Comparison of Radio Propagation Models for Long Term Evolution (LTE) Network

TL;DR

This paper compares various radio propagation models for LTE networks across different terrains, highlighting their relative performance in terms of path loss to aid network planning.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of multiple LTE radio propagation models across urban, suburban, and rural terrains, which is novel for LTE network planning.

Findings

SUI model shows lowest path loss in all terrains.

COST 231 Hata model has highest path loss in urban areas.

COST Walfisch-Ikegami model exhibits highest path loss in suburban and rural environments.

Abstract

This paper concerns about the radio propagation models used for the upcoming 4th Generation (4G) of cellular networks known as Long Term Evolution (LTE). The radio wave propagation model or path loss model plays a very significant role in planning of any wireless communication systems. In this paper, a comparison is made between different proposed radio propagation models that would be used for LTE, like Stanford University Interim (SUI) model, Okumura model, Hata COST 231 model, COST Walfisch-Ikegami & Ericsson 9999 model. The comparison is made using different terrains e.g. urban, suburban and rural area.SUI model shows the lowest path lost in all the terrains while COST 231 Hata model illustrates highest path loss in urban area and COST Walfisch-Ikegami model has highest path loss for suburban and rural environments.