Use of CLARIFY for RF Coverage Analysis and Propagation Model Optimization in GSM Networks

Abstract Propagation model tuning is a fundamental part of everyday GSM cellular engineering practice. The model tuning is usually accomplished through elaborate and costly tests based on CW measurements. This paper evaluates alternatives to CW testing where measurements are collected using traditional GSM scanners and PCTELs CLARIFY Interference Management System. The results of the analysis reveal that CLARIFY receiver provides a viable alternative for CW tests in many practical situations., Traditional GSM scanners are affected by the co-channel and adjacent channel interference and therefore their use should be limited to cases of relatively low frequency reuse.
A PCTEL Technical Paper

Adapted For Distribution - CL092009

1. Introduction
In the operation and maintenance of GSM networks, radio signal RF propagation modeling tools are widely used to accomplish many significant RF engineering tasks. Network planning, optimization, frequency planning, capital investment planning or automated cell planning processes depend heavily on the outputs of the RF propagation modeling tools. For that reason, it is of utmost importance that engineers have access to an accurate set of RF models. In common engineering practice, the accuracy of the RF propagation models is achieved through careful integration of path loss measurements. The path loss measurements are collected using a process called model tuning. In this process, a group of test sites is selected to represent the morphology within a given cellular market. The cellular market can comprise much such morphology, each comprised of a distinct subset of test sites. For each of the selected sites a Continuous Wave (CW) transmitter is mounted and detailed path loss measurements are performed. The measured data is then used to determine the parameters for an optimized RF propagation model for a given morphological classification. In the end, the parameters of the optimized models are applied across the board to all the cells in accordance with their morphology classification. To achieve a high quality result for the modle tuning effort, it is critical that empirical path loss measurements are performance with high precision, high sensitivity field equipment. Typically dedicated radios, referred to in the industry as scanning receivers, are needed for optimal results. It is easy to see that the process of model tuning that is based on extensive CW testing is cumbersome and costly. Each site under the test needs to be set up separately and the frequency plan needs to be modified to accommodate the CW test frequency. That usually leads to drive testing of one test site at the time and model tuning for even the smallest cellular market may take days to accomplish. Additionally, despite all of the efforts, one realizes that the RF propagation for the majority of the cells in the market is not tested in the process. Instead, most RF propagation models are determined on the basis of qualitative assessment of cells RF propagation morphology. As a result, even though the accuracy of the models is generally improved, the level of improvement for the entire market is difficult to assess. Strictly speaking, one can only guarantee that the accuracy is achieved for the sites that are in the selected test site group. For the rest of the sites, the accuracy depends on the similarity of the sites RF propagation environment to one of the representative morphologies selected for the study. Over the past few years several alternatives to CW testing became possible. One may consider use of phone based measurement devices, use of traditional GSM scanners or use of CLARIFY high dynamic range receivers [1]. In theory, all alternative systems allow data collection on a live network without any special equipment set-up requirements. Furthermore, they allow simultaneous measurements of all

cells without any disruption in the systems normal operation. A rigorous analysis reported in [2] shows that the RSL measurements obtained by the phone based devices are not sufficiently accurate and repeatable. Therefore, for RF propagation modeling purposes, phone based systems do not offer a viable and cost effective alternative to CW testing. The goal of this paper is to evaluate if CW based measurements can be replaced by measurements obtained using traditional GSM scanners or CLARIFY receivers. The outline of the paper is provided as follows. Section 2 describes the experimental procedure used for data collection, including drive-test methodology, GSM base station and equipment setup. Section 3 presents the analysis of the obtained measured data, while observations and conclusions are then outlined in Section 4.

2. Measurement procedure
The data presented in this paper were collected using commercial measurement equipment and using processes generally embraced in the standard engineering practice. Also, the measurements are collected using existing commercial cellular network operating in the 850 MHz frequency band. The details of the measurement procedure are provided as follows.

2.1.

