Experimental Determination of Penetration Loss into Multi-Storey Buildings at 900 and 1800MHz

Abstract

This study presents building pentration loss into and around multi-storey buildings at 900 and 1800MHz based on experimental data obtained through drive test, using Test Mobile System (TEMS) investigation tools. The received signal level was measured inside and outside three buildings; the Senate building of the University of Lagos (B1), Mike Adenuga Towers (B2) and the Sapetro Towers (B3) located in Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria. The building penetration loss (BPL) was derived from measurements, and the average and standard deviations of the BPL were computed. Results showed that the average BPL of 17.0dB and 13.8dB obtained from building B1 at 900 and 1800MHz, respectively, are comparatively higher than those of buildings B2 and B3. The standard deviation of the BPL shows an increase from 5.2dB at 900MHz to 7.8dB at 1800MHz for building B1, whereas it fell drastically from 8.65dB at 900MHz to 1.40dB at 1800MHz for B2, and a similar behaviour in B1 is seen for building B3 where it rises sharply from 1.55dB at 900MHz to 6.55dB at 1800MHz. This is in agreement with the general trend of increasing penetration loss with increase in frequency except for building B2 where an anomaly is observed. In order to examine the correlation between the measured and the predicted BPL, cubic regression was used to fit a third order polynomial to the measured BPL. Overrall, the fitted models could find useful applications in the design of novel and robust BPL models for modern multi-floored buildings.