OUTDOOR-TO-INDOOR PROPAGATION MODELLING WITH THE IDENTIFICATION OF PATH PASSING THROUGH WALL OPENINGS

Yuko MIURA, Yasuhiro ODA, and Tokio TAGA Wireless Laboratories, NTT DoCoMo, Inc. 3-5 Hikari-no-oka, Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa, 239-8536, Japan E-mail: miura@mlab.yrp.nttdocomo.co.jp

Abstract - This paper proposes a new propagation model to accurately predict outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss. Account is taken of the structural openings along the paths; it is assumed that outdoor-to-indoor paths are possible only through wall openings such as doors and windows. Introducing the angle dependency of the losses with the paths that penetrate the indoor area makes it possible to accurately predict outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss. Measurements in a microcellular environment show that the proposed model can predict outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss more accurately than the COST231 model. Keywords - Mobile communication, radio propagation, Building penetration, Path passing through wall opening, Indoor angle dependency. I. INTRODUCTION Due to the increased use of mobile phones, it is becoming more important to ensure that mobile communication systems cover more indoor areas [1]. In some buildings, the indoor service area is established by exclusive indoor base station antennas. Actually, however, most indoor mobile communication is established by radio paths from outdoor base stations. Path losses into buildings are influenced by the building's wall structure and indoor furniture arrangement. The COST231 model [2] assumes that the radio waves penetrate the building's external wall that is in direct view (line of sight) of the base station, and that the penetration point on the wall is the point closest to the mobile station. External walls are assumed to be uniform and made of ferroconcrete or other such common materials. Generally speaking, the penetration loss of ferroconcrete walls is larger than wood or glass walls [3]. It seems obvious that most buildings have several wall openings such as doors and windows, and that the penetration paths through these openings have lower penetration loss than the wall penetration paths assumed by the COST231 model [4]. The difference will lead to errors predicting the outdoor-toindoor propagation path losses, especially on large buildings. This paper proposes a new penetration model that considers the paths through wall openings when calculating the outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss. This paper is structured as follows. Section II explains the COST231 model briefly. Section III presents proposed penetration

model and describes its parameters. It also derives expressions and discusses issues such as angular dependency of incoming and outgoing paths at wall openings, indoor attenuation coefficient, and application approaches for macro or micro cell environments. Section IV " presents some coefficients of an actual building as determined by measurements. Section V describes measurement results at a department store on an urban microcell environment, and discusses the validity of the proposed model in a comparison to the COST231 model. Finally, Section VI summarizes the results. II. COST231 MODEL In the COST231 model, the penetration point is the point on the line-of-sight wall closest to the mobile station regardless of wall structure (Fig. 1). The radio waves transmitted by the base station penetrate the wall at this point and propagate inside building to the mobile. Outdoorto-indoor propagation loss is calculated by the following expression: Lp=Lf(S+d)+We+WGe (1- cos)2+ (d-2) (1- cos)2, (1) where S is the distance between the base station and the wall penetration point, and d is the distance from the external wall to the mobile station. is the grazing angle of the external wall. Lf() is the free space propagation loss for the distance between base-mobile station. Term We is the loss in dB of an externally illuminated wall with perpendicular
Path 2 S2 2 2 d2 Door 2

