Hata model for suburban areas

The Hata model for suburban areas, also known as the Okumura–Hata model for being a developed version of the Okumura model, is the most widely used model in radio frequency propagation for predicting the behavior of cellular transmissions in city outskirts and other rural areas. This model incorporates the graphical information from Okumura model and develops it further to better suite the need. This model also has two more varieties for transmission in urban areas and open areas.

The Hata model predicts the total path loss along a link of terrestrial microwave or other type of cellular communications. And is a function of transmission frequency and the average path loss in urban areas.

Applicable to/under conditions

This particular version of Hata model is applicable to the transmissions just out of the cities and on rural areas where man-made structures are there but not so high and dense as in the cities. To be more precise, this model is suitable where buildings exist, but the mobile station does not have a significant variation of its height.

This model is suited for both point-to-point and broadcast transmissions.

Coverage

Frequency: 150 MHz – 1.50 GHz

Mathematical formulation

Hata model for suburban areas is formulated as,

$L_{SU}\;=\;L_{U}\;-\;2{\big (}\log _{10}{\frac {f}{28}}{\big )}^{2}\;-\;5.4$

Where,

L_SU = Path loss in suburban areas. Unit: decibel (dB)

L_U = Average path loss in urban areas for small sized city. Unit: decibel (dB)

f = Frequency of transmission. Unit: megahertz (MHz).

Points to note

This model is based on Hata model for urban areas and uses the median path loss from urban areas.

References

[1] Okamura, Y. a kol.: Field Strength and its Variability in VHF and UHF Land-Mobile Radio Service. Rev. Elec. Comm. Lab. No.9, 10pp. 825–73, 1968.

[2] Hata, M.: Empirical Formula for Propagation Loss in Land Mobile Radio Services. IEEE Trans. Vehicular Technology, VT-29, pp. 317–25, 1980.