CellTrace™

Indoor Prediction Tool Based on Ray Tracing

CellTrace™ is a suite of software tools that addresses Radio Frequency (RF) planning, design, modeling, analysis and optimization of wireless communication systems within buildings, tunnels, stadiums and in campus environments.

It supports a wide variety of Air Interfaces, including but not limited to LTE, WiMAX (802.16x), Wi-Fi, CDMA, UMTS, GSM, and TETRA. It also supports MIMO technology, Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), leaky feeder cables and a number of other transmissions modes.

CellTrace™ uses 3D vector databases with planar objects, each with their own individual properties, combined with extremely fast & accurate propagation models to compute path loss and wide-band properties, such as delay and angular spread, LOS/NLOS, directional channel, impulse response, angular profile, and propagation paths, of radio links within buildings.

Depending on the application, CellTrace™ offers static, Monte-Carlo, and dynamic network simulators. It also allows for the planning of coverage and capacity as well as network simulations.

With regards to coverage, different transmission modes can be defined (bandwidth, MCS, data rate, SNIR target, signal threshold, Tx power,…) and the coverage maps (cell assignment, best server, active set, channel quality, Rx power in DL & UL, SNIR,…) are computed individually for each transmission mode. Link adaptation is considered and depends on the channel quality predicted with the propagation models. Maximum received power as well as maximum achievable data rates are predicted accurately for each location in the coverage area.

CellTrace™ computes the capacity (throughput, max. data rates, packet delays, QoS, etc.) of the different radio links and cells in the network based on the coverage analysis and the traffic assumptions. Capacity limitations and overloaded cells can be detected easily and networks can be optimized to provide both high capacity and throughput.

Capacity improvements due to MIMO and/or Beamforming are modeled accurately because of the sophisticated, deterministic propagation models. Arbitrary antenna configurations (linear, circular,…) are possible and their impact on the radio channel – determined during the propagation analysis – is considered in the network planning.

CellTrace™ has the most advanced RF propagation algorithms, based on 3D ray-tracing and prevalent path, that predict accurately indoor environments, tunnels, stadiums and any other location.

3D IRT (Ray Tracing)

Ray optical propagation models suffer from long computation times. CellTrace’s unique 3D IRT with a single preprocessing of the building data reduces computation times for indoor databases with more than 1,000 objects, to less than a minute. This allows high accuracy and wide-band channel characterization (impulse response, delay spread, etc.) to be combined with fast computation times.

IDP (Dominant Paths)

CellTrace’s Dominant Path Model is the best selection if:

• Fast and accurate path loss predictions are required
• Interference with outdoor TRX is important and outdoor coverage in urban or rural scenarios must be computed
• The database is only available in scanned maps

Multi Floor Predictions

Multi floor buildings require predictions for each floor. CellTrace can compute predictions on an arbitrary number of heights and can display the results in 3D views. This allows for the easy analysis of interference between floors as well as coverage problems on floors without TRX.

Graphical Database Editor

The generation of the building databases was one of the biggest problems for the indoor propagation models for a long time. CelWall, an innovative CAD tool of the CellTrace suite, allows the generation of building databases within a few minutes based on either scanned bitmaps or CAD data (2D and 3D). The user can edit, modify, delete, rotate, move, scale, etc. the objects and define their properties (thickness, colors, materials, electrical properties, etc.)

CellTrace™ comes in two versions to address the specific needs of the end-user:

• CellTrace™ I: Supports the indoor deployments of all wireless technologies, including inside tunnels
• CellTrace™ D: Supports only Wi-Fi propagation and network documentation

The following ad-on modules are also available for CellTrace™:

• CellComp, which includes all components for indoor network planning.
• CellAntenna, which offers a convenient facility to generate and edit antenna patterns.