Final Report on Automatic Planning and Optimisation for UMTS Radio Networks

Contract Number: IST-2000-28088
Project Title:
Project Acronym:
Information Report Number:
estimation
n
ic
atio
traff
teris
arac
service ch
Models and Simulations

for Network Planning and
Control of UMTS
MOMENTUM
IST-2000-28088-MOMENTUM-D47-PUB
Date of Delivery:
2003-10-14
Report Title:
Final Report on Automatic Planning and

Optimisation
Editor:
Thomas Kurner
(TU-BS)
Authors:
Andreas Eisenblatter
(Atesio)
Hans-Florian Geerdes (ZIB)
Daniel Junglas (TUD)
Thorsten Koch (ZIB)
Thomas Kurner
(TU-BS)
Alexander Martin (TUD)
Reviewers:
Erik Fledderus (TNO)

Bernd Heideck (E-Plus)
Thomas Winter (Siemens)
Abstract: This document summarises M OMENTUM s approach

on automatic planning of the UMTS RF network configuration
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
Confidentiality: M OMENTUM public
n&
ratio
integ mination
disse
Document History
Date
2003-09-02
2003-09-10
2003-09-18
2003-09-27
2003-10-08
2003-10-09
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Contents
1
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Scope of Radio Network Optimisation

3.1 Mathematical Optimisation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 Input to the Optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Mathematical Toolbox
4.1 MIP Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Planning Results
5.1 Coverage and Capacity Shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 Optimisation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 Assessing the Optimisation Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Conclusion
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List of Figures
1-1
1-2
1-3
2-1
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
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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 configurations . . . . . . . . . . . .
Example for statistical data derived from high resolution data . . . .
DTMs with different resolution; terrain profiles 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 . . . . . .
Profile vector and data available for the transition situation BS in A2
Drawing a profile vector between BS and MS from raster data . . .
Fitting equally distributed buildings into profile parts . . . . . . . .
Distribution of buildings into profile 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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 configuration 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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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 . . . . . . . . .
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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 field of Scientific 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
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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 traffic 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 configuration 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 configuration and
power control parameters, etc.) are defined. Once a cell is in operation traffic measurements are made yielding to the prediction of required number of channels. The
increased traffic does not affect the coverage area or the parameter settingsat least
in a reasonable good first 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 traffic has a (positive)
influence 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 traffic load of the cell. Furthermore, the amount of interference received
from other cells depends on their traffic load as well. Additionally the traffic load
of a cell is influenced by the soft hand-over areas, which are mainly defined 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 difficult in GSM networks with its independent wcdma is dependent
planning steps. These difficulties will increase dramatically, when coupled planning whiles gsm is independent
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M OMENTUM PUBLIC
UMTS
GSM
Traffic Forecast
Coverage
BSS Parameter
Coverage
Traffic Forecast
Path Loss
UTRAN Parameter
Extension TRX/location
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 first educated guess of a reasonable configuration has to be done. This configuration 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 configuration a network evaluation using Monte Carlo Simulation is done. Propagation
predictions and traffic 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 efficient 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 defined 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
predefined ones. The target coverage is defined by the received power level, which
depends on the path loss, which is insufficient 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 configuration. 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 first 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
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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
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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 specific 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 configuration WP - has identified 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 briefly
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].
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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 specific 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 finding more or less accurate models for the most dominant propagation phenomena observed for specific
applications. The specific 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 specific 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 identification 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 specific 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 specific 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
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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 defined 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 defined 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 configurations of practical interest

