Tuning and Cross Validation of Blomquist-Ladell Model for Pathloss Prediction in the GSM 900 Mhz Frequency Band

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper, Blomquist-Ladell model is tuned and used for the prediction of total pathloss for GSM signal in the 900 MHz band. The model combined free-space loss, excess plane-earth loss and tunable multiple knife-edge diffraction loss to give the total loss. Pathloss data captured from two drive test conducted in Uyo suburban area are used in the study. The first drive test dataset are used to tune the Blomquist-Ladell model, particularly to select the value of the statistical terrain diffraction loss that minimizes the root mean square error (RMSE) of the model prediction. The tuned Blomquist-Ladell model is then cross validated with the second drive test dataset. The results show that the Blomquist-Ladell model performed very well; with the training data (first drive test dataset) the model has RMSE of 2.935598 dB and Prediction Accuracy of 98.16323% and in the cross validation data (the second drive test dataset) the model has RMSE of 3.398141dB and Prediction Accuracy of 97.82251%. In both cases, the RMSE is below 3.5 dB which is below the acceptable maximum value of 7dB for such pathloss prediction model.