which 1 up to 3 installations shall be used at each site. 2 . Alternatively, a sequence of MIPs is solved. The starting point is the result from the rst step. One site is selected for optimisation. This site is then supplied with all installations from its star (see Section 3.2). The solution to the MIP determines which of the installations to use, given that the surrounding network remains. The resulting network is part of the input to the next iteration, where another site is optimised. This procedure is executed at least once for each site.
46 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
The MIP-based optimisation is typically performed on the basis of 510 trafc snapshots at a time. While the procedure described as (2 ) performs a local optimisation, (1) and (2) have a global scope. Both steps may therefore depend on solving a rather larger, challenging MIP. This did not work in all cases. Whenever solving such a large MIP failed, we resorted to (2 ). A pre-congured network with all potential sites is then used as starting point, and the local optimisation is also allowed to close the site it is currently optimising. Despite performing only a local optimisation, the procedure (2 ) fully takes the surrounding network conguration into account, including all interference stemming from surrounding cells.
4.2 Heuristics
In Sections 6.1 through 6.5 of [13] we described many heuristic methods for power assignment, mobile assignment and installation selection. All of these heuristics followed more or less the general scheme described in Algorithm 1. Algorithm 1: General Heuristic Scheme 1. Select a subset I I of installations. 2. Assign (some) mobiles from M to I . 3. Run a power assignment algorithm to evaluate the result of the previous steps. 4. If the conguration found is infeasible or not good enough go back to either installation selection or mobile assignment.
In this section we will now present which of the heuristic algorithms are actually feasible for large-scale, real-world problem instances. 4.2.1 Power Assignment
Recall from [13] that the Power Assignment Problem is dened as follows: Assume we have a conguration C = (I, M, X ), that is a set I I of currently selected installations, a set M M of currently served mobiles and a set X I M of current mobile/server-connections, where (i, m) X mobile m is currently served by installation i. Given this conguration C , nd (minimal) feasible transmission powers for each connection in X . If no such assignment can be found, the conguration C is claimed infeasible (or I NVALID).
47 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
In [13] we also described how we can compute a value (or score) for feasible congurations and how we can compare two different congurations or identify optimal congurations based on this score. As outlined in [13], we must run a power assignment strategy as soon as we want to decide whether a currently given conguration is feasible or if we want to compare different congurations. All heuristic algorithms from [13] proceed by selecting some solution and trying to improve it by a local exchange routine. In other words, all heuristics produce a very large number of congurations that must be tested and compared in order to decide in which direction the search should proceed. Thus power assignment is the bottleneck of all these algorithms and hence an efcient power assignment strategy is vital in order to keep the running times of the mobile assignment and installation selection algorithms tolerable. In [13] we have described three variants for power assignment in detail: an iterative approach, an approach based on LP techniques and an approach that results in solving a system of linear equation. The system in the latter approach is normally of size |M| |M| but it was shown in [13, 38] how this system can be reduced to a system of size |I| |I|. It turned out that Algorithm 2 using this linear system of reduced size is the only strategy that is reasonable for large-scale instances. 4.2.2 Mobile Assignment
Also described in [13] was the Mobile Assignment Problem: Given a set I I of currently selected installations and a set M of mobiles, nd a best feasible conguration C = (I, M, X ) where M M. Among all mobile assignment algorithms described in [13], Algorithm 3 has proven to be the only feasible one to be used as a subroutine in the selection of installations. This algorithm gives each mobile in M exactly one chance to be served and is therefore much faster than algorithms that try different servers for each mobile. On the other hand, it basically simulates the best-server planning rule and thus produces reasonable results. In order to improve solutions returned by the above algorithm we tried different local search/improvement techniques such as Tabu Search, Simulated Annealing or Evolution Algorithms. For these strategies it turned out that the only applicable one is Tabu Search which provides visible improvement in reasonable time. 4.2.3 Installation Selection
Similar to the Power Assignment and Mobile Assignment Problems, the Installation Selection Problem was also dened in [13]: Given a set I of installations and a set M , nd an optimal subset I I of installations, that is one that allows an optimal conguration C = (I, M, X ) with M M .
48 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Algorithm 2: Power Assignment Input: A conguration C = (I, M, X ). 1. For both uplink and downlink derive a (different) quadratic system of linear equations as follows: (a) Fix xim = 1 0 if (i, m) X and, otherwise. (4.1)
(b) For each served mobile pick its corresponding CIR-inequality (in which all integral variables are xed now). (c) This yields two inequalities for each mobile: one for uplink and one for downlink. (d) Collect all uplink CIR-inequalities in one system and all downlink CIRinequalities in another one. (e) In the two systems replace inequality with equality and assume pilot power to be constant. 2. Both systems are now |M ||M | systems of linear equations in |M | continuous power variables. 3. Reduce the obtained |M | |M | systems to |I | |I | systems (details for this reduction can be found in [13, 38]). 4. Solve both systems of linear equations in order to determine power values for each mobile/server-connection. 5. If there is at least one connection for which the transmission power found is higher than the maximum allowed transmission power. In this case return I N VALID (the conguration C is infeasible). Otherwise all transmission powers assigned meet their respective upper bounds. In this case return these power values.
49 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Algorithm 3: Mobile Assignment Algorithm Input: A set I I and a set of mobiles M M that should be assigned to some installation i I . 1. For each mobile m M dene
+ im m = min i I | mi
(4.2)
and nd im I that satises