However, not all possible configurations 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 classification of the prediction models according to [6].
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Model
COST231-Hata [9]
Hata [22]
Walfisch-Bertoni [43]
COST231-Walfisch-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]
Goncalves 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]
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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]
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2.1.2
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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 configurations (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
A2a
A2b
A1
M1
transition of
M2/M3 to highresolution areas
(Section 2.2.2)
extension of M5
to outdoor areas
(Section 2.4.2)
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)
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.
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2.1.3
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Basic models used for the specific 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 specific
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 sufficient 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 efficient 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 efficiency is achieved
by taking advantage from the findings 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 sufficient. 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 identification 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 specific 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 specific 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 quantified. In practical network planning the two types
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Data
ht (xn , yn )
V (xn , yn )
B(xn , yn )
O(xn , yn )
Hb (xn , yn )
w(xn , yn )
r(xn , yn )
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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
profile or within a specified 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
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stre e t w id th
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
c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH
s (lower right) ;
& 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 profiles 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 profile is homogeneous for the whole profile. Otherwise
it will not be possible to apply fast profiling and line-of-sight-checking algorithms,
which typically require most of the computing time of a predictor. The solid parts of
the profile 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 profile 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 profile BS1 to MS1, whereas Section 2.2.2 introduces the model extensions required for the profile 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
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A1
BS1
MS2
A2
A1
BS2
MS1
Figure 2-3: DTMs with different resolution and granularity; terrain profiles 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 specific 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 profile 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.
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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 influenced 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 profile vector drawn from the BS to the
MS has to process two types of data in the different parts of the profile 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 specific implementation at E-Plus.
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A1
Figure 2-4: Land use data in 50 m resolution and building vector data; A1 and A2c Clutter Data (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG;
c Digital Buildareas;
ing Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
c Digital Building
Figure 2-5: Average relative building height in the A2 area;
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
c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk
station located in A1;
GmbH & Co. KG
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A1
detailed building data
land use data
profile points
Figure 2-7: Profile 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 profile vector is defined between a BS and MS using raster data, see Figure 2-8. In order to accelerate the profiling 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 profile line are assigned to
profile points, which are generated by projection of the pixel centres. Therefore the
distance between the profile points is not equidistant. The profile points along the
profile line together with their attributes (height, land use class, etc.) are called the
profile vector.
BS, MS
profile
center of pixel
Figure 2-8: Drawing a profile 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 profile drawn from 5 m resolution:
Land use type urban. Generic buildings are fitted into the terrain profile 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 fitting process always starts at MS-end of the
terrain profile assuming that the MS is located in the middle of the street. Hence
the distance from the MS to the first 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-
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dlanduse
building
b
dbuilding
w
2
w
2
profile points
Figure 2-9: Fitting equally distributed buildings into profile parts of clutter type
urban
quent pixels of the same land use class. Note that in the general case the distance of
the profile point representing the MS and the next profile point representing a building is not w/2. In those cases the MS position is moved towards the BS to the next
profile 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.
open area
urban area
w
2
dense urban area
Figure 2-10: Distribution of buildings into profile 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
(2.1)
is fulfilled, where
d = dlanduse nb
(2.2)
n = [dlanduse /b]
(2.3)
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If the relation in equation 2.1 is not fulfilled 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 profile 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 profile 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 profile points within an urban land use
class located between pixels an open area land use class and the first building are
assigned to open area occupation as well, see Figure 2-12.
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2.2.2.2 Specific 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-Walfisch-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 findings
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
c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus
to a building higher than the BS;
Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
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BS
Figure 2-14: Same prediction result as in Figure 2-13 aggregated to a resolution of

c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
50 m;
BS
Figure 2-15: Prediction for same BS as used in Figure 2-14; M1-model with statisc Digital Building Model Berlin
tical database in A2 and land use data in A1 used;
(2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
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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 significant 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 influenced 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 specific 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 figures 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.
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prediction radius [m]
100
200
500
1000
2000
5000
20000
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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 resc Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk
olution 1 km 1 km;
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
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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 classified 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 definition 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
identified. Based on this identification the sub-models can be defined. In this context
a sub-model is a part of an M2- or M3-type model. This allows a classification of the
models from Table 2-1 in terms of available sub-models. With such a classification
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
profile between the BS and MS covering diffraction over roof-tops in noneline-of-sight (NLOS) cases as well as reflection processes and free-space propagation in line-of-sight (LOS) cases.
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2. Multipath Signals, characterising signals that propagate between BS and MS

via single or multiple scattering or reflection 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 significant contribution to the complete signal can be expected.
Based on the propagation phenomena described above three basic sub-models
can be defined:
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 defined 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 classification. Since some of the
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Model
Walfisch-Bertoni [43]
COST231-WalfischIkegami [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]
Goncalves Model [20, 7]
E-Plus ray-tracing model
for dense urban areas [32]
De Jongs model [26]
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VPM
LOS
x
x
VPMN
NLOS
x
x
x
x
MPM
TPM
BPM
VM
x
x
x
x
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 first subproblem consists of finding the criteria for the selection of the appropriate sub-models. The second sub-problem is to define 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 specific implementation only. A more detailed overview is
given in [33].
2.3.2.1 Sub-models used in the specific implementation. The specific 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-
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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 five 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 Goncalves 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 Goncalves include a VPM as well, whereas the other two
models are pure TPMs. The results from Bergs and Wiarts show at which parts
significant TPM contributions are expected since the terrain processing is the same
for all four models. Goncalves model did not show TPM contributions at all parts,
where Wiart and Berg do, which is mainly due to the fact, that Goncalves 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 specific 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 first
criterion the TPM is selected only if the MS is within the same distance to the BS as
specified for the MPM. The second criterion makes a decision according to the base
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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: Goncalves model [20]; same legend as in Figure 2-25;

