A cellular sector-to-users path loss distribution model

The paper presents a model for sector-to-user path loss distribution in cellular networks. Starting from a theoretical computation of the distribution, we derive an expression which yields the exact distribution with and without shadowing. We show that with shadowing of practical values it is close to a Gaussian, and therefore suggest to model the distribution of the path-loss as Gaussian. We compare the theoretical and the approximated models and show that with real-life parameter values, the simple Gaussian model is similar to the theoretical computation. Moreover, analysis of empirical data from a real cellular network shows that the Gaussian model fits well the actual measurements. Further research and application is discussed, including a Gaussian mixture model and sector feature extraction, such as indoor/outdoor ratio estimation.