Estimating path loss in wireless local area networks using ordinary kriging

This paper introduces ordinary kriging as a new tool to predict network coverage in wireless local area networks. The proposed approach aims to reduce the cost of active site surveys by estimating path loss at points where no measurement data is available using samples taken at other points. To take the effect of obstacles on the covariance among points into account, a distance measure is proposed based on an empirical path loss model. The performance of the proposed approach is tested in a simulated wireless local area network. The results show that ordinary kriging is able to estimate path loss with acceptable error levels.