DRAFT VERSION

Antenna Conguration in WCDMA Indoor Network

Deep Shrestha (232763) and Kumud Koirala (232823)
Tampere University of Technology
Wireless Communication Systems & Circuits
Abstract- This paper is targeted to provide appropriate
guidelines for the indoor antenna implementation for
distributed systems or radiating cable implementation.
Distributed antenna systems are common installations
for the indoor systems and radiating cables are used for
the confined areas like tunnels and airplanes. Distributed
antenna system with variable amount of antennas is
compared to radiating cable and behavior of the system
is analyzed with help of various parameters/indicators.
The results obtained shows that distributed antenna
systems are well suitable than the radiating cable
implementation. In addition to this we can conclude that
network capacity does not depend on antenna number in
distributed antenna systems but can affect the network
coverage.

I.
INTRODUCTION
In 3G network, network optimization is next step
towards higher capacity. A significantly high number
of users may be preset inside the indoor locations, thus
this is a challenge for the network operator to provide
high quality network coverage for such users. High
density of such user might degrade the network as a
whole unless they are supplied with some dedicated
solutions. This phenomenon is well defined by the high
transmission power requirement due to the indoor
losses. So, to overcome this problem we should
implement dedicated indoor networks for which
Distributed Antenna System (DAS) is most preferred.
II.

WCDMA INDOOR NETWORK

PLANNING

A. Indoor Environment
For a system to be wideband, transmission bandwidth
must be larger than coherence bandwidth of the radio
channel. We can consider WDCMA as frequency
selective fast fading in outdoor environment because
coherence bandwidth is less than WCDMA bandwidth.
But in indoor environment coherence bandwidth can be
more than 16 MHz. [3] This leads to the fact that
WCDMA signal behaves as flat fading causing some
unconventional behavior within the systems.

B. Configuration Planning
In WCDMA the interference limited nature of the
system can cause problem if a single user requires high
throughput at the edge of the cell which in turn will
deteriorate the whole cell coverage. So, if outdoor
network is not planned considering the indoor users
then these users might introduce high loads to some
cells. Therefore a dedicated indoor solution is a worth
consideration for good quality indoor network
coverage.
Macro/Micro cellular network can be designed
considering in-building propagation/coverage which in
turn will reduce our chance to deploy indoor systems.
However, high penetration loss makes this idea an
unsuitable approach. Thus, a most typical solution
becomes implementation of a dedicated indoor system.
To overcome the indoor network planning feature we
can use 3GPP path loss model but we cannot expect a
high accuracy even though [10]. In other hand we can
use other models like ray tracing which in turn is very
expensive implementation. To implement tools like
this we need more information on building to which we
are planning indoor systems.
C. Indoor Antenna Systems
For providing in-building coverage DAS is the most
efficient approach. In DAS we use small discrete
antennas which are specially designed for indoor
purpose. Typically they are either Omni-directional or
directional 65o-90o antennas. While implementing DAS
signals from BTS is carried through network of feeder
cables using splitters and tappers.
Radiating cable (RC) are the leaky feeders where
signals leak in a controlled way through the holes in
the outer conductor. The end of a RC can be terminated
or one discrete antenna can be installed there. Since we
have very low EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated
Power) we can use it even in the interference areas like
hospitals and airplanes.

DRAFT VERSION
III.

WCDMA NETWORK LOADS

A. Load Equations
When user or user bit rate increases in a network it will
eventually increase the interference level in network
which is modeled by Interference margin (IM).
IM= -10 log10 (1-load)

(1)

We need to consider uplink (UL) and downlink (DL)

based on the fact that they have different directions
where in uplink mobiles share same radio interface and
interference in the receiving end is the same. Whereas
in the case of downlink transmit power (Tx) is shared
and also the interference is different in different
locations.
Load factor in downlink direction [12] is defined as:
=
[ (1 j) + j]
(2)
(

)j Rjvj

Here, N is the number of users connected to node Bs,

Wc is the chip rate, ( / )j is the ( / )
requirement of j users. Rj is the j user bit rate, vj is the j
user activity factor, j is other-to-own-cell interference,
j is the orthogonality factor.
B. Orthogonality Evaluation
Downlink orthogonality measurement is not possible
directly rather we should evaluate it using equation of
open-loop power control to calculate initial Tx power
for dedicated DL connection [14].
.(

)DL

.(

TxPower

CPICH

),

(3)

powers
and (
). By replacing
DL
o
with DL SIR as (SIRTargetDL) might result in some error
to the orthogonality but the relative difference remains
c
the same. The resolution factor
CPICH measurement
o
in the User Equipment is found to be 1 dB which can
cause some random error to the results. Finally we can
evaluate relative orthogonality r as:
r=

IV.

Target DL .

Target DL .

TxPower

CPICH

(5)

FIELD MEASUREMENTS

The aim of the measurement was to provide

information on antenna configuration effect in
WCDMA network and to find optimal configuration
for indoor implementation of WCDMA network.
During the course of measurement a DAS consisting of
1 to 4 antennas was compared to radiating cable, where
each DAS can be considered as a pico-cell scenario.
A. Measurement Setup
The measurement was done in the open corridor of
TUT building. The dimension of the building was
about 150 x 60m which is shown in the figure below
where the measurement area is shown by the dotted
lines.
The measurement was carried out in an experimental
WCDMA network having RNC/Iub (Radio Network
Controller) and simulation running in the PC, and a
commercial WCDMA base station with 60m feeder
cable connected to varying antenna configuration.

