Drive Testing in 5G

Cellular system propagation models are
tailored for specific areas or terrains, but their
effectiveness diminishes when applied to different
environments. As a result, this reduced efficiency impacts
the coverage, capacity, and quality of service in cellular
networks. To evaluate the quality of service for 5G, drive
testing is conducted, which involves measuring and
assessing mobile network performance. Despite the
increasing availability of performance data in mobile
radio systems, there remains a necessity to assess network
performance in real-world conditions. These assessments
serve various purposes, such as deploying new network
sites to meet coverage, capacity, and quality demands,
optimizing the network, benchmarking performance,
troubleshooting issues, and verifying performance after
upgrades or reconfigurations. Drive tests and RF surveys
are commonly used for these measurements, playing a
crucial role in both the planning and optimization phases
of network development. The primary focus of this paper
is to explore the drive test process and RF planning in 5G
mobile communications.