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Copyright 2009 AIRCOM International All rights reserved ASSET ACP, ASSET, CONNECT, DATASAFE, DIRECT ENTERPRISE, ARRAYWIZARD, AIRCOM OPTIMA, and WEBWIZARD are recognised trademarks of AIRCOM International. Other product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Microsoft Excel , .NET, Microsoft Office, Outlook , Visual Basic Windows, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Word are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. This documentation is protected by copyright and contains proprietary and confidential information. No part of the contents of this documentation may be disclosed, used or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without the prior written consent of AIRCOM International. Although AIRCOM International has collated this documentation to reflect the features and capabilities supported in the software products, the company makes no warranty or representation, either expressed or implied, about this documentation, its quality or fitness for particular customer purpose. Users are solely responsible for the proper use of ENTERPRISE software and the application of the results obtained. An electronic version of this document exists. This User Reference Guide finalised on 28 August 2009. Refer to the Online Help for more information. This User Reference Guide prepared by: AIRCOM International Ltd Cassini Court Randalls Research Park Randalls Way Leatherhead Surrey KT22 7TW Telephone: Support Hotline: Fax: Web: +44 (0) 1932 442000 +44 (0) 1932 442345 +44 (0) 1932 442005 www.aircominternational.com
Contents
Chapter 1 Frequency Planning with ILSA 7
Automatic Frequency Planning (ILSA) ............................................................... 7
The Cost Function of the ILSA Algorithm .................................................................... 8 How ILSA Works.......................................................................................................... 9 The ILSA Process ........................................................................................................ 9 Creating the Prerequisites for a Frequency Plan ...................................................... 11 How ILSA Works with an Existing Frequency Plan ................................................... 16 Initialising the ILSA Frequency Plan .......................................................................... 16 About the ILSA Frequency Planner Dialog Box ........................................................ 18 Creating and Editing a Cost Matrix ............................................................................ 21 Saving a Cost Matrix .................................................................................................. 26 Loading a Cost Matrix ................................................................................................ 26 Setting the Display Options for ILSA ......................................................................... 26 Setting the Planning Options for ILSA ....................................................................... 27 Running ILSA ............................................................................................................. 29 Example of Using ILSA for a Localised Re-plan ....................................................... 30 Reviewing ILSAs Results .......................................................................................... 31 Applying an ILSA Frequency Plan to the Site Database ........................................... 34 Exporting Assignments .............................................................................................. 35 Importing Assignments .............................................................................................. 35
Editing Carrier Allocations Manually................................................................. 36 Importing Frequency Plans .............................................................................. 37 Analysing a Frequency Plan ............................................................................ 37
How to Analyse a Frequency Plan ............................................................................ 38
Index
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CHAPTER 1
In This Section
Automatic Frequency Planning (ILSA) Editing Carrier Allocations Manually Importing Frequency Plans Analysing a Frequency Plan 7 36 37 37
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ILSA (as its 'Local Search' name implies) reduces the number of options it has for new states derived from a current state. ILSA can give special attention to areas of high cost within the network (analogous to areas of high interference), temporarily ignoring lower cost areas. This allows ILSA to make very rapid initial progress. For example, if ILSA is attempting to plan for a network requiring 60 carrier allocations, with 20 available carriers, and identifies a subset of 10 high cost carrier allocations, then the maximum number of new states that ILSA needs to consider has been reduced from 3.8*1025 to 6.1*1012. Random changes can be made by ILSA if only low improvement rates are being achieved, or if a dead end is reached. The algorithm monitors its own progress and will behave differently depending on how quickly the cost is decreasing at a given time. This intelligent behaviour enables it to continue finding improvements over long periods of time. The principle behind ILSA's algorithm is that a single number (the cost) measures the effectiveness of any particular frequency plan. The algorithm then tries to minimise the cost over the set of all possible plans. The cost function measures how much interference exists in the network, and what separations have been broken, while taking account of any user-specified 'importance' weightings for different sub-cells.
Where:
= = = = = = = = = The adjacent channel interference caused on allocation i by allocation j (Units: 200*mE or 20,000*km) The co-channel interference caused on allocation i by allocation j (Units: 200*mE or 20,000*km) The frequency allocated at allocation i Members of the set of all frequency allocations The retune cost associated with allocation i The fixed or forbidden carrier cost associated with allocation i The separation costs (from equipment, neighbours, exceptions or close separations) between allocations i and j The handover count and intermodulation interference costs associated with allocation i The weighting factor applicable to carrier allocation i
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This flow chart shows the process needed to create a good frequency plan with ILSA:
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The following sections describe these prerequisites. When you have ensured you have these prerequisites, the next step is to set up ILSA.
