WLAN Planning in WinProp - AWE-Communications

WLAN Planning in WinProp 

Issue Date Changes 

V1.0 Jan. 2011 First version of document 

AWE Communications GmbH 

Otto-Lilienthal-Str. 36 

D-71034 Böblingen 

mail@awe-communications.com

WLAN Planning in WinProp 1 

1 Introduction 

Wireless LANs have become popular in the home due to ease of installation, and the increasing 

popularity of laptop computers. Public businesses such as coffee shops and malls have begun to 

offer wireless access to their customers. 

The WinProp software package includes a modul for the simulation of the 802.11 air interface. 

Using this modul (called NET-L) the planning of WLANs inside buildings and in urban environments 

becomes possible. 

The 802.11 family includes over-the-air modulation techniques that use the same basic protocol. 

The most popular are those defined by the 802.11b and 802.11g protocols, which are 

amendments to the original standard. But WinProp supports all 802.11 protocols, such as: 

• 802.11a 

• 802.11b 

• 802.11g 

• 802.11n (with MIMO) 

The following chapters give an introduction in the usage of the WinProp WLAN module on the 

basis of an indoor example. 

© by AWE Communications GmbH January 2011


2 Preparation of building vector database 

In the first step the vector database of the building is prepared for usage. There are several ways 

to generate the required indoor vector building database with the WallMan tool. 

• Drawing the building walls manually with a background image (e.g. scan from the building 

layout plans) 

• Converting a CAD file from popular file formats (e.g. AutoCAD) into the WinProp file 

format. 

Please refer to the WallMan manual for an explanation of how walls can be drawn in WallMan and 

how the conversion of CAD file is done. 

Figure 1: Building database of multi story office building. 

In Figure 1 the vector database of a multi story building is shown. This building was drawn 

manually in WallMan. Especially when dealing with multi floor buildings it if often reasonable to 

draw only one floor and copy the floor plan to the upper floors (if the layout of the walls is the 

same). 

WallMan allows the definition of Floor Levels which make it easy to access the individual floors 

during the network planning stage. Floor levels can be defined in arbitrary heights, independent of 

the real floor heights. The usage of floor levels can be activated with the menu item Edit > 

Default Values > Automatic Mode. 



The definition of floor levels has to be done manually. Figure 2 shows the dialog box where the 

floor level heights can be entered by the user. This dialog box can be accessed with the menu item 

Objects > Floor Levels. 

Figure 2: Definition of floor levels in WallMan. 

After the definition of the floor levels is completed, the selection of a desired floor is very simple. 

WallMan provides a drop down box in the tool bar which is used to select the corresponding floor 

height. This is shown in Figure 3. 

Figure 3: Selection of floor level in WallMan. 

In the next step the materials of the walls have to be defined or adapted. There is a material 

catalogue with various material properties available which can be obtained from AWE 

Communications. The list with materials used in the vector database can be accessed with the 

menu item Edit > Materials used in database. The user can load, modify and save the 

materials in the material catalogue. This is shown in Figure 4. 



Figure 4: List with used materials in WallMan. 

An important issue is to know which material properties are really considered by the selected wave 

propagation model in a later stage of the network planning process. Not all propagation models 

consider all material parameters. 

Figure 5: Frequency dependent material properties. 

In Figure 5 the frequency depending properties for a material are shown. The dialog consists of 

two different sets of parameters: 

• Parameters for empirical interaction model: These values can be used by all propagation 

models. 

• Parameters for Fresnel Coefficients and GTD/UTD (deterministic model): These values can 

be used by some propagation models only. 



Which of the parameter sets (either empirical or deterministic) is used depends on the settings of 

the project in ProMan. More information about this can be found in the ProMan manual. 

Summary: The building vector database has to be drawn or converted in WallMan. Floor levels 

can be defined for multi story buildings. The material properties have to be adapted. 



3 Setting up a network project in ProMan 

The next step is to set up the network project in ProMan. This can be done with the menu item 

File > New Project. In the dialog box two major selections have to be done: 

• Selection of air interface: In the left column the air interface must be selected. WinProp 

offers predefined Wireless Standard Files which contain already the correct parameters for 

the corresponding air interface. Wireless Standard Files (*.wst) can be obtained from AWE 

Communications. For our example here we select the 802.11g protocol. 

• Selection of map data: In the right column the indoor vector database has to be selected. 

In our case we select the multi story building created with the WallMan tool. 

ProMan displays the scenario on the screen. With the menu item Project > Edit Parameters all 

parameters of the new project can be displayed and adapted. The configuration dialog is shown in 

Figure 6. 

Figure 6: Project settings. Tab sheet “Air Interface” is shown. 

In the following sections the tab sheets of the configuration dialog are briefly explained. Detailed 

information about the settings can be found in the ProMan manual. 



Air Interface 

This tab sheet offers various settings about the air interface. Normally there is no need to modify 

the parameters. The parameters displayed here are read from the Wireless Standard File at the 

moment the project is created. If the parameters are modified here, this has no influence on the 

original Wireless Standard File. 