Drive test methodology

The RSL measurements are taken in two typical GSM network environments: suburban environment and dense urban environment. Both environments are characterized with a relatively flat terrain. The drive test routes are chosen in a manner with good engineering practices associated with RF propagation model tuning recommendations. The routes are selected to capture the full dynamic range of signal strength of the transmitter. The signals are sampled in radial and crossing routes within the beam-width of the transmitting antenna. During the drive test, the measurements are recorded simultaneously by each measurement device. In order to meet Lee sampling criteria [3], the maximum vehicle speed is maintained to accommodate the slowest RSL collecting device. In each environment, one serving sector is selected for the study. To allow comparisons between the instruments a CW transmitter is set up on the selected sector. The frequency selected for the CW transmitter is within the network guard band and therefore, it is unused throughout the network. As such, the CW channel is transmitted without any co-channel or adjacent channel interference. Unlike the CW receiver, both the GSM scanner and the CLARIFY receiver measure Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) of the selected sector under the live network conditions. The network in the suburban area uses frequency plan with the reuse of N=15 on the BCCH layer. The reuse in the urban area network is N=30. Both networks deploy ad-hoc frequency plan and therefore, a regular reuse of the BCCH channels is not maintained. The drive test routes for the suburban and urban areas are illustrated as red traces in Figs. 1-2. The selected sectors are presented in light blue color. From the figures, one may get

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Page 1 of 7

better idea on the cell density within the two environments. Typical separations between sites in suburban area are about 35 miles, while in urban area the distances are reduced below one mile.
TABLE I. Parameter Tx centerline (ft) BASE STATIONS SET UP Suburban sector Urban sector 278 120 BCCH CW BCCH CW ARFCN 145 180(*) 144 170(*) EiRP (dB) 42.36 40.36 42.96 40.96 (*) Channels 170 and 180 are in the guard bands of the two systems

2.2.

Selected sector setup

At the selected sectors, the CW transmission shares the same antenna system used for the GSM cell. The suburban sector is on a self standing cell tower, while the urban sector is mounted on a side of a tall building in a city core area. Further details of the setup are given in TABLE I. One may notice that there is a difference in the EiRP values between CW and BCCH signals of about 2dB in favor of the last one. This difference is taken into consideration in the post-processing of the data and in the path loss calculations.

Figure 1. Suburban drive test area (Melbourne, FL, USA)

2.3.

Equipment setup

The equipment setup used for data collection is presented in Fig. 3. As seen, the drive test system contains a CW receiver, a GSM scanner, and the CLARIFY high dynamic range receiver. The system is equipped with external GPS and RF antennas with the same characteristics, maintaining similar path loss conditions. The CW receiver has a 30 kHz band with a sensitivity of -122 dBm. The scanner can measure and report the RSL, as well as decode BSIC (Base Station Identification Code) if the C/I (Carrier to Interference ratio) value of the surveyed BCCH channel is greater than 2 dB. Due to the sophisticated signal processing techniques, CLARIFY can measure and associate RSL signal to a specific sector, if the C/I value is above -18 dB. Every drive measurement system contains a laptop with appropriate measurement software for automatic data collection and location data association.

Figure 2. Urban drive test area (Orlando, FL, USA)

Figure 3. Drive-test equipment set-up

3. Data analysis
The primary goal of the data analysis is to establish the level of difference between CW, scanner and CLARIFY

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Page 2 of 7

measurements. An assumption is made that the CW measurements are de facto benchmark and the analysis compares the measurements of the alternative devices against the ones obtained using CW. The comparisons may be made on two principle levels. On the first level, one may compare measurements themselves and determine how data collection results differ. For example, of a great interest are the sizes of the area over which the instruments collects data, existence of bias between the instruments, the level of the data scattering about general trends, or the overall statistical behavior of the data. On the second level, the comparison may be made between the outcomes that result from the data application. For example, one may use the data to optimize RF propagation models and then compare how close the parameters of the resulting models are. Before analyses, all collected measurements are binned. This is a standard process used in practice and it refers to spatial averaging of the individual RSL measurements over a small geographical area called bin. The binning process tends to eliminate impact of the fast fading. In this study, the binning process is performed in accordance with
RSLi = 1 Ni

