CELL RADIUS INACCURACY - A NEW MEASURE OF COVERAGE RELIABILITY

A robust method for determining the boundaries of cells and the associ ated reliability of the radio frequency (RF) coverage within these bou ndaries is presented. The procedure accurately determines the effectiv e cell radius using a linear regression of RF signal strength samples. The accuracy of this estimate is quantified both as a radius uncertai nty (e.g., +/- 100 m) and as a coverage (i.e., area/edge) reliability error through: 1) simulation; 2) analysis of real data; and 3) theoret ical analysis. It is shown that if the estimate of the cell radius mee ts the desired accuracy, then the corresponding estimates of coverage reliability (both area and edge) are more than sufficiently accurate, Through a sensitivity analysis, it is discovered that estimating the c ell radius is a much more critical step in determining the quality of RF coverage than the more common practice of simply estimating the are a reliability. In addition, a formula for estimating area reliability is given and shown to be more accurate than can be obtained by current approaches. The verification method presented here is particularly us eful in wireless planning since it effectively determines the geograph ic extent of reliable RF coverage. It is recommended that radio survey analyses select cell radius estimation as the preferred method of cov erage verification.