Propagation Measurements of a 4G LTE Network in Lagoon Environment

Analysis of predicted and measured path loss over a Lagoon environment is presented. Propagation measurements were carried out at 1800 MHz, within a quarter of a year (May to August 2017) using Huawei Technologies drive test equipment. Measured data comprising of the received signal strength was taken for the initial measurements, measurements after first month, measurements after second month, and measurements after the third month. Measured path loss was compared with predictions made by free-space, log-distance, two-ray, COST 231-Hata, and Stanford University Interim (SUI) models. The COST-231 Hata model showed the most accurate performance with root mean square errors (RMSEs) of 10.03 dB, 12.38 dB, 17.59 dB, and 7.67 dB for the initial measurements, measurements after first month, measurements after second month, and measurements after third month, respectively. In order to achieve a more accurate prediction, the COST 231 Hata model was optimized using the least square algorithm. The optimized model showed improved signal prediction with RMSEs of 7.90 dB, 9.28 dB, 14.82 dB and 5.28 dB, respectively. The average RMSEs of the optimized COST 231 Hata model showed 9.32 dB compared with 11.92 dB predicted by the actual COST 231 Hata model. This accounts for about 21.81% improvements over the existing COST 231 Hata model. Therefore, the optimized COST 231-Hata model could be used to characterize radio channels in the investigated environments