Modeling of RF point source reference for analysis of wireless signal propagation

• US 20020063656A1
• Filed: 09/14/2001
• Published: 05/30/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommScope Technologies, LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Andrew Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gutowski, Stanley J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,313,391 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 342/360
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements

Abstract

A data collection and evaluation method for determination of wireless signal propagation from an incomplete set of measured data and for modeling the system as a set of RF point sources located at the tower in each cell. RF propagation measurements are collected according to the present invention, by moving through the wireless system while collecting signal strength data at a large number of locations throughout the wireless system. Signals are received from multiple antennae at each collection location. The present invention develops a non-directional RF propagation model based upon the signals received from each antenna at a particular cell site, the antenna directionality due to the design of the antenna and the orientation of the collection location and the cellular site. The digital identification information on the channel is decoded and used to associate the measurement with an individual originating wireless antenna and/or sector, The decoding process is limited by interference and low signal levels, therefore, the resulting data will have locations or entire areas where digital identification codes cannot be determined and the signal origination antenna cannot be identified. The RF propagation data is then analyzed to remove directionality of the individual antennae and to determine the absolute value of the path loss between the tower as an RF point source and a specific geographic location.

Claims

1. A method for collecting and processing received signal level data from the individual sectors of a cell site, comprising the steps of:

gathering signal level data from a cell site at a known location within a wireless system;

determining the sector of origin of individual signals;

determining the path loss of individual signals;

correcting the path loss value for each signal based upon the directionality of the antenna design for the sector corresponding to the signal and based upon the relative position of the known location with respect to the cellular site.