mi + i = m . m mm
(4.3)
2. Sort the mobiles in M to obtain a sorted list (m 1 , m2 , . . . , m|M | ) that satises mj mk for j < k , that is, sort the mobiles by decreasing sum of attenuation. 3. Set C = (C is the set of chosen connections). 4. For j = 1, . . . , |M | perform the following step 5. If it is possible to additionally connect mobile m j to installation imj add the connection (mj , imj ) to C . 6. Return C .
50 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Among the set of installation selection algorithms that were described in [13], there are only two algorithms that can handle our large-scale problem instances reasonably well: The rst one is the Greedy Algorithm 4, the second one is the Set Covering Algorithm 5. Algorithm 4: Installation Greedy Input: A set of installations I and a set of mobiles M . 1. Set I = and S = . 2. For each installation i I nd a set of mobiles M i that i can (potentially) serve if all other installations are off. 3. Let ci denote the cost for installation i, c s the cost for site s S and cm the cost for an unserved mobile. With these values dene Ci = ci |Mi | cm Ci = Ci Ci + c(i) if (i) S and, otherwise. (4.4) (4.5)
4. Find i0 = arg min Ci | i I . 5. If Ci0 < 0 set I = I {i0 }, S = S (i0 ) and M = M \ Mi0 . 6. Set I = I \ {i0 }. 7. If I = and M = goto step 2. 8. Return I (and S ). If the problem instances become huge (say I has cardinality of several thousands and M has cardinality of a few ten thousands) the Greedy Algorithm also fails to terminate in an acceptable time. As the solutions of the Set Covering Algorithm also tend to be better than those of the Greedy Algorithm our recommendation is as follows: Use the Set Covering Algorithm in order to obtain results in reasonable time. In [13] we proposed to run the set covering algorithm multiple times and to change to cost for the installations during the algorithm. This technique is not feasible if problem instances grow large. Instead one should adjust the parameters of the algorithm to the given problem instance and compute only one set covering solution. (4.6)
51 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Algorithm 5: Installation Set Covering Input: A set of installations I and a set of mobiles M . 1. For each installation i I nd a set of mobiles M i that i can (potentially) serve if all other installations are off. 2. Dene the matrix A = (aij )i=1,...,|M|,j =1,...|I| by aij = 1 0 if the i-th mobile is in Mj and, otherwise. (4.7)
3. Solve the set covering problem min

