Federal Engineering, Inc.“Unleashing the Power of Technology”

Improving Wireless Coverage through Intelligent Site Selection

IWCE 2014: Tower Management from Top to Bottom Workshop, March 24, 2014Adam Nelson – Senior Consultant, Federal Engineering, Inc.

Agenda

The need for coverage The ways to improve it Site Selection Tool

ABSTRACT

DesignersAdministrators

Technicians

PUBLIC SAFETY / PUBLIC SERVICE RADIO SYSTEMS(Police, Fire, EMS, Utilities)

Suitable Land

GIS ServicesOpen DBFree Data

ExistingTowers

Explanation of the situation

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!

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

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

Explanation of the situation

Proposed solution

SST Outputs

SST Functions

Site Selector Tool (SST)Determine poor coverage (experience or w/ software)

Choose a point where coverage is poor

Find all locations that have Line of Sight (i.e. VIEWSHED)

Choose search criteria (radius, height, existing/new)

Query existing tower/site databases to determine candidates

Output existing candidate antenna sites in easily reviewable format

Before SST

SST Inputs

Workflow

Evaluate suitability of land in Viewshed (slope analysis)

Explanation of the situation

Proposed solution

Viewshed analysis

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

Explanation of the situation

Proposed solution

Viewshed analysis

Querying existing datasets

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 .DATTable Definitions

Explanation of the situation

Proposed solution

Viewshed analysis

Querying existing datasets

Creating useful outputs

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 which

pass a slope analysis

Tool Demonstration

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

Thank you!

Adam NelsonSenior Consultantanelson@fedeng.comOffice: 703-359-8200Mobile: 540-809-6096

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Federal Engineering, Inc.10600 Arrowhead Dr.Suite 160Fairfax, VA 22030www.fedeng.com

Screen Captures of Tool

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See next few slides…

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