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Enabled Frequency Hopping and/or DTX in the Site Database, if these are going to be considered by ILSA: Frequency Hopping: Follow the steps described in Configuring Frequency Hopping DTX can be enabled (with an appropriate Voice Activity Factor) on the Cell Config tab in the Site Database
You now need to define the Number of Carriers Required on each cell to be planned.
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You can create several different cost matrices, and load them at various times for comparison purposes. For more information on defining a Cost Matrix, see Creating and Editing a Cost Matrix on page 21.
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Exceptions ILSA uses an interference table to assess whether a particular frequency re-use between two cells is good or bad. However, the interference table is created from predictions that may not always match reality. To prevent ILSA using a certain frequency re-use, you can use exceptions to forbid a particular frequency re-use between two cells. Exception relationships between cells can be set manually on the Exceptions tab of the Site Database. For full information on setting the above options in the Site Database, see Creating Neighbour Relationships and Using Exceptions in the ASSET User Reference Guide.
About the Propagation Model, Predictions and Best Server Array for ILSA
After you have defined or checked the other prerequisites for ILSA, you may wish to consider and check the following optional (but recommended) inputs:
Item Propagation model Purpose Predicts the coverage of cells, taking into account the RF parameters stored in the site database and the mapping data Required for array creation, including the Best Server array Prerequisite The propagation model should be accurate. However, see the next section if you want to use ILSA but are unsure of your model's accuracy. Predictions have to be made for of all the sites that will be included in the plan. They must be at an appropriate map data pixel resolution and radius. Use the Best Server array (and Service Area array) to check the coverage pattern. This may indicate any problems which need to be corrected in the Site Database. Best Server array Needed for the generation of some The array should be generated at the same resolution as the of the optional inputs to ILSA, predictions, over an area that covers all of the service areas of including: the cells being planned. Neighbours Traffic rasters Interference Tables It is therefore important that the Filter used to create the array includes all the sites to be planned.
Predictions
Using ILSA with an Inaccurate Propagation Model If you have little or no confidence in your propagation model, for example because model tuning is still being performed, you can still use ILSA to develop a frequency plan by: Manually entering the carriers required in the Site Database (you can also use Global Editor or pre-set in Template) Manually entering the neighbour lists (by importing directly into the Site Database) Not using the interference table, and allowing ILSA to work solely on separation constraints that you have entered into the cost matrix. This method only uses carrier separation constraints to produce a frequency plan, and totally ignores any of the coverage or interference functionality in ASSET.
ILSA User Reference Guide Version 6.2 Page 15
If you change the planning data that you want to include in the frequency plan, any existing data in ILSA is overwritten.
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In the dialog box that appears, select which planning data you want to use. In the Network pane:
Choose Data from memory File, then browse for a file You can only use ASSET XML network files. To Select existing data Use information from a file that you have previously exported from ENTERPRISE Then Follow steps 3 - 6 Follow steps 4 - 6
If you selected the Data From Memory option in the Network pane, select the filters that you want to use by clicking Import Filters then: In the Import Filters wizard that appears, select the folder(s) that contains the filters that are to be considered in your plan, then click Next. Select the checkboxes for the filters that are to be considered. When you plan, the simplest situation is that you use one or more filters, and plan all the included sites. However, you can also use multiple filters so that you assign some of the sites with Plan status and some with Read-Only status. These options are described in Defining Groups of Cells as Plan or Read-Only on page 20. In this case, you may need to use the arrows to reorder the filters in terms of priority. Only a single planning status (plan, read-only, ignore) can be assigned to a cell. Therefore, in cases where a cell might exist in more than one filter, the filter priority is important in deciding which status applies to such a cell. For example, if a cell happens to exist in two filters, one set as Read-Only and the other as Plan, and the former filter is set with a higher priority, then the cell will be considered as read-only for the plan. Click Next. Select the cell layers you want to consider from the list shown, then click Next. Fine tune the cell layer and filter combination you want to import then click Finish.
