iVESTA: an interactive visualization and evaluation system for drive test data

ABSTRACT

Drive Test Data (DTD) evaluation intends to provide first-hand mobile phone performance assessment such that different parties, including phone manufacturers and network providers, can review the phone and network performance, e.g., service coverage and voice quality, from different perspectives. Due to many uncertainties involved in the test environments, e.g., terrain, interference, vehicle speed, and network delay, it is crucial to properly digest the DTD data such that users can draw valid conclusions like "phone A outperforms phone B in the suburb area". We argue that because of the inherent complexity of the test environments, DTD collected from the fields suffer from low quality, low integrity, high uncertainty, and low interpretability. An evaluation tool should consider all such reality issues in order to develop a practical product. For this purpose, we report, in this paper, an integrative data visualization system iVESTA (<u>i</u>nteractive <u>V</u>isualization and <u>E</u>valuation <u>S</u>ystem for driven <u>T</u>est d<u>A</u>ta) for iDEN (integrated Digital Enhanced Network [1]) drive test data. Our objective is to project high dimensional DTD data onto well-organized web pages, such that users can visually study phone performance with respect to different factors. iVESTA employs a web-based architecture which enables users to upload DTD and immediately visualize the test results and observe phone and network performances with respect to factors such as dropped call rate, signal quality, vehicle speed, handover and network delays. iVESTA provides a practical test environment for phone manufacturers and network service providers to perform comprehensive study on their products from the real-world DTD.

REFERENCES

• 1: iDEN, Motorola iDEN Technical Overview, http://webaugur.com/matt/files/nextel/techover.pdf
• 2: R. Miletic, Using Autonomous Drive Test Data to Improve Network Quality and Engineering Efficiencies, in Proc. of the World Wireless Congress annual Conference, 2006.
• 3: Aircom Worldwide, 3G Live Network Optimised using Combined ACP and Drive Test Data, http://www.aircominternational.com/Default.aspx.locID-04vnew008.htm
• 4: M. J. Flanagan, L. M. Drabeck, L. A. Cohen, A. H. Diaz, J. Srinivasan, Wireless network analysis using per call measurement data, Bell Labs Technical Journal, 11(4):307--313, 2007.
• 5: Wu Jiao, Huang Yiling, Wei Zaixue, and Yang Dacheng, "A Novel Model of Drive Test Data Processing in Wireless Network Optimization" The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications, 2006.
• 6: Jianming Zhang, Juanjuan Sun, and Dacheng Yang, "Application of Drive Test for QoS Evaluation in 3G Wireless Networks", Proceedings of ICCT2003, 2003.
• 7: Kostanic, I.; Hall, C.; McCarthy, J., "Measurements of the vehicle penetration loss characteristics at 800MHz", Vehicular Technology Conference, 1998. VTC 98. 48th IEEE.
• 8: Xingquan Zhu , Ian Davidson, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining: Challenges and Realities, IGI Publishing, Hershey, PA, 2007

INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Design, Management

Keywords:
iDEN, mobile handset drive test, mobility, test data evaluation, visualization