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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 profile 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 :
(
L1 , if LOS exists between BS and MS
Ltotal =
(2.5)
L3 , else
where
L1 = min L2 , LV P M
L2 = 10 log 10 10
LV P M /10
(2.6)
+ 10
L3 = 10 log 10 10LV P M /10 + 10

L4 = min LM P M , LT P M
LM P M /10

L4 /10
(2.7)
(2.8)
(2.9)
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.
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BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 2-22: Components determined by the sub-models in the specific implementation (BS antenna height 5 m). upper left: VPM; upper right: MPM; lower left: TPM;
c Digital Building Model Berlin
lower right: BPM; same legend as in Figure 2-25;
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BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 2-23: Components determined by the sub-models in the specific implementation (BS antenna height 20 m). upper left: VPM; upper right: MPM; lower left:
c Digital Building Model
TPM; lower right: BPM; same legend as in Figure 2-25;
Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
BS
BS
Figure 2-24: Components determined by the sub-models in the specific implementation (BS antenna height 25 m). left: VPM; right: MPM; TPM and BPM not applied
c Digital Building Model Berlin
in this situation; same legend as in Figure 2-25;
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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);
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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 specific 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 profile between
BS and MS of considered floor 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 floor level is calculated based on
the outdoor path loss at ground floor of all pixels surrounding the building by
applying a constant building penetration loss.
4. For the higher floors an empirical height gain is applied.
5. In both LOS and NLOS only one average value per floor 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 Specific implementation. The specific implementation is the one that is
described in [32], where also a detailed verification 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 sufficient.
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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;

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
(2.10)
where
Lf reespace
nw
Lwall
free space loss

number of walls penetrated
penetration loss of each wall
The number of walls penetrated is determined by counting the number of intersections between buildings and the profile vector drawn between the BS and MS, see
Figure 2-27.
Figure 2-27: Determining the number of penetrated walls
2.4.2.2 Specific implementation. In the specific implementation the indoor-tooutdoor prediction model is automatically selected, if the BS is in A2-areas, the BS
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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;

An exemplary result is shown in Figure 2-28. In this figure 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 flow 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 specific implementation) and
low-resolution (p = 50 m in the specific implementation). The flowchart of the
adaptive model is displayed in Figure 2-29. The first 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
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start
A1
A2b
BS location
A2a
A1
A2
MS location
A2
Indoor-to-Outdoor-Model
MS location
A1
Macro cell model (M1)
+ Transition Model
M2-type-model (VPM)
+ Transition Model
Macro cell model (M1)

> 2000 m
Distance
BS->MS
M2-type-model (MPM)
M2-type-model (VPM)
+ Trans. Model
k>kth
high
500m < d < 2000m
< 500m
chapter 4
no
yes
M2-type-model (TPM)
low
Generate
highresolution
grid
M2-type-model (VPM)
Superposition of VPM/MPM/TPM
Apply M4-type
model to all
indoor locations
high
low
Aggregate
to lowresolution
grid
ready
Figure 2-29: Flowchart of the adaptive propagation model (p corresponds to the

grid size of the path loss grid)
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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 flowchart in Figure 2-29 is valid for both the general approach presented in
this document as well as for the specific implementation, of course.
2.6 Comparison with Measurements

