IEEE Communications Society Vancouver Chapter   IEEE VT-S Propagation Committee

Co-sponsored by Industry Canada Spectrum and Telecommunications Pacific Region Western Canada Telecommunications Council BC Advanced Systems Institute Vancouver GIS Users Group

1. Technologies for Next Generation Wireless System Planning Tools David Michelson, Research Consultant to AT&T and Chair, IEEE VT-S Propagation Committee As wireless systems become more complex, move to higher frequencies, and are deployed in more challenging situations, the demands placed on the tools and technologies which we use to plan and deploy systems have increased dramatically.  New propagation models which accurately describe the new environments must be developed and made available to developers and designers.  More sophisticated database strategies must be developed to deal with the vast amounts of data which are collected and generated.  The requirement for effective methods for sharing terrain, propagation, and system planning data between engineering and marketing, engineering and regulators, and even between competitors (in order to resolve interference issues) is also increasing.  The IEEE VT-S Propagation Committee seeks to promote collaboration between propagation researchers, software developers, and wireless system designers in resolving these issues. David G. Michelson received the B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., and Ph.D., all in Electrical Engineering, from the University of British Columbia.   From January 1994 to September 1996, he was a postdoctoral  fellow in the MDA/NSERC Radar Remote Sensing Group where, with support from the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing and the Imaging Radar group at NASA/JPL, he studied electromagnetic scattering from terrain and ground cover, methods for classifying and interpreting polarimetric SAR imagery, and RF coverage prediction at VHF/UHF wavelengths.  Since September 1996, he has been a full-time consultant to AT&T and has worked with teams from AT&T Wireless Services (Redmond, WA) and AT&T Labs-Research (Red Bank, NJ) to develop both analytical and measurement-based mathematical models of narrowband and wideband radiowave propagation.  He chairs the IEEE VT-S Propagation Committee and moderates NEC-LIST, a 600-member Internet mailing list devoted to computational electromagnetics.		2.  Requirements and Expectations for Next Generation Wireless System Planning Tools Phil Lam and John Murtagh, Telus Mobility Those involved in wireless system planning are quite aware of the limitations of current planning tools.   If the next generation of planning tools is to meet the needs and requirements of end users, these limitations must be addressed.  After presenting BCT.Telus Mobility's perspective,  Phil Lam and John Murtagh will moderate a general discussion concerning Requirements and Expectations for Next Generation Wireless System Planning Tools. Phil Lam is a Network Support and Planning Engineer with Telus Mobility.  His responsibilities during the past nine years have included both 800 MHz AMPS and CDMA and, more recently, 1900 MHz CDMA cellular radio systems.   Prior that that, he spent nine years at BC Hydro in the Telecontrol Department where he maintained SCADA computer systems.  He received the B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia. John Murtagh is an RF Engineer with Telus Mobility.   His responsibilities during the past three years have included both 800 MHz AMPS and CDMA cellular radio systems, antenna design/selection, wireless local loop trials, and, more recently, 1900 MHz CDMA deployment and repeaters.  Prior to that, he spent eight years at Canac/Microtel on several projects including the North Warning Satellite Communication System and the Malaysian Coastal Radar and Communications System, and six years at Maritime Tel doing maintenance & EMC engineering and fibre introduction & deployment for Telecom Canada & provincial systems.  He has additional previous experience at BNR and Telecom N.Z.  He received the Bachelor Eng (Elect) from the University of Canterbury, N.Z.
