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Improving Wireless Coverage through Intelligent Site Selection

Improving Wireless Coverage through Intelligent Site Selection. IWCE 2014: Tower Management from Top to Bottom Workshop, March 24, 2014 Adam Nelson – Senior Consultant, Federal Engineering, Inc. Agenda. The need for coverage The ways to improve it Site Selection Tool. ABSTRACT.

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Improving Wireless Coverage through Intelligent Site Selection

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  1. Improving Wireless Coverage through Intelligent Site Selection IWCE 2014: Tower Management from Top to Bottom Workshop, March 24, 2014 Adam Nelson – Senior Consultant, Federal Engineering, Inc.

  2. Agenda • The need for coverage • The ways to improve it • Site Selection Tool

  3. ABSTRACT GIS Services Open DB Free Data Designers Administrators Technicians Existing Towers Suitable Land PUBLIC SAFETY / PUBLIC SERVICE RADIO SYSTEMS (Police,Fire,EMS, Utilities)

  4. Explanation of the situation

  5. Coverage Problems can be Costly • Can cost lives in public safety systems • Longer outages for utilities • Poor audio • Blocked/dropped calls These Situations Need Communications!

  6. How to Address the Problem • Diagnosis • Personal experience with the system • User reports • Coverage modeling software • Mitigation • Updating system technology • Improving existing equipment • ADDING ANTENNA SITES

  7. Current Ways to Find Antenna Sites • Procure site finding services • Budget concerns • May or may not examine coverage • Agencies can research existing sites on their own • Many disparate databases (e.g. FCC) • Mostly general radius searches • Sites may not cover the problem area

  8. Explanation of the situation Proposed solution

  9. Site Selector Tool (SST) Workflow Determine poor coverage (experience or w/ software) Before SST Choose a point where coverage is poor SST Inputs Choose search criteria (radius, height, existing/new) Find all locations that have Line of Sight (i.e. VIEWSHED) Query existing tower/site databases to determine candidates SST Functions Evaluate suitability of land in Viewshed (slope analysis) Output existing candidate antenna sites in easily reviewable format SST Outputs

  10. Explanation of the situation Proposed solution Viewshed analysis

  11. First step - Viewshed • A viewshed is a collection of points within a given radius from an observation point that have a Line of Sight (LOS) to that point • Requires Digital Elevation Model (DEM) • For gauging predicted wireless coverage from a proposed antenna site, a viewshed provides a reasonable estimate Line of Sight Profile Viewshed

  12. Explanation of the situation Proposed solution Querying existing datasets Viewshed analysis

  13. Existing Antenna Site Information • Federal Communications Commission (FCC) • Multiple databases containing lots on information: • Existing towers (public and private) • Existing structure types • Coordinates and structure heights • These databases are downloadable as .DAT files with many unique, cryptic tables 79 Different .DAT Table Definitions

  14. Explanation of the situation Proposed solution Querying existing datasets Viewshed analysis Creating useful outputs

  15. Candidate Site Outputs • Existing antenna structures • Existing sites which passed viewshed analysis • Organized by Type • Viewshed polygon • No sites, no problem! • Suitable land polygon • All 30-meter cells whichpass a slope analysis

  16. Tool Demonstration

  17. Future Plans • Full US Coverage • Additional data on suitable land (ownership, proximity to power, etc.) • KML/Excel outputs • Propagation models • Additional datasets • Commercial tower databases

  18. Thank you! Adam Nelson Senior Consultant anelson@fedeng.com Office: 703-359-8200 Mobile: 540-809-6096 Federal Engineering, Inc. 10600 Arrowhead Dr. Suite 160 Fairfax, VA 22030 www.fedeng.com

  19. Screen Captures of Tool • See next few slides…

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