Simulation 

The tabsheet “Simulation” offers several settings about prediction area, resolution and prediction 

heights. If floor levels are defined (see chapter 2) it is reasonable to select Prediction relative to 

floor heights. This means that the prediction height entered in the edit box is considered relative 

to all floor heights defined in the vector database. 

Figure 7: Selection of “Prediction relative to floor heights”. 

If no floor levels are defined the prediction height(s) have to be entered as absolute height values. 

More than one prediction height can be defined. 

Network 

On this page the available outputs of the simulator can be selected. There are different types of 

results available: 

• General results: These results are generally available, independent of the cell assignment 

and the transmission modes. 

• Transmission mode results: Theses results are available for each transmission mode 

defined for the air interface. 

• Cell assignment results: These results are available for the cell assignment. The cell 

assignment is the first step in the network planning simulation. During the cell assignment 

for each receiver pixel the best cell (best server) will be selected. 

Propagation 

This tabsheet allows the configuration of the results of the wave propagation simulation. 

Sites 

In this tabsheet all sites/access points are listed. The user can enable or disable several sites at 

the same time using the corresponding buttons. Sites can also be added – but it is more 

convenient to add sites with the mouse tool (see next section). 



Database 

Settings about the used vector database (here the multi story building) can be modified. 

Computation 

In this tabsheet the selection of the propagation model is done. 

Prediction Models for ordinary antennas: 

• 3D Ray Optical Models: The usage of the 3D Intelligent Ray Tracing requires a 

preprocessing of the vector database. More information about this step can be found in the 

WallMan manual. In general ray optical models are very accurate but require a long 

prediction time. They should only be used in small environments or if channel impulse 

responses are required as an output. 

• Semi-deterministic Models: These models are acurrate and the prediction time is good. 

Because of that these models are recommended for most scenarios. 

• Empirical Models: Empirical models are very short in prediction time but limited in accuracy. 

They should only be used for very large scenarios (if the other models are too slow). 

Prediction Models for radiating cables: 

• There are several models available for radiating cables/leaky feeder cables. More 

information about the models can be found in the ProMan manual. 

Selection of approach for determination of signal level: 

• Fresnel Coefficients and GTD/UTD: In this case the determinstic interaction model is used 

for the determination of the losses due to reflections, diffractions and transmissions. The 

physical parameters permittivity, permeability and conductivity are considered. 

• Empirical Losses: In this case the empirical material properties (e.g. transmission loss in 

dB, reflection loss in dB) are taken into account. 

The user has to take care selecting the correct interaction model. This depends on how the 

material properties have been defined in WallMan. 



4 Definition of access points/antennas 

After the definition of the project settings is completed, the definition of the antennas can be 

done. ProMan offers a very simple way to place antennas in the layout plan. It is not necessary to 

connect the antennas to an amplifier or to define the cableing in the building. 

Figure 8: Mouse tool for placing antennas in the layout plan. 

Figure 8 shows the mouse tool for the definition of antennas in the layout plan. When the user 

selects this tool a confirmation dialog appears and the user is asked to choose what type of 

antenna he wants to define next. 

Figure 9: Selection of floor level. 

If floor levels are defined in the vector database, the corresponding floor height (where the 

antenna should be placed) must be selected in the drop down box in the toolbar (see Figure 9). It 

is important to know that only antennas on the current floor level are displayed. All other antennas 

are not displayed on the screen. 

Ordinary antennas can be placed in the layout plan by clicking on the desired location. Radiating 

cables have to be drawn with a polyline. The coordiantes of the polylines can be modified layer, 

thus it is no problem if the lines do not perfectly fit after drawing with the mouse tool. The 

modification of the coordinates of a radiating cable can be done in the transmitter dialog. 

After all antennas have been placed in the project, the carrier assignment can be done. Using the 

project settings dialog (see section 3) the transmitter dialog for each antenna can be accessed 

(see Figure 10). 



Figure 10: Assignment of carrier to an antenna. 

By selecting Assign Carrier a channel can be assigned to the selected antenna. It is possible to 

assign only one carrier to an antenna. 

Other modification can also be made in this dialog, e.g. transmit power and antenna pattern can 

be defined by the user. 



5 Network simulation and results 

When the user is sure that all antennas have been placed and all carriers have been assigned the 

network simulation can be launched. ProMan uses a two step approach to compute the network 

results. In the first step the wave propagation is computed. This has to be done only once (expect 

the antenna configuration is modified, e.g. transmit power, location,..). In the second step the 

computation regarding the air interface is done based on the wave propagation results from step 

one. 

The wave propagation computation can be launched with the menu item Computation > 

Propagation: Compute All and afterwards the network computation should be started with the 

menu item Computation > Network: Compute Coverage. 

Figure 11: Display of results using the treeview. 

After the computation is completed, the results can be accessed using the tree view on the left 

side of the window (see Figure 11). The results can also be loaded independent of the project. 

This can be done with the menu item File > Open Result. 

Remark: The network optimizer modul of WinProp can be used for the automatic selection of 

relevant sites and automatic assignment of carriers. More information can be found in the 

application note “Network Optimizer in WinProp”

WLAN Planning in WinProp - AWE-Communications

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