3. Field-Strength Prediction for System Planning Jim Whitteker, Northwood Geoscience Ltd. (Ottawa) If little is known about the terrain elevation and the distribution of trees and buildings in a given area, a statistical method based on measurements is as good as any.  However, if detailed terrain information is available, a much more accurate prediction can be obtained with a deterministic method that makes use of this information.  A number of older partly deterministic methods based on diffraction over two or three knife edges are still in wide use, but to really make use of detailed terrain data, it is better to use a method of calculation that is based solidly on wave theory, and that calculates the radio-wave field at many points.  On the other hand, a method should not be so computationally intensive that it is impractical for planning complex systems.  A calculation based on physical optics meets these criteria better than most.  A marching algorithm starts from the transmitter, and proceeds along a radial path, finding the wave field at intervals comparable with the resolution of the terrain data, taking into account all the terrain undulations that it encounters, and, depending on the terrain data, the surface clutter (trees and buildings) as well. Jim Whitteker received a B.Sc. degree from Carleton University, Ottawa, in 1962, and a Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of British Columbia in 1967.  He was a postdoctoral fellow at University College London in 1967-1969, working in atomic collisions. He worked at the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa from 1969 to 1999. For the first ten years, his work was on ionospheric physics, particularly the structure and dynamics of the polar topside ionosphere. Since 1980, he has worked on VHF and UHF terrestrial radio-wave propagation.  He developed practical methods for calculating the attenuation of radio waves due to diffraction on obstructed paths, using extensions of the theory of physical optics.  He has implemented the methods in a computer program, and published scientific papers describing some aspects of this work.  In 1999, he joined Northwood Geoscience Ltd. to further the development and application of these and other prediction methods.		4.  Fixed Wireless System Design at 2.4 GHz and Above Bernard Breton, Communications Research Centre (Ottawa) Fixed wireless at 2.4 GHz and beyond presents unique challenges with respect to propagation and accurate modeling.  Physical considerations of the terrain and type of obstacles present along a given radial must be taken into account.  Both natural and man-made objects have an effect on local attenuation, specifically when the receiver is below the surrounding clutter or beyond line of sight.  Next generation wireless planning tools must have the ability to evaluate high resolution data in order to effectively model fixed wireless systems.  A key element of system performance is the achievable front to back ratio for antenna gain.  This requires modeling signal diffusion around the receiver, utilizing the antenna pattern and beam-width.  Further, the use of receiver models can determine the trade-off between self-interference and spectrum efficiency.  Evaluation of the resultant noise level and interference level defines the overall level of interfering signals.  The combination of all received signals can then be used to determine a meaningful metric to evaluate system coverage. Bernard Breton currently shares his time between his new duties at Northwood Geoscience Ltd., and the Communications Research Centre (CRC).  At Northwood he assists in deciBel Planner product development.  For the next 6 months he continues his duties as Research Engineer in the Radio Broadcast Systems Group in the Radio Broadcast Technologies Research Division at the Communications Research Centre. He received his B.Sc.A. in Electrical Engineering from University of Sherbrooke in 1993.  Since 1991, his work experience has included the fields of Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRB), fixed wireless and coverage prediction.  He was involved in the planning of LOOK TV MMDS networks and the development of new coverage prediction concepts suitable for this technology. He leads the CRC-COV software development including interference analysis, receiver modeling and statistical algorithms.
5.  GIS Technology for Next Generation Wireless System Planning Tools Philip Wyatt, Northwood Geoscience Ltd. (Ottawa) Accurate propagation predictions are the cornerstone for meaningful coverage and system interference / performance analysis.  The ability to easily share coverage maps between engineering and marketing allows optimal feedback on market penetration to validate Return-On-Investment for network build-out.  Apart from providing a high level of Customer Service satisfaction, meaningful trouble-ticket information can easily be passed back to maintenance engineers.  New customers can be quickly geo-coded to determine the range of services available to them.  Many benefits can be realized from using a GIS (Geographic Information System) as the display engine for wireless telecom modeling.  A deterministic model (such as Predict) is as good as the terrain data it works from, thus the user must have tools to modify, enhance, and quality check this data.  Use of high-resolution terrain data, optimized for this process, will be discussed.  A GIS allows easy verification of the drive test data required to tune a prediction model.  Demand forecasting with a broad range of geo-demographic information can be translated into erlang grids.  These can be used to weight co-channel interference matrices used for optimizing channel assignment or modeling system loading in spread spectrum systems. Philip Wyatt is Vice President of Technology and co-founder of Northwood Geoscience Ltd.  Mr. Wyatt designed the original specification for deciBel Planner and currently oversees management of the core Windows and Java systems and fixed wireless, frequency planning, propagation modeling, and CDMA working groups.  He received his B.Sc. from Carleton University in 1981, and M.Sc. from the University of Colorado in 1986.  Since 1989, he has worked in application development in Geographic Information Systems.  Development in the last 5 years has mainly centered on wireless communications and propagation modeling.  Mr. Wyatt is focused on bridging the information gap between engineering and marketing in telecommunication companies.