Here, R is the user data rate, W is the WCDMA chip

rate, ( / )DL is the planned ( / ) value,
TxPower denotes the Tx power of common pilot
channel
of the pilot channel, is
CPICH is the
the orthogonality factor for downlink and
is
total power for DL Tx power. Using the expression (3)
we can solve for as
=

DL.

c
b

TxPower

CPICH

DL.

(4)

We now need to modify the above equation such that

we can use it with the result of measurement. For the
very purpose we replace
by user dedicated Tx
power (
), and
has common channel

Figure number 2 defines measured antenna

configuration along with RNC and Base station. An
Omni-directional indoor antenna with 2dBi gain was
used and radiating & feeder cable were 1/2" co-axial
cable [15]. In 1-Antenna and RC scenarios the signal
was transmitted directly using one antenna/RC where
as signals were split in 2,3 or 4 parts in 2-Antenna, 3Antenna and 4-Antenna case. The EIRP is varied in the

DRAFT VERSION
Packet Data Channel). To maintain the same activity
factor and throughput in the downlink transmission the

antenna configurations where highest was in 1-Antenna

and gradually decreasing to the lowest in 4-Antenna.
The measurement equipment here in this context was
consisting of User Equipment (UE) which was
connected to air interface measurement software [16].
Here the cell scenario was considered to be an isolated
one i.e. no intercellular interference was considered.
The measurement software was used to record all the
other parameters into consideration without DL Tx
power which was recorded using RNC.
The measurement routes, antenna position and
measurement environment is well defined in the
figures (3) and (4).
All the considered antenna configurations were
measured along the primary measurement route (long
line) as shown in fig 3(f) having length of 60m. Since,
the radiating cable was of 20m only thus it was
measure in the shortest route (short line) as shown in
fig 3(f). The measurement scenario was set as antenna
installation was done in the second floor and the
measurements were carried out in the first floor (and
no obstacles were present in-between). The other
condition maintained was that there was no LOS
between the antennas and both LOS and NLOS
condition was made between UE and antennas.
For the measurements a 12.2 Kbps voice-call was
made with maximum activity factor maintained all the
time. The results show that there was 60000 bps
constant throughput in the uplink DPDCH (Dedicated

call was echoed to the downlink in the RNC. To

increase the reliability of the obtained results many
measurements in the same routes were taken.
B. Measurement Results
Table no. 1 below shows the stacked results of the
measurement where the values are the average of each
measurement routes. The average value of RSCP
shows the difference between discrete antenna and RC.
Average RSCP is 8 dB below the lowest measured
value with discrete antenna under RC. When measured
more away from RC the average value of RSCP
dropped to 10 dB more. Average RSCP remains within
the window of 2.5 dB where 3 antennas providing the

DRAFT VERSION
best results and the 4 antenna was the worst in
providing coverage.
Ec/IoCPICH defined as relation between pilot RSCP
(Received Signal Code Power) & RSSI (Received
Signal Strength Indicator) is used to measure the
quality of cell, which is found to be expectedly low
including the RC measurements.
For the measurement of minimum value for STDRSCP
(Standard Deviation of RSCP) measurements were
done under RC scenario where distance between UE
and RC was constant throughout the measurement
route. To calculate the maximum value for STDRSCP the
distance between UE and RC was varied from couple
of meters to about 30m. On measuring the maximum
value for STDRSCP highest value was obtained from 1antenna and the lowest was obtained from 2-antenna.
,
The observed variation in DL Tx powers,
fits
into 1 dB window, which indicates that in an
interference free environment DL power does not
depend on path loss. However the smallest value
measured was from 1-antenna and 2-antenna scenario.
The highest of them was observed from RC scenario.
The DL Tx power remains close to 1-antenna and 2antenna scenario under RC.
The DL transmission quality was measured using the
outer loop control in UE which also tunes the DL SIR
target accordingly. As observed DL SIR target value is
found to be around 9 dB indicating rather similar
transmission quality between different scenarios under
consideration, which can also be verified by small
difference in BER on the pilot channel.
The difference between Tx powers in the UL direction
was found to be rather obvious thus giving a clear
relation between RSCP and
. Using 4-antenna
scenario lowest average UL Tx power was obtained
and was found to be increasing with number of
antennas decreasing. The highest UL Tx power were
achieved with RC indicating that network coverage is
limited in UL direction other than under the straight
cable. UL Tx power CDF is as shown in fig (6).
The compensated UL Tx power relative to 1-antenna
configuration can be expressed as:
PUL= -(RSCP-RSCp(ref))- (

))

(6)

(
) are the corresponding
Where, RSCp(ref) &
values from 1-antenna scenario. The value for the 4antenna scenario which is low indicates increased
diversity against slow fading due to several antennas is

improving the quality of uplink reception. The value

for r was calculated using expression in 5 where it

remained constant other than the case of RC scenario

which indicated that orthogonality decreases faster than
in discrete antenna scenario.
V.

CONCLUSIONS

The main purpose of this paper/report was to provide

guidelines for the installation of indoor antenna or RC
for the indoor network scenario. The results showed
that building a DAS in indoor environment is not
sensitive to the number of antennas. The variations of
signals were found to be higher in 1-antenna scenario
but it does not have adverse effect on the network
performance.

DRAFT VERSION

The end output demonstrated that to overcome poor

indoor network implementing DAS had effect on the
coverage of the network regardless of the antenna
configurations. For the measurement purpose the route
selection was in line rather more fragmented antenna
placement would have increased differences between
different antenna configurations. RC having low
coverage capacity discrete antenna solution seems to
outperform it. Moreover small radiation power of RC
enables us to control the coverage area more
accurately. Even though, RC cannot be a primary
solution for typical indoor planning.
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