Since the specific implementation is based on E-Plus sub-models, which are published and compared with measurements in the open literature a separate verification
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 refine 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.
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-30
-40
received power / dBm
-50
-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]
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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 traffic 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 satisfied so that the optimisation may not choose to leave areas with traffic 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 traffic. 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 first 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
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of input data. While a fixed network configuration 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 specified explicitly or implicitly.
It has to be specified
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 specifications 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 defining the M O MENTUM planning scenarios in [35]. Chapter 3 of [13] provides a good overview of
what enters the definition of a planning task and how this data is retrieved from the
XML data files.
One issue concerning the input data provision shall be pointed out specifically,
namely, the definition 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 configurations, 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 specific 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 traffic conditions
around a site.
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(a) Stars
(b) Blossoms
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(c) Clover leaves
c DigFigure 3-1: Three types of site sets used for planning, Berlin Alexanderplatz;
ital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG
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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 specified 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 modified/simplified models using mathematical programming techniques on small subproblems
we solve modified/simplified models using heuristics on the original problem
The use of the first 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 flaw 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
configuration 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-configured with clover leaves (see Section 3.2), and
the solution to the MIP is used to determine which sites to be used in the final
network design.
2. Each of the sites selected in the first 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.
20 . Alternatively, a sequence of MIPs is solved. The starting point is the result
from the first 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.
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The MIP-based optimisation is typically performed on the basis of 510 traffic

snapshots at a time.
While the procedure described as (2 0 ) 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 (20 ). A pre-configured 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 0 ) fully takes the
surrounding network configuration 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 configuration 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 defined as follows:
Assume we have a configuration 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 configuration C, find (minimal) feasible transmission powers for each connection in X. If no such assignment can be found, the
configuration C is claimed infeasible (or I NVALID).
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In [13] we also described how we can compute a value (or score) for feasible configurations and how we can compare two different configurations or identify optimal
configurations 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 configuration is feasible or if we want to compare different configurations. 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 configurations 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
efficient 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, find a best feasible configuration 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 defined in [13]:
Given a set I of installations and a set M, find an optimal subset
I I of installations, that is one that allows an optimal configuration
C = (I, M, X) with M M.
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Algorithm 2: Power Assignment

Input: A configuration 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 fixed 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 configuration C is infeasible).
Otherwise all transmission powers assigned meet their respective upper
bounds. In this case return these power values.
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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 define

+ im
m = min i I| mi
(4.2)
mi
+ im m = m .
m
(4.3)
and find im I that satisfies
2. Sort the mobiles in M to obtain a sorted list (m 1 , m2 , . . . , m|M | ) that satisfies

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.
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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 first 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 find 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 define
Ci0 = ci |Mi | cm
(
Ci0
if (i) S and,
Ci =
0
Ci + c(i) otherwise.
(4.4)
(4.5)
4. Find

i0 = arg min Ci | i I .
(4.6)
5. If Ci0 < 0 set I = I {i0 }, S = S (i0 ) and M = M \ Mi0 .

6. Set I = I \ {i0 }.
7. If I 6= and M 6= 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.
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Algorithm 5: Installation Set Covering

Input: A set of installations I and a set of mobiles M.
1. For each installation i I find a set of mobiles M i that i can (potentially)
serve if all other installations are off.
2. Define 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
xi
iI
Ax 1
x {0, 1}
(4.8)
|I|
4. In the set covering problem (4.8) each variable xi corresponds to an installation

i I. Define

I = i I| xi = 1 in the optimal solution to (4.8) .
(4.9)
5. Return I.
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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 justifies the Feedback Optimisation Scheme
that was presented in [13].
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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 traffic 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 suffice to serve all the traffic.
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 sufficient supply
of potential sites as specified 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 configuration, exists that covers this pixel. Since this map
records the best possible value for each pixel, we know that any configuration 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 configurations provided by the operators for the scenarios, but any sane configuration,
using all possible sites and suitable tilts would do. Using this configuration we compute the uplink and downlink load for the cells, based on the average traffic grid. If
this load is exceedingly high, it is obvious that it is impossible to handle the traffic
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.)
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Scenarios with Shortages
Lisbon Public. Evaluation by WP - of the network configuration provided by the

