Title: Predicting coverage in wireless local area networks with obstacles using kriging and neural networks

Authors: Abdullah Konak

Addresses: Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State Berks, Tulpehocken Road, P.O. Box 7009, Reading, PA 19610-6009, USA

Abstract: In this paper, a new approach based on ordinary kriging is proposed to predict network coverage in wireless local area networks. The proposed approach aims to reduce the cost of active site surveys by estimating path loss at points where no measurement data is available using samples taken at other points. To include the effect of obstacles on the covariance among points, a distance measure is developed based on an empirical path loss model. The proposed approach is tested in a simulated wireless local area network. The results show that ordinary kriging is able to estimate path loss with acceptable error levels.

Keywords: wireless LANs; WLANs; local area networks; kriging; signal estimation; neural networks; coverage planning; mobile network design; simulation; path loss; error levels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMNDI.2011.042564

International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation, 2011 Vol.3 No.4, pp.224 - 230

Published online: 26 Mar 2015 *

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