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In the Interference pane, you can select to use the Interference Table in memory (this is not compulsory), or use data from a saved file. In the Handover Counts pane, if you want to use handover counts in the plan, you can select the File option and browse to your file. You can either create this file or import it from OPTIMA. For information on the file format, see the ENTERPRISE Technical Reference Guide. Click the Initialise button. The data you have specified is then loaded into ILSA, a default cost matrix is created and the ILSA Frequency Planning dialog box appears.
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Saved Cost Matrices can only be loaded into the same project from which they were produced. For a full description of these options, see Creating and Editing a Cost Matrix on page 21.
In the Plan List dialog box, in the Status column for each combination:
Select Plan If you want ILSA to Plan the carriers required within sites satisfying the filter/cell layer/carrier layer criteria. The carrier allocations can be modified and are considered by other carrier allocations as interferers. Read Only Not plan the carrier allocations required within sites satisfying the filter/cell layer/carrier layer criteria. The current carrier allocations can still be considered as interferers by ILSA when planning other carrier allocations. For example, it may be important to take into account frequency allocations in neighbouring regions. In this case, the filter/cell layer/carrier layer combinations describing the neighbouring regions should be assigned Read Only. Ignore Ignore sites satisfying the filter/cell layer/carrier layer criteria. Click here for a tip on when the ignore option may be useful.
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Only a single planning status (plan, read-only, ignore) can be assigned to a site. Therefore, in cases where a site might exist in more than one filter, the filter priority is important in deciding which status applies to such a site. If this is the case, ensure you have ordered the filters in terms of priority, as described in Initialising the ILSA Frequency Plan on page 16.
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When planning, the complexity of the filter/cell layer combinations can severely impact the speed at which a solution is reached. If due to the nature of the frequency banding technique chosen, you can disregard a particular cell layer since it has no possible impact on the others, it is advisable to ignore the layer completely. This would happen when considering a dual band network and only planning the 900MHz layer. In this case the 900MHz layer and 1800MHz layer can be considered independent of one another. 3 Now you are ready to edit the cost matrix.
After you have created or edited a customised cost matrix, ensure that you save it for future use.
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Usually when running ILSA, the first priority is to remove the separation constraints. To achieve this, the separation costs must be adequately high. If equipment and neighbour separation costs are not high enough compared with the interference costs, the separations are not completely removed during the frequency planning process. Frequency planning is an iterative process and it is recommended that you study the effect of different cost settings in order to determine the optimal cost values for your purposes.
Theoretically, Fixed or Forbidden carriers can still be affected (changed) by ILSA. These relate to the penalty costs of ILSA either de-allocating a Fixed carrier or allocating a Forbidden carrier. They should therefore be high values. However, if you wish to explicitly prohibit their allocation, you can select the option described in Setting the Planning Options for ILSA on page 27. Carrier Layer Costs You can assign a weighting to any of the cell layer/carrier layer combinations (for example you may wish to set a weight of 2 for the BCCH layer, compared to 1 for TCH). Weightings can be used to deter ILSA from breaking constraints on higher weighted layers. To prevent ILSA from retuning allocated (whether fixed or otherwise) carriers on a carrier layer, in the Allow Retune column, deselect the checkbox. To allow ILSA to retune any allocated carriers, in the Allow Retune column select the checkbox and enter a cost. If you enter a high cost, ILSA will be deterred from changing the allocated carriers unless it must do so to obtain a plan with low interference.
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Equipment Costs
When you are adding or editing a cost matrix, you can edit the Equipment Costs, by clicking the appropriate folder. These costs relate to Intra-Site, Intra-Cell and Cell Equipment carrier separation constraints. You can set generic separation constraints and associated penalty costs for the sites, cells and equipment in your network. These will be listed for every combination of Cell Layers and Carrier Layers in your network that are to be included in your plan. Under the Equipment column, there are rows stating Site or Cell. For each one, respectively, you can set: A minimum separation constraint (and associated penalty cost) between carriers on the same SITE A minimum separation constraint (and associated penalty cost) between carriers on the same CELL Optionally, you can also set preferred separation constraints, in order to 'fine-tune' the cost matrix (if you do not wish to do this, set the preferred constraints to the same value as the minimum). Example of Separation Constraints: If the intra-cell separation constraints and associated costs (minimum and preferred) are set as:
Min Separation 2 Min Cost 1000 Pref Separation 4 Pref Cost 100
Then the associated penalty costs for any intra-cell allocations made by ILSA's plan would be:
Actual Separation achieved by ILSA 4 + (preferred) 3 2 1 0 (minimum) Penalty Cost 0 100 200 1000 2000
As can be seen, the penalty cost values are summed for each reduction in separation. If only the preferred separation is broken, only the preferred cost is summed. If the minimum and preferred separations are broken, only the minimum cost is summed. Cell Equipment You can also set intra-cell separation constraints and costs on the basis of the types of Cell Equipment used on each cell. If a cell has cell equipment assigned to it, the separation costs defined for that cell equipment will take precedence over the intra-cell separation costs (defined against the 'Cell' entry). If, on the other hand, no cell equipment is assigned to a cell, the intracell separation costs will be applied.
