Comparison of 1.8 GHz Cellular Outdoor Measurements with AWAS Electromagnetic Code and Conventional Models Over Urban and Suburban Regions of Northern India

Propagation modeling is an important component of system design, and helps to avoid surprises when the actual service begins, in the case of wireless systems. Testing of various available models with experimentally generated data helps to identify a suitable model that can be deployed for the design of a future generation of mobile communication systems. This requires raising new data sets, which can be achieved by conducting experiments. With this objective, the present study reports the narrowband signal-level measurements of 11 GSM base stations in the urban, dense urban, and suburban regions of Delhi, in northern India. Comparison of the observed data was carried out with electromagnetic models such as AWAS, and other empirical models, such as ITU-R, Cost 231 Hata, Walfisch-Ikegami, and Dmitry. Based on the comparisons, mean prediction errors and standard deviations were deduced. High-path-loss exponents close to the base station were observed. The AWAS electromagnetic code and ITU-R methods showed good agreement with the observed results, compared with other methods.