Propagation over rooftop and in the horizontal plane for small and micro-cell coverage predictions

This paper investigates the wave propagation in the small and micro-cell of urban environments. The goal was to identify the main wave propagation contribution as a function of the base station (BS) antenna height, the distance from the base station and the environment. Three typical cases were studied where the BS antenna is: (1) above the rooftop, (2) at the rooftop height and (3) much below the surrounding buildings (microcell case). A 2D ray tracing in the horizontal plane and a 2D ray tracing in the vertical plane have been combined to perform the coverage predictions in the three cases. The prediction results are compared to measurements and the main propagation contributions are identified.