iI
xi Ax 1 x {0, 1}
|I|
(4.8)
4. In the set covering problem (4.8) each variable xi corresponds to an installation i I . Dene I = i I| xi = 1 in the optimal solution to (4.8) . 5. Return I . (4.9)
52 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
Of course, we did not only try to use Greedy and Set Covering, but also wellknown techniques like Tabu Search, Simulated Annealing or Evolution Algorithms. However, it turned out that all these algorithms are way too slow and therefore inapplicable for large-scale, real-world instances of our problem.
4.3 Conclusions
Using the Set Covering algorithm together with the Greedy mobile assignment algorithm and I I power assignment we are (and have been) able to determine solutions of appropriate accuracy in relatively short (compared to the problem size) running times. The fact that we can determine good solutions in short time even for very largescale real-world problem instances justies the Feedback Optimisation Scheme that was presented in [13].
53 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
5 Planning Results
We now discuss the effectiveness of our automatic planning approach on the M O MENTUM planning scenarios [35].
5.1 Coverage and Capacity Shortages

As already indicated in Section 3.1, the optimisation model is very sensitive to the balance between trafc demand on one side and offered site locations, allowed directions, and possible tilts and heights on the other. In some scenarios the supply of infrastructure did not sufce to serve all the trafc. 5.1.1 Detecting Shortages
Recall that we have two objectives in radio network planning: providing coverage and providing capacity. Achieving both of these goals depends on a sufcient supply of potential sites as specied within the scenario. We found means to easily identify areas where this is not the case, i. e., demand and possibilities do not match. We computed a minimum obtainable pathloss map. To do this, for each pixel the best pathloss that is obtainable allowing every possible antenna azimuth for every possible location is computed. If in the resulting map the pathloss for a pixel is too high to allow coverage even using the maximum pilot power, it is clear that no solution, i. e., possible network conguration, exists that covers this pixel. Since this map records the best possible value for each pixel, we know that any conguration has to do worse. So the maximum possible pathloss map is a valuable tool to detect areas which cannot be covered given the current possibilities, thus indicating the need for additional locations. To analyse capacity is a bit more involved. In practice we used the network congurations provided by the operators for the scenarios, but any sane conguration, using all possible sites and suitable tilts would do. Using this conguration we compute the uplink and downlink load for the cells, based on the average trafc grid. If this load is exceedingly high, it is obvious that it is impossible to handle the trafc without additional cells. Since we used all possible locations and fully populated them, again additional sites are needed. Typical examples for this problem are the Lisbon and Berlin (public) scenarios. However, it is not feasible to add new sites to the scenario during the automatic planning process. The availability of site locations is subject to conditions and restrictions outside the scope of WP -. For each additional site, a set of available antenna locations would have to be provided, each antenna location having a distinct isotropic propagation grid on a selection of heights. These propagation grids would then have to be generated using all available building and terrain information. (The generation of path loss grids for the public scenarios on the basis of the M OMENTUM path loss predictor [33] would have been an option. This has not been pursued within the project.)
54 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
5.1.2
Scenarios with Shortages
Lisbon Public. Evaluation by WP - of the network conguration provided by the operator for the Lisbon scenario resulted in 46% missed trafc overall (by missed trafc we refer to trafc that is left unserved because either outage or dropping occurred). As can be seen in Figure 5-1, this reaches values over 70% at some sites. Since all possible locations were used, there is not much room for improvement. It is denitely not possible to nd an acceptable conguration with the locations provided. We made some limited tries to mend this situation by scaling the trafc data. This was not very successful: either the trafc was scaled uniformly, leading to large areas nearly void of trafc, or the trafc was scaled selectively in the high trafc areas, which lead to an levelling of the areas which more or less rendered the mobility model useless. Discussions with the operators made clear, that the only correct or real solution would be to add more potential sites. This was not possible due to lack of time and man-hours. While of course a tuned network might give better results, in practice there is no difference between 46% missed trafc and 30% missed trafc since the network is useless to the customer either way. For these reasons the results of automatic planning are indicator maps that show overloaded areas. Comparisons showed, that these resembled the results obtained by the WP - static simulator very closely and resulted in pictures similar to Figure 5-1(b).
(a) Total blocking
(b) Downlink load
Figure 5-1:
WP -
simulation results for Lisbon public scenario
Berlin Public. This scenario suffers mostly the same problems as the Lisbon public scenario. The overall missed trafc as computed by the WP - static simulator is about 43%, reaching over 75% in certain areas (see Figure 5-2). Since much better data is available for the reference scenario, especially regarding the predictions, we concentrated our efforts on the Berlin reference scenario.
55 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
(a) Total blocking
(b) Downlink load
Figure 5-2:
WP -
simulation results for Berlin public scenario
5.2 Optimisation Results