ILSA User Reference Guide Version 6.2 Page 23
For more information about adding cell equipment, see the ENTERPRISE User Reference Guide.
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Intermodulation Interference Costs You can set costs for 2nd order and 3rd order intermodulations. You can also enter an uplink weighting to be applied to intermodulations that involve uplink frequencies (which cause less significant interference than downlink frequencies). In order to take intermodulation into account, ILSA needs to know the absolute frequencies represented by the carriers. For more information on this, see About Frequency Bands in the ASSET User Reference Guide.
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If you use the Reset to Default button to reset all the values to the defaults, this will remove any changed values you may have inserted in the grid.
Saved Cost Matrices can only be loaded into the same project from which they were produced.
The cost matrix is now loaded, and can be viewed and edited, and, if necessary, subsequently saved as the same or a different file.
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If you have created an interference table as an input to ILSA, you can also choose how ILSA should minimise the interference during its optimisation plan, as explained in the following section.
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For the purposes of normalisation, ILSA multiplies any area (km) values by a factor of 100, to bring make them compatible with any traffic (mE) values, and subsequently multiplies both area and traffic values by a factor of 200, to bring make them compatible with Carrier Separation Costs set up by the user in the Cost Matrix. This enables ILSA to minimise costs on a like-for-like basis, but also allows the user to customise the Cost Matrix to determine the overall weightings for the frequency plan.
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Running ILSA
To start running ILSA: 1 Ensure you have: 2 Initialised ILSA Set up the options Defined the filter/cell layer/carrier layer combinations to be considered Edited the cost matrix Use Current Plan to load the initial carrier assignments of the current plan, for example, when adding a small number of new sites to an existing network. This may retain a larger number of the original channel allocations. or Create New Plan to start ILSA planning with an entirely random frequency plan, for example, when planning for a new network or implementing a new technique, such as frequency hopping.
Start planning by clicking the Start button. If you have a large cost matrix, leave ILSA running for several hours at a time. However, remember that the rate of improvement decreases with time so large improvements are made within a relatively short period of time and only modest (but potentially beneficial) improvements are made over many hours.
When you decide to stop ILSA running - that is, when a considerable period of time has elapsed without much improvement - click the Stop button. ILSA will only stop itself when the cost of the plan reaches zero. This is really only possible when the planning constraints were very easy to satisfy and is unlikely in a real network. An example might be planning a small network of 10 sites with a full GSM band of carriers!
Now you can analyse the results. The Online Help for ASSET contains a Troubleshooting ILSA section.
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To achieve this localised re-plan using ILSA, you would do the following: 1 2 Create three dynamic filters based on polygons with meaningful names, such as AreaForNewSite, BorderAroundNewSite and RestOfPlan. In the ILSA Import Filters wizard, choose to import these three filters and, on the second page of the wizard, order the priority of the filters so AreaForNewSite is at the top and RestOfPlan is at the bottom. From the ILSA View menu, click Plan List and set the cell layer/carrier layer combinations AreaForNewSite and BorderAroundNewSite filters to Plan, and for the RestOfPlan filter to Read Only. In the Carrier Layer Costs folder, select the Allow Retune checkbox for the BorderAroundNewSite filter and add an associated cost of performing the retune. The cost should be high enough to ensure that carriers are re-planned in the border region only if a significant improvement is made - the value really depends on how critical it is to you that the number of changes should be minimised the more important, the higher the cost. It may take a couple of iterations (without Applying the changes to the database) before the optimal retune cost is found. The cell layer/carrier layer combinations for the RestofPlan filter are not present because you are not planning for it.
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To save a copy of the graph while the plan is running: 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 In the ILSA graph, click the Snapshot button. Browse to a folder where you want to save the snapshot graph. Choose the type of file (*.bmp or *.jpg). Enter a filename. Click Save. In the ILSA graph, click the Print button. In the dialog box that appears, choose the position of the graph on the page or set up any margins, and choose the size required. Click OK. In the dialog box that appears next, select the appropriate printer then click OK to print the graph.
