Comparative Evaluation of the Pathloss Prediction Performance Hata-Okumura Pathloss Model for Urban, Suburban and Rural Areas

Abstract

In this paper, comparative evaluation of the pathloss prediction performance of the popular Hata-Okumura model for urban, suburban and rural areas is carried out. The study is based on empirical measurements conducted at Imo state university campus for 800 MHz GSM network. The prediction performance of the three categories of the Hata-Okumura model is analyzed and compared in terms of Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Prediction Accuracy (PA). The results showed that the Hata-Okumura model for the Urban area has the best prediction accuracy when not optimised but it has the lowest optimised prediction accuracy. On the other hand the Hata-Okumura model for the rural/open area has the least prediction accuracy when not optimised but it has the highest prediction accuracy when it is optimised. The results show that adoption of a model because it has the highest prediction accuracy is not the best approach to the selection of pathloss models. Rather the models should be optimised and the best optimised model should be adopted.