RSL
j =1

Ni

(1)

assignments are highlighted in Fig 5. Co-channel and adjacent reuse sectors are highlighted in red and yellow respectively. As seen, within this relatively small area there are four cochannel BCCH reuses and there are seven adjacent BCCH assignments. Such a tight reuse of frequencies decreases C/I which in turn directly impacts the capability of both GSM tools in taking the path loss measurements. The MSA size values for both environments are summarized in TABLE II. As seen, the limited dynamic range of the GSM scanner results in significant reduction of the MSA. Therefore, from the standpoint of MSA size, the GSM scanner may be used only in parts of the network with a low frequency reuse. On the other hand, the MSA of CLARIFY receiver seems to be quite comparable to that of CW in the case of suburban environment. That indicates that in cases of a low to moderate frequency reuse, CLARIFY receiver is a viable substitute for the CW measurement set. This is good news since the areas of low to moderate reuse are typically in rural and suburban environments where the cells are of larger sizes. In these environments, capability of taking measurements for multiple cells at the same time results in large cost savings. The table also contains the total number of bins common to both CW and the compared GSM tool.

where RSLi is the averaged RSL in i -th bin, RSL j is the RSL of the signal expressed in dBm found in i -th bin, and N i is the total number of samples in i -th bin. The size of the bin is usually determined by the terrain resolution used in the RF propagation modeling tool. Some common bin sizes are 30 m, 50 m and 100m. In this study, the analysis is done with bin sizes of 30 m and 50 m. The differences between the results for the two bin sizes are negligible and for the sake of brevity only 30 m results are reported.

TABLE II. Drive Device Parameter

MSA in bins MSA relative to CW No. of common bins with CW MSA in bins MSA relative to CW No. of common bins with CW

MSA RESULTS GSM scanner 5342 65.68% 5032 1031 22.74% 1031 CLARIFY receiver 7703 94.71% 7703 2021 44.57% 1802

CW scanner 8133 n/a n/a 4534 n/a n/a

Measurable sector area (MSA) is defined as the size of the area in which the signal from the selected sector can be measured using a given tool. MSA can be expressed in either number of bins with measurements, or the physical size of the area with measurements. One should remember that in this paper, a bin is 30 m by 30 m square, so the conversion between the bin count an the area size is straightforwrad. Representative MSAs obtained from measured data for the three devices are presented in Figs. 4-5. In the Figs., the CWs MSA is presented with a red trace; the scanners MSA is illustrated with a blue trace, while CLARIFY MSA is shown with a green trace. In the case of suburban environment, it can be seen that a very good match exists between CW measurements and the measurements obtained through CLARIFY. For the traditional GSM scanner the overlap is significantly smaller. In the case of urban environment, both the scanner and CLARIFY exhibit significantly smaller MSA relative to CW. The reason is predominantly due to the very tight frequency reuse deployed in the urban area under the test. The cells with co-channel and adjacent channel BCCH

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Urban

3.1. Measurable Sector Area (MSA)

Suburban

Page 3 of 7

interferers, the performance of both the traditional scanner and CLARIFY receiver is affected. The impact is more evident in the case of traditional scanners, in whose case the result manifests as missing sample points or incorrect readings. In the case of CLARIFY receiver, owing to its high dynamic range receiver and its higher tolerance to co-channel and adjacent channel interference, there are more sample points and also more sample with correct readings. The RSL measurements and the EiRP values from TABLE I are used to determine the path losses. For each common bin, the pair wise differences between the path loss measurements are obtain using
CW tool = PathLoss CW [dB] PathLoss tool [dB]

(2)

Figure 4. MSAs for the suburban area for the sector in blue

where tool can be either the scanner or the CLARIFY receiver. TABLE III. contains the principal results of the path loss (PL) statistical analysis. For the suburban drive, the mean values of the differences between scanner and CW as well as the difference between the CLARIFY receiver and CW are both very close to zero. This implies that all three tools express very similar PL calculations on average. However, the variations of PL values are in range of 2 dB and 4 dB for the CLARIFY receiver and the scanner respectively. For the urban environment, almost zero PL difference in case of the CLARIFY receiver is preserved. However, PL measurements of the scanner are significantly degraded due to the impact of co-channel and adjacent channel interferers. These degradations may have considerable impact on the model tuning process during the RF propagation modeling.

