Impact of the path loss model on the spatial structure of shadow fading

In this paper we describe the effects of the radio propagation model on the spatial characteristics of the radio environment. For this study we have conducted a dedicated propagation measurement campaign focusing on the three different frequency bands of 485 MHz, 1700 MHz and 2600 MHz in order to capture the impact of the used frequency on the radio propagation. The presented results are coming from a high number of samples of very high spatial resolution. We quantify how much the propagation modelling affects the calculation of spatial statistics of radio propagation and in particular shadow fading for the three different frequency bands. Our results show that while the used propagation model does play a role in both the marginal distribution and the spatial correlation characteristics derived, the impact of the precise propagation model chosen is small. This indicates that correlation structure of shadow fading can be accurately derived also using predefined propagation models not directly fitted to the data and radio environment at hand.