With over 7,000,000km² of the mainland country, transporting goods from Australia’s remote rural areas is often only achieved via trains and/or large road trains (trucks). ATDI were engaged by leading global mobile network integrator, Vodafone, to assist in designing a private LTE network to support their customer with their supply chain operations in Australia.
As part of this project, ATDI assisted with several deliverables:
Baseline design evaluation: to assess the performance of the network and evaluate its compliance with the requirements. This included reviewing the existing network design, evaluating Digital Elevation Models (DTM) and identifying areas that require improvement. A desktop-based study was completed to evaluate the base station positions and to determine which sites needed to be moved or replaced. The identified replacements saw some of the previously proposed Greenfield sites replaced with customer-owned Brownfield sites. The study also identified overlapping sites that could be removed with minimal impact on network performance. Antennas were also considered, and the original 2x 2 port antennas were replaced with 1 x 4 port antennas, resulting in improved operational and maintenance efficiency.
Link budget assessment: ATDI assisted in verifying the values of the link budgets, considering the different throughput requirements for use cases like automation of trains, drones, and stationary structures. This validated the assumptions associated with link budget values. This information was then applied to develop a methodology to estimate capacity requirements for the network.
Network optimisation: Lastly, ATDI completed network optimisation to improve the overall performance of the network using the new and existing resources.
ATDI
For over three decades, ATDI has been providing network design and planning services to network operators around the globe. They support private LTE/5G network deployments across a host of industries including utilities, oil and gas, and other private entities that need to secure their own connectivity. HTZ supports every aspect of radio network design and planning. Key features include coverage and capacity planning, automated site planning, cell optimisation and mesh network clustering.
Vodafone Group plc.
ATDI has worked with Vodafone Global Enterprise (VGE), a division of Vodafone Group plc, on one of VGE’s customers. The project, in its design phase only, will if built, delivers a dedicated Mobile Private Network (MPN) across a VGE customer’s supply chain operation. LTE for railways LTE wireless communications support mission-critical voice and broadband services for the rail sector – both private and public. LTE supports advanced broadband applications, addressing critical health, safety and environment requirements and allowing Governments and Private enterprises to operate more efficiently. This well-established technology has a long future ahead of it. Even with the onset of deployment of 5G technologies, LTE will provide a long-term foundation for 5G networks. LTE offers railways a host of benefits including enhanced safety, improved operational efficiency and innovative passenger services.
