Patent Document ID: 10149172
Application ID: 14643389
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for network planning in a fixed wireless backhaul network comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein each node comprises at least one hub module (HM) at each macro-cell site, and each hub module serves a set of remote backhaul modules (RBMs) through hub-RBM radio links, each RBM being located at a small cell (SC) site, and wherein the method comprises terrain pathloss (PL) prediction comprising steps of: providing a reference set of use cases, each use case comprising a channel model for one of a plurality of deployment scenarios for downtown, urban and suburban use cases; obtaining user input parameters relating to an actual deployment scenario to be planned; finding a correlation between said user input parameters and parameters of one or more of the use cases of the reference set of use cases; based on said correlation, selecting a most appropriate one of the reference set of use cases, and obtaining therefrom further parameters for the respective channel model for the selected use case; obtaining user inputs comprising HM and RBM locations, an elevation map and clutter height map; performing a link type determination to identify Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) link types for each feasible HM-RBM link; calculating a terrain PL for each HM-RBM link based on the further parameters for the respective channel model for the selected use case and the link type determination, wherein the terrain PL for each HM-RBM link comprises a predicted PL based on the respective channel model and link type determination; the method further comprising performing RBM to HM site association, using inputs comprising said terrain PL for each HM-RBM link, evaluating a predicted performance metric for each HM-RBM link, and updating the RBM to HM site association until a target performance metric is met for each HM-RBM link.