A two ray propagation model for finding mobile location over Plain microcellular environment

Positioning of mobile users in cellular systems is an area attracting large interest and the number of applications for the location information is growing rapidly. Several location techniques are ready for deployment: cell identification, terrestrial signal triangulation, satellite navigation, angle of arrival, and so forth. Smart combinations of techniques are also proposed. All of them provide a certain degree of Quality of Service (QoS), which is usually measured in terms of accuracy, response time, availability, and consistency. In this paper, we propose a new method to find the location of the mobile user using a simulation program in MATLAB (6.5 and/or 7.8). The mobile can calculate its position based on the signal powers received from three base station antennas and the mobile does not require any other helps to find its location except the powers received from the three base stations. The distances from the base stations are estimated at the mobile receiver. We propose a two ray propagation model for finding the location of the user over a plain microcellular environment and this method is very well suitable for a geographic area like Libya which is mostly covered by a vast and plain sand surface. We also present the simulation results which are consistent, accurate, and coincident with that of the geometrical methods available to find the location of the mobile. The proposed method is most economical and least complex method to find the location of the mobile terminals in a wireless environment.