In two cases we were able to perform automatic planning based on mathematical optimisation techniques, see Section 4. The scales for the following maps on the optimisation results are shown in Figure 5-3.
(a) Load maps (in %)
(b) Coverage maps (in dB)
Figure 5-3: Scales for result maps
5.2.1
The Hague
Analysis of Input Data. Our analysis of the data lead to the conclusion, that the predictions of the The Hague public scenario with their 50 m resolution without building data are too coarse to allow for reliable automatic planning. This is shown in Figure 5-4: the three initial sectors of a three-sectorised site 5-4(a) (at height 18.0m, electrical downtilt 4 ) are rotated by 60 in 5-4(b), and tilted down to 8 in 5-4(c).
56 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
These changes exploit all degrees of freedom for network planning, yet they have only a small effect, especially regarding the core cell area (center).
(a) Three-sectorised site, (height 18m, 4 electrical downtilt)
(b) Same site with all antennas rotated by 60
(c) Same site with all antennas tilted down another 4
(d) Scale in dB
Figure 5-4: Effects of conguration changes on propagation grids, The Hague scenario. The black dots indicate other potential sites
MIP Approach. The trafc load for the The Hague public scenario is reasonable. It is also the only scenario with an extended number of possible site locations. We automatically computed the solution shown in Figure 5-5.
57 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
(a) Best server map
(b) Coverage map
(c) Load map uplink
(d) Load map downlink
Figure 5-5: Planning result for The Hague (Figure 5-3 for scales and units)
58 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
time
5 Snapshots 73 s
10 snapshots 1435 s
20 snapshots 4283 s
Table 5-1: Running time of the Set-Covering Algorithm on an The Hague problem instance with 912 installations and 76 sites on a 1 GHz Pentium III. Heuristics Computation Time. Table 5-1 shows the computation time of the Set-Covering algorithm for a The Hague problem instance with 76 sites and 912 installations on a 1 GHz Pentium III CPU. The time displayed in the table does not include the initialisation time that is required for reading in the problem data and setting up basic internal data structures. This time is within the margin of several seconds for small (5 snapshots) problem instances and in the range of up to ten minutes for large problem instances (20 - 30 snapshots). However, the initialisation time of the Set-Covering Algorithm is still smaller than the time required to generate the MIP problem, write to disk and read it into some MIP-solver such as C PLEX. On the one hand, the table shows that we need at most a little more than one hour in order to solve a problem with 20 snapshots. That is, the algorithm does perform well, even if the number of users/snapshots becomes big. On the other hand, the numbers in the table make clear that computation time does not grow linearly with the number of snapshots. This can be best seen when we compare the running times of the 5 snapshots (73 seconds) and the 10 snapshots (almost half an hour) instances. This dramatic increase in the computation time is mainly caused by the MIP-solver (in our case C PLEX) that is applied to solve the set-covering problem (4.8): it is known that these problems are N P hard and therefore the solution time will become unreasonably long for larger instances. Observations. Basically, the solutions produced by the Set-Covering algorithm were of good quality for The Hague scenario: the missed trafc in a static simulator is below 3%. However, when we took a closer look at the solution we found that there were a lot of selected sites on which only one installation was planted. From a practical point of view this is not desirable. In order to circumvent this problem we added the following constraint to the set-covering problem (4.8) As soon as a site is selected, at least 2 (or 3) installations must be put there. For convenience we call this the min-2 (or min-3) constraint. It turned out that this modied set-covering problem is much harder to solve (at least for The Hague instances): the time required for solving (4.8) with this additional constraint was more than two times as high as for the original problem. Nevertheless, using the additional min-2 or min-3 constraints we managed to generate solutions for The Hague that had a reasonable number of installations on each site. But when we analysed these new solutions, we found that they were not better than the solutions where we had only one installation on most of the selected sites.
59 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
5.2.2
Berlin Reference
This was the biggest and most sophisticated scenario, featuring path loss predictions with a grid resolution of 5 m. Due to the huge amount of data, we focused on the Alexanderplatz area. The amount of trafc in this scenario is again too high to hope for a satisfactory solution using the offered sites. Therefore we used an alternative trafc grid, called Tg2, that has reasonable trafc load. However, it is not demand alone which is responsible for missed trafc in this scenario. We computed a minimum obtainable pathloss map that shows the best pathloss value obtainable for each pixel. Looking at Figure 5-6, the red regions are those which will have no coverage, regardless of the network conguration. The yellow areas have a high probability of being problematic at best. Again, the correct solution would be to set up additional possible site locations in or near the problematic areas.
Figure 5-6: Minimum obtainable pathloss for Berlin Alexanderplatz (Figure 5-3 for colour coding); c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG We automatically computed a network conguration using the techniques described in Section 4.1. This resulted in a conguration, using 16 out of 23 possible sites and employing a total of 46 cells. According to WP - simulations, a missed trafc below 0.7% can be expected. Best server, coverage and load maps are shown in Figure 5-7.
60 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
(a) Best server map
(b) Coverage map
(c) Load map uplink
(d) Load map downlink
Figure 5-7: Planning result for Berlin, reference scenario, area around Alexanderplatz, Tg2 trafc (Figure 5-3 for scales and units); c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
61 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
5.3 Assessing the Optimisation Approach

