Special Cases: Indoor and

Tunnel Environments
Training Document

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Special Cases: Indoor and Tunnel Environments

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

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Objectives................................................................................... 4

2
2.1
2.2
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.3

Indoor Planning.......................................................................... 5
Indoor Coverage from Outdoor Cells ........................................... 5
Indoor Solutions ........................................................................... 8
Distributed Antenna System (DAS)............................................ 10
Radiating Cable ......................................................................... 11
Fibre Optics Distribution System (FODS) .................................. 12
Repeater .................................................................................... 13
Indoor Planning.......................................................................... 14

3
3.1
3.2
3.2.1
3.2.2

Tunnel Coverage...................................................................... 16
Propagation................................................................................ 16
Coverage Solutions.................................................................... 17
Antennas.................................................................................... 17
Active Elements ......................................................................... 17

Repeaters.................................................................................. 19

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Objectives
At the end of this module, the participant will be able to:

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Describe how to improve indoor coverage

Explain the principles of indoor planning

Describe the basics of tunnel planning

List the basics of repeaters

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Indoor Planning

2.1

Indoor Coverage from Outdoor Cells

Mobile networks are increasingly expected to provide coverage also inside
buildings. It is not always possible due to complexity of indoor environments.
Radio wave propagation in indoor environment involves external and internal
wall penetration, absorption of radio wave energy by furniture, as well as
body losses due to the presence of people in the surrounding area.
Furthermore, indoor propagation is subjected to fast multipath fading due to
multiple path reflected signal, and also diffracted waves due to corners,
furniture, the presence of people and moving objects. This, however, can
rarely be modelled with a prediction tool, since a prediction would require a
very detailed database of buildings. The database should include locations,
window orientations, building materials etc.
Therefore signal levels in buildings are estimated by applying an empirically
measured building penetration loss margin. Typical values are 15..25 dB.
This varies from country to country with typical architecture and building
materials used. Some example values are given in Table 1.
Table 1 Example values for building penetration loss with different material
types.

mean value

sigma

Reinforced concrete wall, windows

17 dB

concrete wall, no windows

30 dB

concrete wall within building

10 dB

brick wall

9 dB

armed glass

8 dB

wood or plaster wall

6 dB

window glass

2 dB

Passenger car

5-10 dB

Signal levels within the same building are not constant. There are big
differences (10 ..15 dB) between locations near an outside window and deep
indoor situations, e.g. in hallways, see Figure 1. For this reason, sufficient
coverage inside buildings from outdoor cells can only be expected in outer
parts of the building, not in elevators, toilets and such, see Figure 2.

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signal level increases with

floor number :~1,5 dB/floor
(for 1st ..10th floor)

Pindoor = -3 ...-15 dB
Pindoor = -7 ...-18 dB

Pref = 0 dB

-15 ...-25 dB

Figure 1.

rear side :
-18 ...-30 dB

no coverage

Building penetration loss

T he newspaper-principle:
I ndoor coverage may be expected
in locations where there is enough
daylight to comfortably read a
newspaper without artificial
illumination

Where?

e.g.
rooms with window
near a window
atrium-style places

Figure 2.

Indoor coverage from outdoor cells cannot be expected

everywhere in the building

Note
Total building loss =
add median values
superimpose standard deviations
add (lognormal) margin for higher probabilities.

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Penetration loss depends heavily on incident angle of the radio wave. Figure 3
describes measured values for armed glass at 1800 MHz (typical facade of
office building) with different incident angles.

30

dB
incidence angle
of radio wave
90

25
20
15

180

0
glass pane

10
5

Figure 3.

180

165

150

135

120

105

90

75

60

45

30

15

deg

Incident angle effect on building penetration loss

In the logical thinking the propagation of the 1800MHz signal should be

worse than 900MHz. In practice this is not proven in all locations due to
complexity of the indoor environment. The signal propagates inside building
through material and holes/tubes and in free space between limiting elements
(ceilings, walls). Typically the material loss is higher in higher frequency, but
for instance the steel structure within reinforced concrete determines how well
the ceiling reflects the signal. The separation of wall elements effects the
propagation and tubes and holes are ideal for higher frequency to propagate.
Roughly saying the lower frequency propagates through material and higher
frequency through holes and tubes.
The total path loss is a combination of outdoor path loss, building
penetration loss and indoor path losses, see Figure 4.

