An integrated deterministic urban/rural propagation model

Cochannel interference is one of the major causes of signal quality degradation in a radio link, and the challenge to the cellular network planner is to deploy the network in a manner that maximises the carrier to interference ratio (C/I) for each cell. To this end, most network planners make use of computer propagation prediction models, which predict signal strength in the radio environment. This paper describes an integrated 3D model, which combines the key features from previous urban and rural models. The model considers full 3D off-axis scattered paths from building walls and terrain pixels. It further considers terrain and rooftop diffraction and combinations of off-axis diffracted and scattered paths. Predictions from the model are compared with narrowband measurements made in urban and rural environments. The importance of buildings and foliage is investigated, as is the accuracy improvement of the 3D analysis compared to the simpler 2D vertical plane approach