The Carrier Assignments dialog box displays the: Carrier statistics, that is, the number of times each frequency is allocated, and the minimum reuse distance between each site using that frequency Cell statistics, in terms of the interference on each allocation that is made.
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Exporting Assignments
You can export carrier assignments from ILSA to an XML file, even without Applying the plan to the database. You may also want to analyse the carrier assignments that ILSA has made in other software programs. Only data that is applicable to the frequency plan will be exported. To export carrier assignments: 1 2 From the File menu on the ILSA Frequency Planning dialog box, click Export Assignments. Enter a filename and click OK.
The carrier assignments determined by ILSA are exported to an XML file, enabling you to import them at a later stage, or analyse them in other tools.
Importing Assignments
You can import carrier assignments from previous frequency plans. To import carrier assignments: 1 2 3 From the File menu on the ILSA Frequency Planning dialog box, click Import Assignments. Browse to the XML file you wish to import. Click OK. Run ILSA using the imported plan as a starting point - or Apply the imported plan to the Site Database for Analysis purposes
You can then view the imported Carrier Assignments in ILSA, and then either:
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If the layer does not appear, ensure it has been associated with the cell layer, as explained in Defining Cell Layers. 3 In the Carriers pane, select or deselect the relevant checkbox(es) to edit the allocation status, as appropriate:
Status Alloc. Forbidden Alloc. and Fixed None Description The carrier is allocated. The carrier is set as forbidden. The carrier allocation is set as fixed. The carrier is not allocated.
Any Fixed or Forbidden states can be used as inputs to ILSA. 4 You can now repeat the process for a different carrier layer. When you have finished making your allocations on all the relevant carrier layers for the sub-cell, click Apply to save the changes.
Optionally, each carrier can be also assigned with one of five states: Active, Idle, Released, Locked, Deleted. These five carrier states are for user information only. They will have no impact on the rest of the functions in ENTERPRISE. You can also use the Carrier Layer tab of the Global Editor in the Site Database to make limited allocation status changes based on filters. For more information on the Carriers tab, see About the Carriers Tab for 2g Sub-Cells in the ASSET User Reference Guide.
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Descriptions of these array types are given in the ASSET Technical Reference Guide. If you are using a frequency hopping network, choose a connection type array, since these are designed to consider hopping carriers. 5 6 Display the array(s) on the Map View. See Displaying Arrays in the ASSET User Reference Guide. After analysing the array(s) visually (and plotting the resulting view, if desired), you can now analyse the plan statistically, by producing an Interference Statistics report. The report gives details of the proportion of interference better and worse than the chosen interference threshold, as well as a breakdown by clutter type and by cell. The Total Covered Area in the report is the area of the Best Server array down to the chosen coverage level. It is also possible to confine the statistics within specified user polygons, for example enclosing urban areas only. 7 Use the Interactive Frequency Analysis Wizard to generate a comprehensive report which can analyse and fine-tune the frequency plan based on the Interference Table, Neighbours, Site/Cell Separations and Exceptions. Use the Frequency Plan Reporter to generate a simple report which lists allocations which do not meet specified carrier separation constraints. Display the Frequency Re-use on the Map view, using the Cell Info option under the Data Types list.
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It is always necessary to create an Interference Array before generating an Interference Report. This is because the reports always extract their data from the interference array currently in memory. Therefore, after making any changes in the network, you should always carry out both steps consecutively.
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Index
A
Algorithms ILSA cost function 8 Analysis frequency plans 31, 33, 34, 35, 37 Assignments, carriers 7, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37
C
Carriers assignments 7, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37 status 36 Cost Matrix for ILSA 9, 13, 19, 21, 26
F
Frequency Planning analysing plans 31, 33, 34, 35, 37 automatically using ILSA 7 Cost Matrix for ILSA 9, 13, 19, 21, 26 importing and exporting plans 34, 35, 37 prerequisites for ILSA 11
H
Handover counts used in ILSA 24
I
ILSA about 7, 9, 11 analysing plans 31, 33, 34, 35, 37 cost function 8 Cost Matrix 9, 19, 21, 26 interference tables 11, 16 prerequisites 11 running 29 viewing results 31 Intermodulation frequency bands 24, 27 in ILSA 24, 27
P
Planning frequency 7, 36, 37
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