Comparison of deterministic, empirical and physical propagation models in urban environments

The knowledge of wireless propagation channel behavior is essential for coverage determination and for radio network planning in urban environments. In this paper the ability of deterministic, empirical and physical models to predict the received power is investigated. A few test drives were performed to measure the received power in two different urban environments, in order to estimate the prediction ability of urban propagation models. The results show that deterministic ray-tracing, even with site specific digital terrain elevation data and a buildings layer, does not always provide more accurate predictions than empirical and physical models.