Measurements and Path Loss Models for Cellular Communications in Jordan

Abstract — Comprehensive outdoor measurements for mobile phone base stations operating in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands in Irbid city, Jordan, were carried out by the authors. In order to determine the model that can accurately predict the propagation in this environment, different well-known propagation models are compared with the measurements. Among these models, the comparison reveals that the COST-231 Hata model is the most suitable model for Irbid city, Jordan. To further improve the prediction accuracy, this paper proposes a propagation model based on optimizing the COST-231 Hata model by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. The proposed model is validated by comparison with measurements conducted in other locations in Irbid. It is shown that the root mean square error (RMSE) between the predicted and the measured data for the proposed model, is improved by up to 5 dB compared with Hata model and by up to 29 dB compared with Egli model in the 1800 MHz band, in all the areas under study. The prediction accuracy of the proposed Hata model is also improved by up to 25 dB in the 900 MHz band as compared with other models. Furthermore, this model is expected to be suitable for other areas in Jordan similar to Irbid