Modeling Campus Outdoor Environment at 2.4GHz

Abstract

In Local Area Networks (WLANs), Path Loss (PL) models are necessary to properly plan the
wireless networks. With different operating conditions, PL, shadowing, and type of building materials used,
co-channel interference, it is difficult to predict the PL components in an outdoor environment. In this paper,
we measured PL for the University of Baghdad campus to effectively plan outdoor WLAN in the 2.4 GHz
band. By comparing measured field data with global propagation models, the COST231 model shows better
performance after evaluating the results. The consistency metric used for analyzing different empirical PL
models is the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). On the other hand, because the terrain conditions differ
mainly, it is impossible to generalize the PL prediction models. This downside can be overcome by developing
the model parameters to suit the environment using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm between
field data calculated and predicted data. Parameters of the COST-231 Hata mo