operator for the Lisbon scenario resulted in 46% missed traffic overall (by missed
traffic we refer to traffic 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 definitely not possible to find an acceptable configuration with the locations
provided. We made some limited tries to mend this situation by scaling the traffic
data. This was not very successful: either the traffic was scaled uniformly, leading
to large areas nearly void of traffic, or the traffic was scaled selectively in the high
traffic 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 traffic and 30% missed traffic 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
Figure 5-1:
WP -
(b) Downlink load
simulation results for Lisbon public scenario
Berlin Public. This scenario suffers mostly the same problems as the Lisbon public
scenario. The overall missed traffic 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.
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(a) Total blocking
Figure 5-2:
(b) Downlink load
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).
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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 configuration changes on propagation grids, The Hague scenario. The black dots indicate other potential sites
MIP Approach. The traffic 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.
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(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)
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time
5 Snapshots
73 s
10 snapshots
1435 s
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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 traffic 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 modified 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.
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5.2.2
M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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 traffic in this scenario is again too high to hope
for a satisfactory solution using the offered sites. Therefore we used an alternative
traffic grid, called Tg2, that has reasonable traffic load.
However, it is not demand alone which is responsible for missed traffic 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 configuration. 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
c Digital Building Model Berlin (2002), E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH
colour coding);
& Co. KG
We automatically computed a network configuration using the techniques described in Section 4.1. This resulted in a configuration, using 16 out of 23 possible
sites and employing a total of 46 cells. According to WP - simulations, a missed
traffic below 0.7% can be expected. Best server, coverage and load maps are shown
in Figure 5-7.
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(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 Alexanderc Digital Building Model Berlin
platz, Tg2 traffic (Figure 5-3 for scales and units);
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5.3 Assessing the Optimisation Approach

One outcome of our investigations into automatic planning methods for UMTS radio
network planning was that a fine-grained analysis of the input data is indispensable.
We had to spend significant effort on identifying zones in the scenarios that have
insatisfiable demands or no possibility for coverage due to insufficient pilot penetration.
In those cases where it was possible, we managed to find 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.
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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 configurations 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 simplifications 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 flowchart 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
demand
snapshots
resources
capacity
antenna
configurations
path
loss
automatic
planning
network
evaluation
radio
network
lack of capacity
Figure 6-1: Components of automatic optimisation

The automatic planning process produces optimised configurations if the avail-
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able infracstructure offered to the optimisation process is able to meet the traffic
demands. This is the case for the The Hague public scenario and the Berlin reference scenario. If, however, this condition is not fulfilled, 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 simplifications and approximations have been
necessary both for the description of input parameters and for the optimisation model
itself, first 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 final remark, it has to be mentioned, that the finalisation of this project coincides with the period, where most UMTS operators in Europe are switching their first
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.
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M OMENTUM PUBLIC
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Contract Number: IST-2000-28088

Models and Simulations

Final Report on Automatic Planning and

Erik Fledderus (TNO)

Abstract: This document summarises M OMENTUM s approach

Challenges in UMTS Radio Network Planning

Adaptive Propagation Models

Scope of Radio Network Optimisation

Fundamental difference between GSM and UMTS Radio Planning .

Examples for concrete realisations of generic models M i . . . .

1 Challenges in UMTS Radio Network Planning

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

Figure 1-3: Fully automated UMTS Radio Planning

exist for the description of such environment.

2 Adaptive Propagation Models

2.1 Setting the Scene for Adaptive Propagation Models

Basic Components of an adaptive propagation model

high resolution data (A2)

Figure 2-1: Propagation environments and configurations of practical interest

Table 2-2: Application areas of models and required extensions

Basic models used for the specific implementation

Introduction of Statistical Data

2.2 Transition between different DTMs

standard deviation of average

average street width

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

Transition from low-resolution to high-resolution areas

Transition from high-resolution to low-resolution areas

M2-type predictions require high-resolution building data as input. If a BS and MS

detailed building data

land use data

dense urban area

Figure 2-11: Solution for the gap problem

open area assignment

2.2.2.2 Specific implementation using E-Plus models. The general approach is

Figure 2-14: Same prediction result as in Figure 2-13 aggregated to a resolution of

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

prediction radius [m]

Relative prediction time [%]

Propagation mechanisms and sub-models

2. Multipath Signals, characterising signals that propagate between BS and MS

Figure 2-19: Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in macro cells

Composing the General Model

Multipath Model (MPM)

Tranversal Plane Model (TPM)

Figure 2-20: Relevant propagation phenomena and sub-models in micro cells

L3 = 10 log 10 10LV P M /10 + 10

2.4 Indoor and outdoor propagation mechanisms: Interactions

Calculation of indoor coverage from outdoor base stations

Calculation of outdoor coverage from indoor base stations

free space loss

Figure 2-27: Determining the number of penetrated walls

2.5 Combining the sub-models

Macro cell model (M1)

500m < d < 2000m

Figure 2-29: Flowchart of the adaptive propagation model (p corresponds to the

2.6 Comparison with Measurements

received power / dBm

Figure 2-30: Comparison measurements with predictions by the City prediction

3 Scope of Radio Network Optimisation

3.1 Mathematical Optimisation Models

3.2 Input to the Optimisation