Figure 5. MSAs for the urban area for the sector in blue

3.2. Path loss analysis

A representative portion of the RSL measurements using the three tools is presented in Figure 6. The traces are offset for easier representation. The CW RSL measurements are presented with the lowest (in horizontal layout) and left (in vertical layout) traces. The middle (in both horizontal and vertical layout) traces illustrate the CLARIFY receivers path loss data. The scanner path loss measurements are presented with the top trace in horizontal layout) and right (in vertical layout) traces. From Fig. 6, one may readily observe high agreement between RSLs collected by the CW and CLARIFY receiver. However, in the vicinity of co-channel and adjacent channel
Figure 6. An example of the path loss measurements using different tools TABLE III. Drive PATH LOSS RESULTS GSM scanner -0.47 4.12 CLARIFY receiver 0.33 2.26

Device Parameter
Mean (cw device) [dB] St. dev. (cw device) [dB]

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Suburban

Page 4 of 7

Urban

Mean (cw device) [dB] St. dev. (cw device) [dB]

-5.42 3.73

-0.69 3.83

D(n ) = max X FCW (x ) Ftool (x )

(3)

Figure 7. PDF/CDF for PL differences between the CW and the GSM scanner for the suburban drive

where FCW (x ) represents CDF developed using the CW data, and Ftool (x ) corresponds to CDF found for either scanner or CLARIFY receiver data. In other words, D(n ) equals to the largest absolute deviation between two functions when all values of x are considered. It is important to notice that the statistic does not depend on the form of F (x ) , but only on the sample size, denoted by n . The statistic D(n ) can be computed with respect to different confidence intervals. Usually, the sampling distribution of D(n ) is presented in tables, for different confidence levels and number of samples [4]. The null hypothesis for the K-S test is that both data sets are drawn from the same continuous distribution. The alternative hypothesis is that they are drawn from different continuous distributions. In this report, the hypothesis is accepted if the test is significant at the 95% level. Typical CDF functions obtained from the three tools are illustrated in Figs. 9-10. From Fig. 9, one can easily observe a significant difference between CDF functions formed using the CW and the scanners data. On the other hand, the almost overlapping CDF functions are constructed using the CW and the CLARIFY receiver data. Formally, the K-S test passes the null hypothesis for the CLARIFY receiver in both suburban and urban environments. The null hypothesis is accepted for GSM scanner data only in the suburban environment.

Empirical CDF 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 CDF developed with CW PL data CDF developed with scanner PL data

F(x)

Figure 8. PDF/CDF for PL difference between the CW and the CLARIFY receiver for the suburban drive

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 70

Typical normalized histograms of the differences between the PL measurements, as well as cumulative distribution functions are presented in Figs. 7-8. From the shape of the curves, the PL differences seem to exhibit largely a lognormal character with means and standard deviations as reported in TABLE III.

80

90

100 110 PL [dB]

120

130

140

3.3. Empirical CDF comparison (K-S test)

In order to compare the CDF functions (as presented on Fig. 7-8), the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S test) of goodness-of-fit is used. The K-S test is a good test to identify which tool, if any, provides PL measurements comparable to CW tool, which is used as the benchmark. The test is structured as follows. In the first step, the empirical cdf functions are constructed. In the second step, a statistic, denoted by D(n ) , is found using

Figure 9.

An example of empirical CDF functions for the CW receiver and the GSM scanner

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Page 5 of 7

Empirical CDF 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 F(x) 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 80 CDF developed with CW PL data CDF developed with Receiver PL data

In a given scenario, the optimistic nature of the GSM scanner based model may result in a considerably higher one mile intercept or in a considerably lower slope. The optimistic model is a result of inability of regular GSM scanners to deal with the co-channel and adjacent channel interference.