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Special Cases: Indoor and Tunnel Environments

Simple path loss model for in-building

environment

Lout

outdoor losses: O kumuras formula

L out = 42,6 + 20 log( f ) + 26 .. 35 log( d )

Lwall

wall losses:

L wall = f(material; angle)

indoor losses: linear model

for picocells
L in = L 0 + d

building type

application example

old house

0,7 dB /m

(urban residential)

commercial type

0,5 dB /m

(modern offices)

open room, atrium

0,2 dB /m

(museum, train station)

Figure 4.

2.2

losses

Lin

Total path loss indoors

Indoor Solutions
In some cases, indoor coverage problems can be solved by down-tilting or reorientating rooftop antennas towards the target building. Using outdoor
microcells can also provide indoor coverage. Because of complexity of
indoor propagation and the attenuation caused by external building wall,
signals from neighbouring outdoor sites may not be able to provide sufficient
indoor coverage nor the quality. In these situations, antennas and BTSs must
be installed inside the building itself. Because of majority of the calls are
made inside buildings, the indoor solution is also good way to increase
capacity. In some high-rise buildings the indoor solution is only way to solve
interference problems and provide good quality inside buildings.
Idea of indoor planning is find out optimum indoor solution for every possible
indoor locations, not only for buildings, but also tunnels, underpass, subways
etc.
Indoor solution could be in some places the only possible way to provide
coverage, capacity and good quality. Indoor solution is typically more
complex than outdoor network, usually huge number of antennas and other
RF-components are needed. For example, those tower type of office
buildings, typically two antennas per floor are needed, so if we have buildings
with 60 floors, roughly 120 antennas needed.
Indoor coverage solutions are presented in Figure 5. They include the
following features:

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Small BTS

mini BTS

PrimeSite, MetroSite, InSite

Repeaters

active, passive

optical

Antennas

distributed antennas (DAS)

radiating cable

Signal distribution

power splitters

optical fiber (FODS).

SIGNAL DISTRIBUTION

BASE STATIONS

ANTENNAS

Direct connection
Passive repeater
RF repeater
for indoors
Coaxial antenna

Indoor BTS

RF repeater with optical interface

Op t Tx

RF in

A-bis / BSC

Op t Rx

RFout

RF out

RF out

Directional antenna
(wall-mounted)

Optical RF Distribution
Bi-directional antenna
(wall-mounted)
Outdoor BTS
Distributed antenna system (RF signal splitters)
Omni-directional
antenna
(ceiling-mounted)

Outdoor cell

Distributed antenna system with

amplifier (in line RF amplifiers)

Figure 5.

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Indoor coverage solutions

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Special Cases: Indoor and Tunnel Environments

2.2.1

Distributed Antenna System (DAS)

The main idea of a distributed antenna system (DAS) is to divide the cell to
several smaller cells, see the Light bulb principle in Figure 6.

... is better than ...

several smaller sites provide

more indoor coverage area
than a single large site

Figure 6.

Light bulb principle

DAS is a passive system with small antennas, splitters, couplers and coaxial
cables. Nowadays this system is the most common indoor solution. Both omni
and panel antennas are possible with the DAS system.
The advantage of the system is the easy way of increasing capacity and that it
is nearly maintenance free. On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult to
install and especially in big buildings, power budget limits the usability of
DAS. Distributed system is normally created with power splitters, which
increase the losses of the system. Power splitter is passive component, which
divides energy from a transmitter (BTS) to several branches of cables or
antennas.
There is a very wide variety of indoor antennas available, ranging from omni
and panel antennas to coaxial antennas (Radiating cable, leaky feeder). Indoor
antennas are normally small, not very visible to the public, and come in the
required colours, see Figure 7. Omni antennas are normally used in wide-open
area, such as conference halls, seminar rooms and hotel lobbies. Panel antenna
should be used in areas where strong coverage is required and the area
concerned is large. In terms of providing corridors coverage, an omni and the
panel antenna does not exhibit significant differences due to the physical
structure of area. However, the latter provides further coverage due the greater
antenna gain. Coaxial antenna should narrow dim building, particular in Asian
type office tower (horizontal) or narrow shopping mall with long queue of
shops, tunnels and underground.

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Figure 7.

