When planning
mobile networks in urban areas, the underlying environment databases
typically comprise several 100,000 polygons representing the building
structure, the terrain profile, and additional obstacles. RPS can handle
such large environment databases concerning data management, graphical
2D/3D presentation, as well as in the efficient ray tracing engine. The
following example of the center of Dresden, Germany, demonstrates these
abilities. A top view of the area is also shown in Fig. 1 in the right
column.
This example
shows an exemplary coverage prediction for UMTS network planning at 2 GHz.
The urban scenario contains diverse potential base station locations
that could later be chosen from during the network planning process.
RPS has several built-in 2D/3D surface plot functions
that provide overviews of e.g. the coverage, the best serving
transmitter, the signal-to-interference ratio, etc. User-defined
plug-ins can extend these presentation functions without limitation. An
example for a coverage plot in the Dresden scenario is given in Fig. 2.
As another way of analysis, the received signal
strength or the delay spread along a freely chosen path can be
investigated, see e.g. Fig. 3. Also here, the user can deploy custom
plug-ins for further result analysis of the 3D impulse responses along a
path. An example of such a Matlab™ post-processing plug-in is shown in
Fig. 4 where the smoothly changing impulse responses from a certain
transmitter are plotted along a path.
Furthermore, the ray paths in 3D space can be
inspected in detail. For example, all the rays impinging at a certain
receiver can be made visible in 2D or 3D view. Simultaneously, the
according Direction of Arrival (DoA) diagrams can be shown as
demonstrated below. Comfortable navigation functions in the 3D view
enable an easy analysis and perspective impression.
