Adaptation of the Okumura-Hata Model to the Environment of Accra

Abstract

Interference is a major drawback for cellular systems. Eliminating interference is near impossible hence the need to employ ways or algorithms to reduce or mitigate its effect. Radio Frequency interference during the propagation of a signal can degrade the quality of a cellular network (pathloss between the eNB and user equipment (UE)). With the adoption of the 4G networks in Ghana, it is imperative to explore ways by which a network can be deployed or expanded by predicting the propagation path loss. This is done by modifying the Okumura-Hata (OH) pathloss model by using the linear least squares method(LLSM) with the aim of better predicting the path loss and thereby managing interference in the environment for which it may be implemented. The modified model has proven to be an effective way of predicting the path loss for 4G networks. The terrain environment mismatch between the predicted pathloss and the proposed pathloss is taken care of by the LLSM. A standard deviation of 10.2 of the empirical model as opposed to 10.5 of the proposed model, which shows the dispersion in the data set. This makes it possible to deploy a 4G network with less pathloss in an urban city like Accra, which meets the requirements of an urban large city but with few high-rise structures.