Door 1 1 Path 1 d1

1 S1 S
BS

d
LOS Wall

MS

Lp
We
Door Proposed Model COST231 Model

External Wall

Figure 1. COST231 model and proposed model

0-7803-7589-0/02/$17.00 2002 IEEE

PIMRC 2002

penetration, =0. WGe is the additional loss in dB in the external wall when =90. is the specific indoor attenuation constant and has units of dB/m. III. PROPOSED MODEL Radio waves transmitted by the base station first propagate outdoors to the building's external wall. Next, the radio waves penetrate the building's external wall. Last, the penetration waves propagate inside the building to the receiver. Outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss is estimated by predicting the propagation losses of these three parts. The losses of these three propagation processes can be calculated individually, and the path loss between base station and mobile station can be expressed as the sum of these losses in dB. Lp = Lout + Lpn+ Lin (2) Lout is outdoor propagation loss, Lpn is building penetration loss, and Lin is indoor propagation loss. The COST231 model assumes that the radio waves penetrate the external wall at the point closest to the receiver (Fig. 1), but the penetration loss of external walls, usually ferroconcrete or other such materials, is much larger than the penetration loss of openings consisting of glass i.e. windows [3][5][6]. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that paths through wall openings will have lower total path losses than the wall penetration paths assumed by the COST231 model, even though the propagation distance of the paths through wall openings are longer. That is, if there are wall openings on the building's external wall, the paths through the wall openings dominate the reception process and determine the path loss at the reception point. This paper proposes the following expression to calculate building penetration loss for paths going through wall openings. If there are several wall openings, the received level is the sum of path levels of paths through all such wall openings. Lpn,1 = We + WGe (1- cos 1)2 +f(1) "(3) Equation (3) describes the penetration loss of path 1 in Fig. 1. The first term, We, is the loss across the wall opening with perpendicular penetration (=90). The second term is the outdoor angular dependency and equals the COST231 term [2][7]. The third term is the indoor angular dependency from wall opening to receiver. This paper assumes that paths through wall openings are dominant, and that the paths from the wall openings to the receiver are not, generally, perpendicular to the wall. The propagation loss of these paths is altered by the indoor grazing angle, i.e. such as diffraction loss. There are several indoor propagation models such as [8], for simplicity, it is convenient to use a constant loss per unit distance in this model. The following expression describes the indoor propagation loss of path 1 calculated by this model:

TABLE I

EXPERIMENTAL CONFIGURATION
Frequency Power 8.45 GHz (CW) +40 dBm 14 m 0.3 m
Tx1 10m inside 37 m Door 13 m Receiver 38 m

Transmitter antenna height Receiver antenna height

Tx2 300 m

Figure 2. Measurement of indoor attenuation coefficient

Measured Building
(Department store)

Ch

uo

Av e

150 m

300 m Transmitter
100m Copyright (C) 2000 ZENRIN CO.,LTD.

Figure 3. Map of We measurement

14.2 m 5.4 m 60.8 m 5.4 m 16 m

Door5

Door4

Chuo Ave.

23.5 m

Door1

64.7 m

17.7m

23.5 m

Door2
20.7 m 5.9 m

Door3
30.7 m 10.9 m

13 m
33.6 m

101.8m
Door Measured Position

Figure 4. Indoor receiver position for We measurements

Lin,1 = d1

(4)

is the attenuation coefficient for uniform indoor propagation media and is generally is unique to each building. To well handle the various conditions of building and base stations possible, the outdoor propagation loss, Lout, is calculated by the propagation loss predicted for the macro cell [9][10] or micro cell [11] as appropriate. IV. PARAMETER MEASUREMENT It is necessary to acquire We (penetration loss of wall openings), (indoor attenuation coefficient) and f() (indoor angular dependency) to implement the proposed model. Term We and depend on the material and/or structure of the building. A series of field tests was conducted at a department store, and We and for this building were measured. The indoor angular dependency was also measured at the same time. A. Measurement campaign of the parameters TABLE I shows the measurement conditions. The building was a department store. A transmitter was set in direct view of the building. An omni-directional antenna was used when the distance between transmitter and the building was equal to or less than 150 m, and a directional antenna, 3-dB width of 60, was used when the distance was 300 m. Propagation loss was measured every 0.2 m inside building. B. Indoor attenuation coefficient () Propagation loss was measured on an aisle nearly perpendicular to the wall openings to remove the effect of the indoor angular dependency. The transmitter was set 10 m outside the door (Tx1) and 300m from the door (Tx2) on the same line-of-sight road. The propagation loss was measured over a 38 m course along an aisle starting some 13m from a glass door (Fig. 2). Indoor attenuation coefficient, , was taken as the coefficient of the 1 m average of measured propagation loss over the measurement course. Two values of , determined using transmitter positions Tx1 and Tx2, were acquired. The mean value of was 0.348 (dB/m). C. Penetration loss of wall opening (We) The building had 5 doors that faced three different roads. The transmitter was set at 150m and 300m from the building on these roads (Fig. 3) and 5 m average propagation losses were measured both outside and inside the line-of-sight door. Inside propagation loss was measured some 13 m from the door (Fig. 4). Term We was acquired from the path loss difference between the propagation loss outside and inside the door while subtracting the 13m indoor propagation loss and the outdoor angular dependency. TABLE II shows that