One outcome of our investigations into automatic planning methods for UMTS radio network planning was that a ne-grained analysis of the input data is indispensable. We had to spend signicant effort on identifying zones in the scenarios that have insatisable demands or no possibility for coverage due to insufcient pilot penetration. In those cases where it was possible, we managed to nd networks that perform well in static simulations and are cost-effective at the same time. This proves that our approach and methods are well suited to take on the UMTS network planning task.
62 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
6 Conclusion
In this document the results of WP - on automatic RF planning of large-scale UMTS networks have been summarised. The approach developed within this project covers all major aspects of automatic planning. This includes propagation aspects, a reasonable mathematical model of the UMTS radio network, a couple of sophisticated heuristic methods to short-cut the enormous amount calculations and mathematical optimisation methods. Without accurate propagation prediction models automatic radio planning is not possible. In order to enable the fully automatic generation of accurate predictions for all different operational environments, a general framework for an adaptive propagation model has been developed. This framework has been implemented based on modules available within M OMENTUM and tested on the German reference scenarios. The model is able to process digital terrain data of different resolution and granularity and contains methods and criteria for unsupervised selection of proper methods for the different operational environments. This model has not only been used within WP - , but has also been a basis for the simulations in other work packages in M OMENTUM. In order to be able to handle a complex system like a UMTS radio network, a mathematical model for feasible network congurations has been developed. This model has been used for analytical studies of structure of the optimisation problem as well as a starting point to develop the optimisation methods. Two principal approaches for the optimisation problem have been developed. The mixed-integer programming approach using simplications is applied in a pre-processing step, whereas the second approach contains heuristics for both mobile assignment and installation selection. For the heuristics different methods have been tested revealing Tabu Search, Greedy and Set Covering as the most promising approaches. All the different components have been integrated into an UMTS radio network optimisation software prototype. The rough owchart of the automatic optimisation process is described in Figure 6-1. First computational experiments have shown that running times of less than one hour for realistic network scenarios can be achieved.
lack of coverage
QoS requirement resources
demand snapshots
path loss
capacity antenna configurations
automatic planning
network evaluation
radio network
lack of capacity
Figure 6-1: Components of automatic optimisation The automatic planning process produces optimised congurations if the avail-
63 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
able infracstructure offered to the optimisation process is able to meet the trafc demands. This is the case for the The Hague public scenario and the Berlin reference scenario. If, however, this condition is not fullled, a detailed analysis (using the methods develeoped by WP - or WP -) gives hints concerning areas, where a lack of coverage or capacity is observed. In this case additional sites are required. This situation has been observed with the public scenarios for Berlin and Lisbon. Despite the fact that quite a lot of simplications and approximations have been necessary both for the description of input parameters and for the optimisation model itself, rst performance evaluations of networks designed using WP - methods are encouraging. Solutions of high quality and low cost within short running times have been achieved. Although the proposed methods are able to generate reasonable good results there is still room for further improvement. Especially more advanced methods for installation rating, which have not been investigated in all details, may be a promising starting point. As a nal remark, it has to be mentioned, that the nalisation of this project coincides with the period, where most UMTS operators in Europe are switching their rst networks revealing most probably the urgent need for methods as described in this document. This situation will generate quite a lot of excellent opportunities to transfer the theoretical know-how accumulated in M OMENTUM WP - to the real practical world.
