Generation of an altimetrical data base using a geographic information system [mobile radio planning]

This paper aims at illustrating a methodology of generation of an altimetrical data base for mobile radio applications and a procedure developed to manage it, using a GIS (Geographic Information System). The system uses as input a set of digitized maps in the form of contour lines and elevation points obtained from cartographic maps at different scales (1:250,000, 1:50,000 and 1:10,000), and generates a final data base in the form of a set of regular matrices of altimetrical values with an appropriate grid size. The operator is allowed to check at each step the state of the maps under development and, if necessary, to correct errors or to change parameters. After a brief introduction on the principles of GISs, it will be shown how their functions of inserting, storing and managing altimetrical data have been used to create a data base useful for electromagnetic computations and how a special user interface allows the operator to select an area on the territory and automatically generate the corresponding altimetrical matrix with a suitable grid size. Finally, a few applications are described, as computer aided tools for cellular land mobile radio networks planning, concerning documentation of radio coverages, radio link analyses, intervisibility analyses and 3-D representations, used both for technical and commercial purposes.