Performance comparison of ray tracing and 3 GPP street canyon model in microcellular environment

Channel models are routinely used to evaluate the performance of a mobile communication systems. An appropriate channel model accurately predicts the signal propagation in a given radio environment and thus, enables the credible system analysis. Yet, shortcomings in the channel model may lead to either too pessimistic or, on the other hand, overoptimistic system performance results. In this paper we evaluate the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) street canyon model (TR 38.901, Release 14) in a Manhattan environment against the Shoot and Bouncing Ray (SBR) method based Ray Tracing (RT) model. Simulations are performed at three different frequencies i.e. 1.8 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 28 GHz. Simulation results indicate that in Manhattan microcellular system setup, the 3GPP model provides more optimistic coverage and capacity results as compared with the deterministic approach of ray tracing. While ray tracing provides more realistic results, we propose a new path loss model based on ray tracing results. The performance of the proposed model is in a close agreement with ray tracing results and thus, it can be used for precise and accurate cell coverage prediction.