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S-72.3270 Cellular Radio Network Planning Methods (3 cr)


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NOTE! Last chance to take the exam is on 8.1.2008, since the course will be replaced by S-72.3275 Cellular Radio Network Planning and Optimization!!!

S-72.3270
Cellular Radio Network Planning Methods (3 cr)

Spring term 2007

Latest news:

08.10.2007 Assignment and final course results are available. Results have been sent to the study register (OREK).

17.09.2007 If you couldn’t find the return box (which doesn’t exist) please deliver your assignment paper to my personal box (Mika Husso) inside the lab on the 2. floor! Your paper will naturally still be normally graded.

27.08.2007 The second deadline for submitting the assignment is 14. September. Example assignment paper.

27.08.2007 The Comlab web server broke down during a thunderstorm last week. This page has been created from an old backup copy and some information is certainly missing.

05.04.2007 Exam (7.3.2007) results have been published!

08.03.2007 Fill the course feedback form! You get one extra point!

02.03.2007 Link to assignment paper template, so you can copy tables etc. to your final paper.

01.03.2007 Updated year 2006 assignment grades can be found here.
28.02.07 A lot of new material is available on the Program page. Lecture and exercise slides and Tables and Figures will be distributed through Edita. Other additional material will be available only on the Internet.

05.02.07 Looking for a partner to do the assignment with? See and write on the course EeForum board to find one!
10.01.07 First lecture will be on Friday 19.1.07, 10-12, in H302


See the assignment info!


Course status
For students following the old degree regulations

  • The course is lectured every academic year in the Period III.
  • The course can be included as a compulsory course in the major/minor subject 
    • Communications Engineering (Radio Communications path)
    • Communication Systems
      and as optional course in the major/minor subjects
    • Radio Engineering, 
    • Signal Processing for Communications,
    • Teletraffic Theory.

For students following the new degree regulations

  • The course is lectured every academic year in the Period III.
  • The course is a compulsory course in the option Radio Communication Systems of the Master’s major subject Radio Communications on the degree program of Communications Engineering and in the option Radio Communication Systems of the Master’s major subject Communications Applications in the degree program of Electronics and Electrical Engineering.
  • Included in the curriculum of the International Master’s Program in Telecommunications

Course targets
The course gives basic knowledge about radio network planning with the focus on cellular radio network planning. This knowledge is needed by radio network planners employed by system manufacturers, operators, or other parties in the mobile communications area. After the course the participant will understand and be able to apply in his own work:

  • the objectives and general outline of radio network planning,
  • the radio link budget and its application to BS design to meet coverage targets, 
  • traffic estimation and its application to cell design to meet capacity targets, 
  • interference analysis and its application to frequency allocation to meet interference outage targets in FDMA/TDMA based radio networks, 
  • connection between capacity and coverage especially in CDMA networks.

Prerequisites
It is assumed that the participants have done S-72.245 Transmission Methods in Telecommunication Systems (4 credits) or S-72.1140 Design Methodology of Telecommunication Systems 5 ECTS-credits), S-72.3210 Channel Modelling for Radio Communication Systems (3 credits (op)), and S-72.610/S-72.2210 Mobile Communication Systems and Services (2 credits/3 ECTS-credits) or equivalent courses.

Teachers
Professor Riku Jäntti is the responsible teacher and lecturer of this course.
Mika Husso is the course assistant.
Mika Nupponen is the web-master.

Lectures and exercises
Lectured every academic year in Period III.
Lectures starting on January 19.01.2007

  • Lectures: on  Fridays 10 – 12 in Room H302, Weeks 3 - 8
  • Exercises: on Fridays 12  –  in Room H302, Weeks 6 - 9

Assignment
The course includes a compulsory assignment where the described planning methods are applied to the preliminary design of a GSM1800 radio network for a fictive service area. The assignment is done in two persons’ teams.

The plan comprises a capacity plan, a coverage plan, and a frequency plan. The plan is based on the use of macrocells in all regions, but in the city region a separate macrocell plan for vehicular originated traffic and microcell plan for pedestrian originated traffic are implemented. The target is to first estimate the offered traffic and then minimize the number of cells, and then to minimize the number of transceivers in each cell still fulfilling the blocking and interference outage targets for this traffic, given the maximum parameter values. Network tuning and easy network expandability are not considered.

The purpose of this exercise is to help the student to understand how different things interact in cellular radio network planning, and, hopefully, to give the student skills to design computer planning tools. It corresponds mainly to the initial network dimensioning to get a rough cost estimate when a vendor should offer a network. Final network planning should be  made with computer tools and may be based on other objectives than minimising excess capacity as in this assignment.

To facilitate the work some unsupported Excel-tools for radio link budget and minimum reuse distance calculations are provided.

Requirements
The course is carried out by

  • an exam and
  • an assignment.

The exam requirements consist of the material distributed to the students. The first exam is on March 7, 2007. The exam consist of two parts: starting with a closed book part comprising two tasks about general topics followed by an open book part comprising three problem solving tasks.

Information about the following exams will be shown on the Departments
web-pages.

Final grade
The final course grade is calculated from the formula:

  • Final grade = (Exam grade + assignment grade)/2

The student should pass both the exam and assignment with an accepted grade.


Assignment info

In Table 2.5 of the assignment instruction the channel activity factor expression should be eta_traffic channel = (1 - B)Tcell/N

where Tcell is the offered traffic in a cell and N is the number of traffic channel in the cell and B is the corresponding blocking probability. A correct version of this expression for a cell with the maximum traffic for given blocking is Eq. 4.13 in the lecture material on frequency planning. 

Assignment: In microcell calculations b should be block size divided by 2. (Block size = L
B1A).

Excel-files for the assignment:

 


Updated 08.10.2007 MH