64 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
References
[1] 3GPP Technical Specication TS 25.943 v2.0.0: Deployment aspects. [2] M. Basile. Obtaining accurate predictions with an untuned semi-deterministic model used with an advanced statistical database. Tech. Rep. TD(99) 031, COST 259, Vienna, Austria, 1999. [3] J. Berg. A recursive method for street microcell path loss calculations. In PIMRC, Toronto, Canada, vol. 1, pp. 140143. 1995. [4] J. Berg. Digital Mobile Radio Towards Future Generation Systems (COST 231 Final Report), chap. Building Penetration, pp. 167174. COST Telecom Secretariat, CEC, Bruessels/Belgium, 1999. [5] H. Bertoni, W. Honcharenko, L. R. Maciel, and H. Xia. UHF propagation prediction for wireless personal communications. In Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 82, pp. 13331359. 1994. [6] F. D. Cardoso, L. M. Correia, T. K urner, P. Lourenc o, G. Marques, and D. Mati c. Evaluation of propagation models. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D41-INT, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2002. URL http://momentum.zib.de. [7] A. Claro, J. Ferreira, and L. Correia. Assessment of a propagation model for crossroads in micro-cells. In Proc. of VTC99 Fall 50 t h IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1999. Also avialable as COST 259 TD(99) 035. [8] CODIT Project. Final report. RACE Programme, 1996. [9] L. M. Correia (ed.). Digital mobile radio towards future generation systemsCOST 231: European Co-operation in Mobile Radio Research. Ofce for ofcial publications of the European Communities, 1999. [10] L. M. Correia (ed.). Wireless Flexible Personalised CommunicationsCOST 259: European Co-operation in Mobile Radio Research. John Wiley & Sons, 2001. [11] E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG. Proposal for a site-specic prediction method for land-mobile service, specially UMTS/IMT2000 applications. ITU-R WP3K Document 3K/11-E, 2001. [12] U. Ehrenberger and K. Leibnitz. Impact of clustered trafc distributions in CDMA radio networks. Tech. rep., University of W urzburg, Germany, 1999. [13] A. Eisenbl atter, A. F ugenschuh, E. R. Fledderus, H.-F. Geerdes, B. Heideck, Junglas, T. Koch, T. K urner, and A. Martin. Mathematical methods for automatic optimisation of umts radio networks. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D43-PUB, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2003. URL http://momentum.zib.de.
65 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
[14] A. Eisenbl atter, A. F ugenschuh, T. Koch, A. M. C. A. Koster, A. Martin, T. Pfender, O. Wegel, and R. Wess aly. Mathematical model of feasible network congurations. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D42-PUB, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2002. URL http://momentum.zib.de. [15] A. Eisenbl atter, H.-F. Geerdes, T. Koch, and U. T urke. Describing UMTS radio networks using XML. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-XML-PUB, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2003. URL http://momentum.zib.de. [16] J. D. Foley. Computer Graphics Principles and Practice. Addison-Wesley, 1990. [17] T. Fritsch and S. Hanshans. An integrated approach to cellular mobile communication planning using trafc data prestructured by a self-organizing feature map. In Proc. of 1993 International Conference on Neural Networks, pp. 822D822I. San Francisco, USA, 1993. [18] R. Gahleitner and E. Bonek. Radio wave penetration into urban buildings in small cells and microcells. In VTC94 IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, pp. 887891. Stockholm, Sweden, 1994. [19] H.-F. Geerdes, A. Eisenbl atter, T. Koch, and U. T urke. MOMENTUM public planning scenarios and their XML format. Tech. Rep. TD(03) 0167, COST 273, Prague, Czech Republic, 2003. [20] N. C. Gonc alves and L. M. Correia. A propagation model for urban microcellular systems at the UHF band. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 49(4):12941302, 2000. [21] D. Har, A. M. Watson, and A. G. Chadney. Comment on diffraction loss of rooftop-to-street in COST 231-Walsch-Ikegami-Model. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 48(5), 1999. [22] M. Hata. Empirical formula for propagation loss in land mobile radio services. IEEE Trans. On Vehicular Technology, VT-29(3):317325, 1980. [23] X. Huang, U. Behr, and W. Wiesbeck. A new approach to automatic base station placement in mobile networks. In Proc. of 2000 Int. Zurich Seminar on Broadband Communication. Zurich, Switzerland, 2000. [24] ITU-R P.452-7 Recommendation. Rediction procedure for the evaluation of microwave interference between stations on the surface of the earth at frequencies about about 0.7 GHz. ITU-R Recommendations, 1995-P Series. [25] R. Jakoby and U. Liebenow. Modelling of radiowave propagation in dense urban microcells. Tech. Rep. TD(95) 038, COST 231, Bern, Switzerland, 1995. With less detail also in IEE Antennas and Propagation, pp. 377380, 1995.
