Accurate calculation method of terrain viewshed for wireless signal as line of sight

Viewshed analysis is an important research content of digital terrain analysis. The terrain viewshed refers to the range that can be seen at the current position, which varies with the nature of the observer. When the observer is a wireless signal tower, it is the communication viewshed, which refer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transactions in GIS 2024-08, Vol.28 (5), p.1236-1253
Main Authors: Wang, Yiwen, Dou, Wanfeng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Antennas
Attenuation
Cell interactions
Combinatorial analysis
Communication
communication viewshed
Computation
digital elevation model
Digital Elevation Models
Fresnel zones
Position (location)
Receiving
Signal quality
Signal reception
Terrain analysis
terrain viewshed analysis
Towers
Wireless communications
wireless signal
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Summary:Viewshed analysis is an important research content of digital terrain analysis. The terrain viewshed refers to the range that can be seen at the current position, which varies with the nature of the observer. When the observer is a wireless signal tower, it is the communication viewshed, which refers to the area consisted of grid cells where the receiving antennas can receive the signals from a transmitting antenna set up on a grid cell of terrain. The core of base station location problem includes two aspects: combinatorial optimization and the calculation of the coverage rate of signal. The calculation of communication viewshed is an important research content for determining signal coverage range. In this article, we propose an accurate communication viewshed computation algorithm for wireless signal (CVCWS) using the projection curve of 3D Fresnel zone analysis based on DEM. The CVCWS method can calculate the signal reception quality at different locations more precisely. Besides, a signal attenuation model is proposed to compute the theoretical attenuation value according to the signal receiving quality index. The proposed algorithm is compared with the existing DEM‐based communication viewshed algorithms, and the theoretical attenuation values are compared with the measured values. The experimental results show that the theoretical values gained by the CVCWS algorithm are close to the measured values, indicating high accuracy of the CVCWS algorithm. The proposed method can provide theoretical support for communication tower location planning and other related applications.
ISSN:1361-1682
1467-9671
DOI:10.1111/tgis.13188