4. Observations and conclusions

This paper considers the feasibility of using GSM scanners and CLARIFY receivers as substitutes for CW-based test systems. A side-by-side comparison of the measurements collected by the three device types was performed and the findings may be summarized as follows. The MSA of the GSM scanner is affected by the frequency reuse and is considerably smaller than the MSA for the CW receiver. Due to frequency reuse interference, the GSM scanner shows a noticeable bias towards underestimating the path loss. The bias depends on the frequency plan and resulting amount of co-channel and adjacent channel interference. If the GSM scanner data is used for model tuning, the resulting models are the over-predicting path loss. The MSA of CLARIFY receiver is quite close to the MSA of the CW receiver in cases of low to moderate frequency reuse (N > 15). In urban areas of high frequency reuse, the MSA of the CLARIFY receiver is reduced. The average difference between the path loss measurements between the CW tool and the CLARIFY receiver is negligible (< 1 dB). As per Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of goodness-of-fit, the statistics of CW data are in very good agreement with the CLARIFY receiver data for both environments. In contrast, GSM scanner exhibits good fit with the CW test only in a light frequency reuse environment. The CLARIFY receiver data leads to virtually identical RF propagation models as the ones developed using the CW measurements. The results of the study reported in this paper indicate that the CLARIFY receivers with high dynamic range (C/I >-18 dB), represent a viable practical alternative to CW testing. This is especially the case in networks with low to moderate frequency reuse factor (N > 15). Even in the areas of high frequency reuse, the estimates of the RF propagation model parameters obtained from the CLARIFY receivers data seem to be quite close to the ones obtained from the CW measurements. On the other hand, the measurements obtained by regular GSM scanners seem to be quite sensitive to the cochannel and adjacent channel interference and they may approximate CW measurements only in limited scenarios when the frequency reuse is low.

90

100

110 PL [dB]

120

130

140

Figure 10.

An example of empirical CDF functions for the CW receiver and the CLARIFY receiver

3.4. Model tuning

The path loss measurements collected by the three instruments are used to perform the model tuning for the selected sector. A simple Lee macroscopic RF propagation model [3] is selected and the measurements are used to determine the optimum values for the slope and the intercept parameters of the model. The results of the model tuning are presented in TABLE IV. As seen, despite differences in MSAs the models developed using CW and CLARIFY data are almost identical in both suburban and urban environments. The slope and intercept values are within 0.5 dB of each other in both cases. Therefore, it seems that even though the size of the MSA is affected by the frequency plan, the application of the CLARIFY receiver data in model tuning leads to models that are very close to the ones developed on the basis of the CW data collection.
TABLE IV. Drive Device Parameter
Optimized intercept [dBm] Optimized slope [dB/decade] Mean (measured and predicted) [dBm] St. Dev. (measured and predicted) [dBm] Optimized intercept [dBm] Optimized slope [dB/decade] Mean (measured and predicted) [dBm] St. Dev. (measured and predicted) [dBm]

PMO RESULTS CW scanner -64.8 -40.5 0 6.6 -66.6 -38.8 0 5.1 GSM scanner -65.4 -35.8 0 7.2 -61.2 -37.9 0 6.1 CLARIFY receiver -64.4 -40.1 0 6.5 -66.4 -38.5 0 6.4

The models obtained using the GSM scanner data seems to be quite optimistic when compared to the CW based model.

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Urban

Suburban

Page 6 of 7

5. Acknowledgments
Authors would like to express a sincere appreciation to Mr. Dale Bass, from PCTEL, Inc. RF Solutions Group, Germantown, MD. The authors are grateful to ATT Wireless for allowing use of their network, as well as PCTEL Inc. and Envision Wireless for providing exceptional support and tools. Data analysis was performed with data post processing platform Gladiator from QualiTest Technologies, Inc.

6. References
N. Mijatovic, I. Kostanic, S. Dickey, Comparison of Receive Signal Level Measurement Techniques in GSM Cellular Networks, in proceedings of CCNC 2008, January 10-13, 2008. [2] I. Kostanic, N. Mijatovic, Repeatability of Received Signal Level Measurements in GSM Cellular Networks, in proceedings of ISWPC 2007, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2007) [3] W.C.Y. Lee, Wireless and Cellular Communication, McGrawHill, 3rd Ed. 2005. nd [4] J. Neter, W. Wasserman, G. A. Whitmore, Applied Statistics, 2 Edition, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1982.
[1]

7. Authors
Nenad Mijatovic, Ivica Kostanic (Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA) Greg Evans (at&t wireless, Orlando, FL, USA) [Adapted From Use of Scanning Receivers for RF Coverage Analysis and RF propagation Model Optimization in GSM Networks Mijatovic, Kostanic & Evans; 2008; Originally presented at EW2008, June 22-25 2008, Prague, Czech Republic.]

PCTEL Technical Paper CL092009

Page 7 of 7