2.2.2

Kathrein indoor omni antenna (left) and a panel antenna

(right)

Radiating Cable
Radiating cable (or leaky cable or coax antenna) can be used in a DAS instead
of an omni or panel antenna. Leaky cable is modified feeder cable with
different shaped/sized/distanced slots in the outer conductor, which will effect
into the radiation performance of the cable i.e. it radiates the BTS signal into
the installation environment and receives MS signal i.e. as normal antenna.
Leaky cable creates cylindrical field and thus uniform coverage around the
cable. The cable is wideband. It can be installed both horizontal/vertical, split
as normal distribution lines and terminated either with a terminator or
standard antenna. Leaky cable provides coverage also for locations where the
RF connection would not be possible otherwise.

Figure 8.

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Radiating cable

radiating losses 10 ..40 dB per 100m

coupling loss typically 55 dB (at 1m reference distance)

produces constant field strengths along cable runs

radiating losses become higher with frequency

very large bending radii

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2.2.3

bending disturbs field distribution

useful in tunnels where filling factor is high

expensive.

Fibre Optics Distribution System (FODS)

In fibre optics distribution system (FODS, optical repeater) the RF signal is
converted to optical signal at a master unit and fed into the optical fibre.
Conversion from optical signal to RF signal takes place at the antenna end, in
a remote unit, see Figure 9 and Figure 10.
Optical fibre has got very low cabling losses (2 dB/ 1000m) thus enabling
transmitting the signal over long distances. Since the cable is very thin, also
installation is easy. Over 50 remote antennas are possible within one system.
Application examples:

multi-level offices, shops

airport halls (large distances!)

industrial plants

Downlink

Splitter

Optical
Converter

Optical
Converter

Optical
Converter

Optical
Converter

Uplink

Combiner

Figure 9.

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Fibre Optics Distribution System

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Indoor BTS
Indoor Panel
Antenna

Master Unit

Optical Fiber

RF Cable

Remote Unit

Figure 10.

2.2.4

Optical signal is converted to RF signal at remote unit and

master unit.

Repeater
Two different kinds of repeaters exist: passive repeater only repeats the donor
signal without amplifying it whereas active repeater amplifies and retransmits all received signals. Therefore passive repeaters need a strong
external signal and are useful only with very short cables. Active repeater can
transmit either only a pre-selected frequency (narrow band repeater) or all
frequencies (wideband repeater) which can be heard in the area also the
competitors frequencies! Note, that if a repeater is used, it requires isolation
between the donor antenna and the distribution antenna. Also, note that
repeaters should not be used in a high capacity area, since they dont increase
the network capacity.
Application examples

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places with coverage need and little traffic

remote valleys

tunnels

underground coverage (e.g. garages)

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needs
decoupling > amplification

Figure 11.

Repeater

With repeater

relay outdoor signal into target building

needs donor cell; adds coverage, no capacity

With indoor BTS and distributed antennas

2.3

heavy losses by power splitting and cabling.

Indoor Planning
Since indoor cells are very small in area and planning tools cannot describe
the surroundings accurately enough, indoor planning must usually be done
without any supportive planning tools. A thorough area survey is essential
without one the indoor planning cannot be done. Floor layout drawing is used
to present antenna locations in every floor and identify antennas so, that there
are no misunderstandings between drawings, power budget calculations and
system diagram. Also the cable routes, raisers and other RF-components
should be included for the floor plan. Once the site candidates have been
selected, they are verified with test measurements in order to find out the
achievable field strength in the floor.

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Figure 12.

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Floor layout drawing

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Tunnel Coverage

3.1

Propagation
Penetration into a tunnel
How well does a signal penetrate into a tunnel depends very much on the
situation; the location of the signal source compared to the tunnel and how
deeply inside the ground the tunnel is. Experience has shown that when the
signal source is in line with the tunnel, energy coupling through the tunnel
entrance is very good. On the other hand, if the signal source is located abeam
of the tunnel, almost no penetration exists. This is especially the case for a
tunnel that is very deeply inside the ground.

Propagation inside tunnels

How well a signal propagates inside a tunnel depends on many things. These
are e.g.:

Tunnel shape; A circular tunnel has higher propagation losses than

rectangular.

Wall structure; Typically new tunnels have smooth concrete walls that
has plenty of reinforcement within, this leads to better propagation
compared to older tunnels.

Filling factor; The bigger part of the tunnel's cross-section is blocked

by vehicles, the higher are the propagation losses also, this is a highly
variable property, which is difficult to predict.

Tunnel curvature; Usually tunnel curvature is negligible, because the

curves are very large compared to wavelength.

