###################################################################### NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS + NEWS ###################################################################### W I N P R O P NEWSLETTER 12/2000 ###################################################################### ********************************************************************** New features of the WinProp software package ********************************************************************** Antenna Patterns ---------------- - Support of different file formats for antenna patterns extended. AMan is now able to import antenna patterns from MSI and convert them from 2 x 2D (horizontal and vertical) to 3D antenna patterns. - Determination of antenna gain (directional antennas) during prediction improved (especially for mechanical downtilt) for all prediction modules (terrain/urban/indoor). - Antenna Gain for Urban COST 231 predictions Antenna gain is now based on the ray to the first diffraction wedge and not on the direct ray to the receiver. This improves accuracy especially if very tall buildings are close to the antenna location. New Prediction Models for Terrain Applications ---------------------------------------------- Two new prediction models, based on a knife edge approximation of the vertical terrain profile, are available in the terrain propagation module. The prediction of the path loss is either done with the equations of Deygout or with the approach of Epstein-Peterson. The two new models allow a very fast prediction considering all obstacles in the vertical plane between transmitter and receiver (in contrast to the well known model of Hata-Okumura). Both models are available in the new (and free) demo version on http://www.winprop.de Generalized Format of Urban Building Databases ---------------------------------------------- AWE Communications GmbH extends it's format of the urban building databases in order to consider complex building structures as e.g. court yards or towers inside a building in a more convenient way. With that approach also overlapping buildings are allowed, which reduces the effort when importing building databases from other formats into the WinProp format. So (nearly) no manual hand-tuning is required which increases the efficiency of the planning process significantly. Errors while loading ASCII urban databases in WallMan now lead to a detailed reporting of the errors (which corner of which building is wrong, etc....). The new building format is available in our new releases and included in the next evaluation version of ProMan and WallMan which will be available for free download after Christmas. Database Converter for urban databases improved/extended -------------------------------------------------------- An improved converter for the conversion of shape-files is now available for the urban module. The Mapinfo converter was also extended. Preprocessing of Multiple Heights for Indoor Databases ------------------------------------------------------ For indoor databases several prediction heights are of interest, especially in buildings with multiple floors. The preprocessing for the IRT (Intelligent Ray Tracing) was extended to allow a preprocessing of multiple prediction heights within the same database. So the same database file can be used for the prediction in different floors and an individual preprocessing for each floor is no longer necessary. This feature will be available in the next demo version after Christmas on the WWW. New handling of empirical and ray-optical prediction areas ---------------------------------------------------------- The handling of the additional empirical area (formerly called computation area) and the ray-optical area (formerly called prediction area) were improved in the dialogues of ProMan to avoid confusions. New Module for Radio Network Planning within Tunnels ---------------------------------------------------- A new module of the WinProp family extends the possible environments for radio network planning to tunnels. The method of the Parabolic Equation (PE) is used to describe the wave propagation inside the tunnel structure in a very efficient and accurate way. In order to consider tunnels with different profiles and cross sections a convenient tool for the generation of tunnel databases has been designed (similar to our well-known WallMan for urban and indoor databases). The tunnel module can also be used for the planning of repeater configurations for tunnel coverage. The free demo versions of the tunnel tools for the download from our WWW-site will be available in 01/2001. ********************************************************************** Conferences ********************************************************************** A lot of interesting conferences will come up in 2001. AWE will attend these conferences and present the WinProp product family. On some conferences also oral scientific presentations from AWE will be given: * EPMCC 2001 in Vienna, Austria. * VTC Spring 2001 in Tel Aviv: AWE will present a Paper on UMTS network planning and present the new UMTS (W-CDMA) planning tool (released spring 2001). * 3GWireless2001, IEEE International Conference on Third Generation Wireless and Beyond, * VTC Fall 2001 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. * PIMRC 2001. ********************************************************************** Christmas ********************************************************************** The Christmas edition of the WinProp newsletter presents additionally a *.gif-picture in the attachment. This "Christmas tree" was computed with the Ray Tracing models of WinProp (IRT urban modules). The frequency was 940 MHz, so diffractions and multiple reflections (waveguiding) at the buildings are clearly visible and show the enhanced performance of AWE's IRT model. To close this newsletter, we would like to thank all our customers for the good collaboration. We also really appreciated all the feedback that helps to improve AWE's software products. We wish you and your family Merry Christmas and a happy & successful new year Best regards, AWE's WinProp Team. ********************************************************************** A W E Communications GmbH Moltkestr. 28, 71116 Gaertringen / Germany Tel: +49 (0)7034 / 929-952 FAX: +49 (0)7034 / 929-981 e-mail: mailto:mail@winprop.de WWW: http://www.winprop.de **********************************************************************