66 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
[26] Y. L. C. de Jong. Measurement and Modelling of Radiowave Propagation in Urban Micro Cells. Ph.D. thesis, Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2001. ISBN 90-386-1860-3. [27] T. K urner. A run-time efcient 3D propagation model for urban areas including vegetation and terrain effects. In Proceedings of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC99), pp. 782786. Houston/USA, 1999. [28] T. K urner, D. J. Cichon, and W. Wiesbeck. Concepts and results for 3D digital terrain based wave propagation models an overview. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications; Wireless Personal Communications: Part II, 11(7):10021012, 1993. [29] T. K urner, D. J. Cichon, and W. Wiesbeck. The inuence of land usage on UHF wave propagation in the receiver near range. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 46(3):739747, 1997. [30] T. K urner and R. Fau. Impact of digital terrain databases on the prediction accuracy in urban areas - a comparative study. In IEEE Vehicular Technology ConferenceEuropean Personal and Mobile Communicatiosn Conference (EPMCC 976) Proceedings, pp. 739747. 1997. [31] T. K urner, R. Fau, and A. W asch. A hybrid propagation modelling approach for DCS 1800 macro cells. In IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC96) Proceedings, vol. 3, pp. 16281632. Atlanta, USA, 1996. [32] T. K urner and A. Meier. Prediction of outdoor and outdoor-to-indoor coverage in urban areas at 1.8 GHz. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas on Communications, 20(3):496506, 2002. [33] T. K urner, A. Meier, L. M. Correia, and D. Mati c. Criteria for automatic selection of propagation models. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D44-INT, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2002. URL http://momentum.zib.de. [34] J. Laiho, A. Wacker, and T. Novosad (eds.). Radio Network Planning and Optimization for UMTS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2001. ISBN 0-471-48653-1. [35] P. Lourenc o, B. Rakoczi, B. Heideck, and E. R. Fledderus. Reference scenarios. Tech. Rep. IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D52-PUB, IST-2000-28088 MOMENTUM, 2003. URL http://momentum.zib.de. [36] A. J. Motley and J. M. Keenan. Radio coverage in buildings. Bell system technical Journal, 8, 1990. [37] STORMS Project. Radio coverage optimisation. Project deliverable, ACTS Programme, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium, 1999. [38] U. T urke, R. Perera, E. Lamers, T. Winter, and C. G org. An advanced approach for QoS analysis in UMTS radio network planning. In Proceedings of the 18th International Teletrafc Congress, pp. 91100. VDE, 2003.
67 / 68
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
[39] U. T urke, R. Perera, E. Lamers, T. Winter, and C. G org. An integrated simulation approach for static and dynamic umts radio network performance evaluation. In Proceedings of European Wireless Conference. Barcelona, Spain, 2004. (submitted). [40] K. Tutschku and P. Tran-Ghia. Spatial trafc estimation and characterization for mobile communication network design. IEEE JSAC, 16(5), 1998. [41] V. Veervalli. The coverage-capacity tradeoff in cellular cdma systems. IEEE Trans. Veh. Tech., 48:1443, 1999. [42] A. Wacker, J. Laiho-Steffens, K. Sipil a, and M. J asberg. Static simulator for studying WCDMA radio network planning issues. In Proceedings of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, pp. 24362440. Houston, USA, 1999. [43] J. Walsh and H. Bertoni. A theoretical model of UHF propagation in urban environments. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, AP-36(12):17881796, 1988. [44] J. Wiart, A. Marquis, M. Juy, and G. Benoit-Guyod. Analytical microcell path loss model at 2.2 GHz. Tech. rep., COST 231, 1993.
68 / 68

