A run-time efficient 3D propagation model for urban areas including vegetation and terrain effects

In this paper a run-time efficient 3D propagation model for small macro cells in urban areas is presented, which is able to process vector and raster data simultaneously, depending on the specific terrain processing task. The model has been applied to the GSM1800 network of E-Plus at Cologne and has been verified with measurements. The verification revealed that the prediction accuracy can be improved significantly by considering vegetation effects and multipath propagation. Furthermore it is shown in the paper that in urban areas, multipath propagation is important only within a distance of up to approximately 500 m to the base station. At larger distances propagation within a vertical propagation plane is dominant. Consequently the prediction time of large areas decreases dramatically by neglecting multipath effects at larger distances