An adaptive propagation prediction program for land mobile radio systems

This paper describes the development of an adaptive RF propagation prediction program for land mobile radio systems. The program, which allows the user to specify transmitted signal strength, carrier frequency, base station antenna height, and mobile vehicle antenna height also provides the information necessary to determine a level of confidence for its predictions. In lieu of detailed topographical data (which is unavailable for many regions), the program makes use of data files containing the results of received signal strength measurements previously taken within the geographic region of interest at various locations, various carrier frequencies (measurements were taken at 453, 922, 1310, 1430, and 1920 MHz), and various base station antenna heights. This paper concludes by providing examples of results illustrating the performance of the adaptive propagation prediction program, showing that the proposed program yields significant improvement in propagation prediction and level of confidence when compared to currently available tools.