Combined Urban/Indoor Propagation

Calculate propagation in a combined urban and indoor scenario.

Model Description

Urban office buildings and vegetation were created in WallMan by tracing building outlines and vegetation outlines on an imported aerial photograph. The traced objects are all extruded polygons without any interior structure, which enables the simulation of large urban areas (much larger than in this example). A single-story building with interior structure was added in WallMan to the urban database by importing a predefined indoor database.



Figure 1. Combined urban/indoor database in the 3D view. The office building is displayed top center and the single-story building at the bottom center.

Sites and Antennas

A GSM base station with three sector antennas is located near the top of the imported figure (behind the office buildings). Each sector antenna transmits 10 W at 1800 MHz.

Computational Method

The computational method is the dominant path model (DPM). In addition, select the CNP Indoor prediction (including indoor walls (only if available))1 check box.
Tip: Click Project > Edit Project Parameter and click the Computation tab to change the model.

Results

Figure 1 shows the received power from a hypothetical omnidirectional antenna at every location when one of the sector antennas is transmitting.


Figure 2. Received power from Site 1 Antenna 3. The Fill Buildings and Fill vegetation display settings are disabled.

Signals do not travel through urban (non-CNP) buildings but can be diffracted around corners and over rooftops. Signals do travel through vegetation, where the effect of the vegetation is additional attenuation.

The received power inside the single-story building is displayed taking into account exterior and interior walls, doors, windows, and any other object that may be present.

1 Combined network planning (CNP)