the value of We ranges from 5 to 28 dB; its mean value is 17.2 dB. D. Indoor angle dependency (f()) When the receiver is in front of a wall opening, all incident power that passes through the wall opening propagates normally to the receiver. On the other hand, when the receiver is not in front of the wall opening, the received power is decreased by the diffraction over the edge TABLE II MEASURED We (dB)
Ave. 15.8 18.5 17.2

door 1 150 m 300 m 5.7 21.0 2 14.7 15.1 3 9.3 14.2 4 27.7 21.6 5 21.7 20.7

Chuo Ave.
300 m

Tx2 Inside
12 m

Tx1 10 m Door
13 m

Measured Course

Figure 5. Measurement of indoor angle dependency

20
Loss (dB)

15 10 5 0 -5 0 30
Measured Data WGi sin WGi (1- cos )2

Angle (degree)

60

90

(a) Tx1

20
Loss (dB)

15 10 5 0 -5 0 30
Measured Data WGi sin WGi (1- cos )2

Angle (degree)

60

90

(b) Tx2 Figure 6. Indoor angle dependency (WGi=20dB)

of the wall opening. This diffraction loss depends on the indoor grazing angle. We measured this angular dependency by conducting the following field test. The transmitter was set 10 m outside door Tx1 and 300m from the door Tx2 on the same line-of-sight road. The receiver (13 m from the wall) was moved over a 12m course parallel to the wall from edge of the wall opening (Fig. 5). Loss for the indoor angle is plotted in Fig. 6(a)(b). Direction 0 represents the near edge of the wall opening. Both results are close to the WGi sin . So the indoor angular dependency is WGi sin and thus differs from the outdoor angular dependency which is WGe (1- cos )2. For the building examined, the calculation parameters are = 0.348 dB/m, We = 17.2 dB, and f()= WGi sin , where WGi is 20 dB. V. OUTDOOR-TO-INDOOR PROPAGATION LOSS MEASUREMENTS AND ANALYSIS A. Measurement campaign We measured the outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss in a department store to estimate to the accuracy of the proposed model. The measurement conditions were the same as those for TABLE I, and the propagation loss was measured every 0.2 m inside the building. The transmitter was set at the 2 points shown in Fig. 7. Tx1 was right in front of the building and an omni directional antenna was used. Tx2 was 300 m from the building and a directional antenna with 60 beam width was used. Figure 8 shows that the building has 5 glass doors, and the receiver was moved along a rectangular aisle 13 m from the external walls. B. Results and analysis Figure 9(a)(b) show the measurement results for the different transmitter positions. The values plotted are the 1 m averages of the propagation loss measured along the aisle shown in Fig. 8. The solid line is the propagation loss calculated by the proposed model. The dotted line is the propagation loss calculated by the COST231 model. The parameters listed in TABLE III were used in these calculations. There were 5 doors at measurement course distances of about 20, 50, 100, 150 and 220 m. Figure 9 shows that the measured propagation loss has some local minima at these wall-opening positions and increases away from the openings. In Fig. 9(a), the transmitter was placed right outside the building at the measurement course distance of 180 m. The measured propagation loss is maximal at this point and decreases as the receiver leave away and approaches the wall openings, i.e. door4 or door5. COST231 using the wall penetration loss predicts that the minimum propagation loss would be seen when the receiver was at 180 m because the receiver was closest to the transmitter at this position. However, the measurement

Measured Bilding
(Department store)

Tx2 Tx1

Transmitter
100m Copyright (C) 2000 ZENRIN CO.,LTD.

Figure 7. Measurement of building penetration loss

14.2 m 5.4 m 60.8 m 5.4 m 16 m

23.5 m

Door5 start / goal

Door1

Ch u

oA ve .

300 m

Door4

Chuo Ave.