Momentum d47 PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Momentum d47 PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Contract Number: IST-2000-28088 Project Title: Models and Simulations for Network Planning and Control of UMTS MOMENTUM

estimation n ic atio traff teris arac service ch

n& ratio integ mination disse

Date of Delivery: Report Title:

1 Challenges in UMTS Radio Network Planning

BSS Parameter Traffic Forecast Path Loss Extension TRX/ location

Change TRX/ location

Figure 1-2: Trial-and-error method in UMTS Radio Planning

Fully automated optimization

Figure 1-3: Fully automated UMTS Radio Planning

2 Adaptive Propagation Models

2.1 Setting the Scene for Adaptive Propagation Models

high resolution data (A2)

Generic Description M1 M1 M1, M2 M1, M2, (M3) M1, M2 M1 M1, M2 M3 M3 M3 M3 M3 M5, M4 M5 M5 M4 M1 M2 M4

Basic models used for the specic implementation

2.2 Transition between different DTMs

Data ht (xn , yn ) V (xn , yn ) B (xn , yn ) O (xn , yn ) Hb (xn , yn )

Description average relative building heights

standard deviation of average absolute building height

average street width

Table 2-4: Statistical data available in 50 m resolution

A1 MS2 A2 A1 BS2 MS1 BS1

dense urban area

Figure 2-11: Solution for the gap problem

land use type open

land use type urban

open area assignment

Application of the transition model to speed up M2-type applications

prediction radius [m]

100 200 500 1000 2000 5000 20000

Multipath Model (MPM) Vertical Plane Model (VPM)

Tranversal Plane Model (TPM)

if LOS exists between BS and MS else

(2.7) (2.8) (2.9)

L3 = 10 log 10 10LV P M /10 + 10L4 /10 L4 = min LM P M , LT P M

2.4 Indoor and outdoor propagation mechanisms: Interactions

Calculation of indoor coverage from outdoor base stations

Figure 2-27: Determining the number of penetrated walls

2.5 Combining the sub-models

A2a A1 MS location A1 Macro cell model (M1) + Transition Model A2 MS location

M2-type-model (VPM) + Transition Model

500m < d < 2000m

M2-type-model (TPM) Generate highresolution grid M2-type-model (VPM)

Superposition of VPM/MPM/TPM Apply M4-type model to all indoor locations

Aggregate to lowresolution grid

2.6 Comparison with Measurements

3 Scope of Radio Network Optimisation

3.1 Mathematical Optimisation Models

3.2 Input to the Optimisation

(c) Clover leaves

4.1 MIP Approach

and nd im I that satises

3. Solve the set covering problem min

5.1 Coverage and Capacity Shortages

Scenarios with Shortages

(a) Total blocking

(b) Downlink load

simulation results for Lisbon public scenario

(a) Total blocking

(b) Downlink load

simulation results for Berlin public scenario

5.2 Optimisation Results

(a) Load maps (in %)