Getting Started With MegaMesh In SignalPro

The Mesh Design Module in EDX SignalPro provides a powerful set of features for modeling the topology and performance of all kinds of mesh networks. This tutorial will give an overview of a typical workflow for designing a small mesh network. Once you understand how to use this set of features, they’ll allow you to build larger, more complex projects with hundreds of thousands of nodes of varying types. 

Initial project set-up

As with any new SignalPro project, the first steps are to set up the environment, prop model settings, and default equipment parameters. This project has already been set up with sample terrain and land cover data around Eugene, Oregon. The database paths can be viewed or modified from the appropriate selection on the project tree. The Map Layers have also been set up with a basic view, including terrain and land use layers that can be switched on if desired. 

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For a mesh project it’s important to set up a transmitter site template for a typical gateway or mesh “take-out” node, which backhauls the traffic from the mesh network. Only the gateway locations are modeled as Transmitter/Base/Hub/Router Sites; mesh nodes themselves are stored in a CSV ‘Small Cell/Meters Locations List file,’ which is created within the MegaMesh tool. In this project I’ve set up transmitter templates for generic 900MHz gateway routers at 8 meters in height and 15 meters in height. I’ve also set up default Mobile/Remote unit types, just in case I want to run an area-wide coverage study on the backhaul sites; this is not necessary for running the mesh studies, but it can be useful for helping to visualize the propagation conditions.

Specify mesh equipment and import end-device locations

Once the project has been set up and you’ve specified templates for the router/gateways, it’s time to define the different types of mesh node (referred to as Small Cells/Meters within the software). Go to Mesh Design/Analysis -> Specify Small Cell/Meter Equipment -> Edit Small Cell/Meter Types. In this example I’ve set up three different meter types for different kinds of end users: call boxes, streetlight nodes, and security cameras. I’ve also reserved two meter types for the two different kinds of repeater node: bridge repeaters and base repeaters.     

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Click ‘OK’ in the Meter Types dialog and the software will confirm that you want to save the meter types, which are stored in a MeterTypes.csv file in the SmartGrid folder of the project (This file can be moved into a new project to import the Meter Types).

Once the Meter Types have been set up, you’ll need to prepare a .CSV spreadsheet with the location and type of the end-device mesh nodes you’re trying to serve. At a minimum, the table should have Latitude, Longitude, and Meter Type (an integer to associate the location with a type of device from the Meter Types table). You can also include columns for ID, Label, Address, and antenna height (meters AGL) for each device. 

To import the Small Cell/Meter locations, go to Mesh Design Analysis -> Specify Small Cell/Meter Equipment -> Import Small Cell/Meter Locations List. Here you can browse to the .CSV file and see a preview of the first two lines in the spreadsheet. Make sure to check the ‘File has header’ option if the first line in the file contains column headings. You’ll need to match the column selections at the top to the layout of your .CSV file. Click the ‘All to No Column’ button to clear the assignments, then select the appropriate columns for Lat, Long, Meter Type, etc. Click the ‘Import’ button on the lower left to import the meter locations, then click OK. The software will then confirm whether you want to save a new ‘meters’ file within the project. By default this file is called ‘meters.csv,’ but you can name it whatever you’d like. 

The ‘meters’ table that gets created by this import function is the main table where you can add, delete, and edit details about each Small Cell/Meter. This table will also store and display the mesh study results, once the study has been completed. To view the Meters table, go to the main MegaMesh dialog and click ‘Edit Meters.’ You can copy/paste blocks of cells within this spreadsheet and to/from Excel or other spreadsheet programs. It is highly recommended that meters.csv table only be modified from within the ‘Edit Meters’ dialog within SignalPro. Modifying the file directly in Excel may damage the format. In the screenshot below I’ve set up a custom table with finished mesh results for export.