64.7 m

17.7m

Aisle C

Measured Course
23.5 m

Door2
20.7 m 30.7 m

Door3

13 m
33.6 m

5.9 m

10.9 m

101.8m Door
Figure 8. Measured course TABLE III
WGe (dB) We (dB) (dB/m) f()

CALCULATION PARAMETERS
20 17.2 0.348 WGi sin (WGi = 20 dB)

results contradict this prediction and show that the wall penetration wave does not influence the outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss at all. On the other hand, the proposed model can predict the measured propagation loss well. In the proposed model, propagation loss is calculated by the path loss through wall openings, so the propagation loss depends on the path loss through door4 or door5 at this position. The indoor grazing angle is very steep around this position and the propagation loss is greatly increased due to the indoor angle dependency. Moreover, the propagation loss is increased by the increase in path length from door4 and door5. The wall penetration wave is insignificant and the paths through the wall openings dominate the propagation process. Figure 9(b) shows that the measured propagation loss is about 20 dB larger than that predicted by the proposed model at measurement positions beyond 120 m. The proposed model calculates the propagation loss of aisle C by

the path loss through door3 line-of-sight from the transmitter. Actually, however, there are obstacles such as shelves, furniture and pillars around the aisle, so the radio wave could not propagate directly to the receiver from the opening. This is the reason for the 20dB discrepancy. This indicates that paths that propagate deep into a building can be influenced strongly by the internal structure and fixtures of the building. If we need to increase the accuracy of the propagation loss prediction, we need to consider the indoor structure of the building such as furniture and pillars, but this consideration will complicate the model. VI. CONCLUSIONS We have proposed a new propagation model to accurately predict outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss. The new model assumes that outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss is the sum of outdoor propagation loss, wall opening penetration loss, and indoor propagation loss. The propagation loss from wall openings to receiver, which is proposed in this paper, requires knowledge of the wall opening penetration loss, the indoor attenuation coefficient, and indoor angular dependency. Some parameters, such as the wall opening penetration loss, are unique to each building and were measured by field tests. Measurement results gathered from a large building in an urban micro cell environment were compared to results calculated by the COST231 model and by the proposed model. The comparison showed that the proposed model predicts the outdoor-to-indoor propagation loss more accurately than COST231. It is obvious that paths that propagate deeply into a building will be influenced strongly by the internal structure of the building. Since the proposed model uses a simple distance attenuation model to calculate the indoor propagation loss, the propagation loss prediction error can become large if the reception point is deep within the building. This problem, however, does not influence the prediction of the outdoor propagation losses and the building penetration losses. More accurate outdoor-toindoor propagation loss predictions can be achieved by using a more accurate indoor propagation model. The measurements and consideration presented in this paper examined a large room with no internal walls. However, the proposed prediction method can be applied to cases where there are some rooms inside the building by using it twice; once to predict the path loss across external wall openings to internal wall openings and then again to predict the loss across the internal wall openings to the mobile station. REFERENCES
[1] M. Hata, Fourth Generation Mobile Communication Systems beyond IMT-2000, IEEE Proc. APCC/OECC, pp. 765-767, 1999. [2] COST 231 Final Report, Chapter 4, Propagation Prediction Models, 1996

[3] C. M. Brennan et al., EM shielding of building materials, Technical Report of Rome air development center, RADC-TR-67-446, Feb. 1968. [4] Jun Horikoshi et al., 1.2 GHz Band Wave Propagation Measurements in Concrete Building for Indoor Radio Communications, IEEE Trans. on VT, Vol. VT-35, No. 4, Nov., 1986. [5] Arthur von Hippel, Tables of Dielectric Materials and Applications, Artech House, 1995. [6] J. H. Tarng, and T. R. Liu, Effective Models in Evaluating Radio Coverage on Single Floors of Multifloor Building, IEEE Trans. on VT, Vol. 48, No. 3, May, 1999. [7] Henrik Borjson and Bernard De Backer, Angular Dependency of Line-of-Sight Building Transmission Loss at 1.8 GHz, IEEE Proc. PIMRC, pp466-470, 1998. [8] David J. Y. Lee, and William C. Y. Lee, Propagation Prediction in and Through Buildings, IEEE Trans. on VT, Vol. 49, No. 5, Sep., 2000. [9] J.Walfisch and H. L. Bertoni, A theoretical model of UHF propagation in urban environments, IEEE Trans. AP, Vol. 36, pp. 1788-1796, Dec. 1988. [10] M. Hata, Empirical formula for propagation loss in land mobile radio services, IEEE Trans. on VT, Vol. VT-29, pp. 317-325, 1980. [11] L. R. Maciel et al., Unified approach to prediction of propagation over buildings for all ranges of base station antenna height, IEEE Trans. on VT, Vol. 42, pp 41-45, Feb.1993.

(a) Tx1

(b) Tx2 Figure 9. Measurement results (gray : door position)