Need comments on tools and method for UMTS planning

[phdang]

Hi all,

I did the survey myself about tools and methodologies for UMTS planning.
It seems that most people in here familiar with one or two tools, including Aircom Enterprise, Atoll, Planet EV etc.

In principle, the tools mentioned above use emperical propagation channel model such as Hata model to predicte the propagation loss. To increase the reliablity of the prediction, the clutter database should be provided to describle the environment in detail, such as land usage, building, tree etc.

The other tools, such as Volcano of Siradel, WinProp, use the ray tracing method, in which the 3D digital map of the city is needed.

Can you comment the accuracy of these two methods in UMTS planning and how to improve the accurecy? If possible, can you provide the process in steps.

Cheers

[dekili]

No need to make difference. All the "large" tools can use ray tracing from partnering companies. Old Hexagon's tool had both ray tracing and empirical models to choose. With theray tracing you need to have a lot of information in details. You have to have buildings as layers and not as a part of DTM. Next, you need to know materials for buildings to be able to define reflection coefficient (and T=1-R). Again, it is time and resources consuming. In short, use ray tracing on small areas where you can have all the infomation that you need. For wide areas, like whole city or regions, use empirical models. There are other models, much better than Hata...

[liukang]

Hi all,

I did the survey myself about tools and methodologies for UMTS planning.
It seems that most people in here familiar with one or two tools, including Aircom Enterprise, Atoll, Planet EV etc.

In principle, the tools mentioned above use emperical propagation channel model such as Hata model to predicte the propagation loss. To increase the reliablity of the prediction, the clutter database should be provided to describle the environment in detail, such as land usage, building, tree etc.

The other tools, such as Volcano of Siradel, WinProp, use the ray tracing method, in which the 3D digital map of the city is needed.

Can you comment the accuracy of these two methods in UMTS planning and how to improve the accurecy? If possible, can you provide the process in steps.

Cheers
Dear friend!
Aircom Enterprise, Atoll, U-Net, Planet, ... are planning tools. Vocalno of Siradel, WinProp are 3rd software support for planning tool in order to better prediction result.

BR!!!

[mimoX]

way of reducing the prediction error by tuning the propagation model by means of drive test and CW measurement.

[D33T0X]

My experience with various planning tools (tried around 10) - they're all OK as long as you have the basics sorted out:

- good mapping data (terrain, clutter, etc)
- tuned wave propagation model(s)
- proper link budget mapped correctly in the planning tool