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WLAN Network Planning and Simulation

Coverage and Capacity Prediction for WiFi with WinProp’s WLAN module

Wireless LANs (WLANs) are installed within various environments (indoor, office building, university campus, conference centers, hotels, ...) to provide high data rate connections to mobile terminals. Different air interfaces are defined by IEEE 802.11 (a/b/g/n/ac) for various frequency bands enabling Wireless Fidelity (WiFi).

Due to the limited number of carriers available for WLANs, the coverage area of WLANs is often limited by the interference between the different access points.

To save time and money, time-consuming and expensive coverage measurement campaigns can be substituted by accurate predictions with propagation models. Based on these predictions, ProMan's network module NET-L offers a convenient and fast possibility for the planning of WLANs. and to determine the coverage area and the interference levels for the whole scenario.

Wireless Air Interfaces

The following air interfaces/standards are pre-defined in ProMan's network module NET-L:

IEEE 802.11a
IEEE 802.11b
IEEE 802.11g
IEEE 802.11n
IEEE 802.11ac

Further air interfaces (incl. modifications of predefined air interfaces) and frequency bands can be defined by the user.

MIMO transmission mode (e.g. for 802.11n) is supported as well as different models for the cell assignment (strongest signal level, best SNIR, etc.).

Antennas with arbitrary radiation patterns, leaky feeder cables, and DAS (distributed antenna systems) are available in NET-L to model the WLAN in a very accuarte way.

Power backoffs for the cell assignment and the data transmission can be defined for each cell individually (if required).

To consider the interference, the cell load can be defined either for all cells (identically) or for each cell individually.

Network Planning

Based on the predictions of the received power with accurate propagation models (for various scenarios), ProMan's network module NET-L predicts:

Cell assignment
- Best server / carrier
- Cell Area => Coverage area
- Neighbor cell list
Performance
- Max. Throughput (for all users)
- Max. achievable data rate (for single user)
- Number of MIMO streams (IEEE 801.11 n)
For each transmission mode in down- and uplink:
- Max. received signal level
- Min. required Tx power
- Reception probability (assuming Rayleigh-Fading)

Cell Area Assignment of MS locations to AP	Best Server Area Assignment of MS locations to carriers
Maximum Received Rx Power Max. power which can be received by a mobile station in downlink	SNIR (Signal to Noise & Interference Ratio) Signal relative to noise and interference (on same carrier) Output only for carriers assigned in best server map