Location of the antenna; For practical reasons the antenna usually has
to be installed nearby the wall or ceiling, this has an affect on the
propagation but it is very difficult to predict.

It is easy to see from the above mentioned list that the propagation inside a
tunnel is very difficult to be predicted. Figure 13 describes typical measured
values for highway tunnels.

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Coupling loss

First km

Next km

~60 dB

~30 - 50 dB

~20 - 30 dB

Figure 13.

Typical loss values for a highway tunnel.

These values have proven to be valid for highway tunnels that have concrete
walls and whose filling ratio is not too big. When considering propagation
values for a tunnel, one has to consider carefully the properties of that tunnel.

3.2

Coverage Solutions

3.2.1

Antennas
Usually it is good to use normal antennas inside a tunnel. Only in cases where
the filling ratio is very large ( railway tunnels) the usage of a leaky feeder
as the radiating element is feasible.
Normal panel antennas having 15 18 dBi gain can be used inside a tunnel if
there is a place to install such a big thing. Usually this is not the case, smaller
antennas have to be used. Small panels can be used also, but these have at the
maximum 10 dBi gain. Many places a log-periodic antenna is good solution.
This kind of antenna can easily have a gain of 12 dBi and it can be installed
against a wall or a ceiling.

3.2.2

Active Elements
RF Repeater. There are different solution possibilities for a signal source
inside a tunnel. The simplest one is a RF repeater. In this kind of a solution a
signal from a donor BTS is fed into the repeater, the repeater amplifies the
signal and it is then transmitted into the tunnel by tunnel antennas. This is
easy to implement because it does not require transmission. This solution is
feasible for tunnels in which no high capacity is needed and if the tunnel is
not very long. There are different kinds of RF repeaters; usually it is best to

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use channel selective ones, these have higher output power than wideband
repeaters and the risk of unwanted intermodulation results is smaller.
Tunnel BTS. In tunnels where high capacity is needed and/or they are very
long, tunnel BTS is a feasible solution. If transmission allows, it would in
many cases be good to place the BTS inside the tunnel, perhaps in the middle.
Many cases transmission will be done using microwave radio, this limits the
location possibilities for the BTS.
Fiber-Optic Distribution. For very long tunnels it is good to distribute the
signal using optical repeaters. This solution is called Fiber-Optic Distribution
(FOD). In these solutions the signal source is usually BTS, but this does not
necessarily have to be the case.
Table 2 summarises the feasibility of tunnel coverage solutions for typical
highway tunnels.
Table 2.

Summary of solution type feasibility for highway tunnels of

different lengths.

Highway tunnels

RF repeater

BTS

FOD

< 1000m

+++

++

---

1000 2000 m

++

+++

2000 3000 m

++

++

++

3000 5000 m

++

++

> 5000 m

--

+++

For more detailed information on tunnel coverage planning, consult

documentations about this issue.

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Repeaters
Repeaters are unintelligent units, which receive a signal, amplify the signal
and retransmit it. Repeaters are often used to relay signals into shadowed
areas or into buildings. Repeaters in GSM systems need a donor cell from
which to pick up the signal. They add coverage area to a network but no
additional capacity.
Narrow-band repeaters can be tuned to a certain channel (or channel range),
which shall be repeated into the target area. Wideband repeaters retransmit
anything they receive on the receiving side (including the competitors radio
channels...)
Separation between receiving and transmitting antenna of a repeater must
ensure that the decoupling is larger than the amplification factor, else the
repeater will start oscillating (feed-back loop), a phenomenon well-known
from acoustic microphone systems, see Figure 14.

decoupling needed

Figure 14.

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Repeater

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Donor Site

Repeater Antenna

Donor Antenna

Location Site of a CR
Donor Cell
MS

Cell Repeater

MS

Combined Coverage

Figure 15.

Repeater terminology

When using repeaters special attention has to be paid to the delay aspects. The
difference between the direct path and the path over the cell repeater has to be
within the equaliser window, where combined coverage exists. Otherwise
interference is generated. The delay difference can be calculated according to
the following formula:
delay= (delay1 + delayR + delay2) - delay0

delay1
Donor Site

delayR

Donor Antenna

Repeater Antenna
Location Site of a CR

delay0
delay2

Donor Cell

Cell Repeater
Interference Area

Figure 16.

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Possible interference caused by delay.

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