Lab 1.1: Heatmap Site Survey - Hsanokklis/2023-2024-Tech-journal GitHub Wiki
An important part of wireless design is being familiar with the physical environment where access points are installed. Many companies, as part of their delivery services, will complete a pre deployment walk through or site survey that provides them information about the current Deployment.
Mobility Engineers will often create a “HeatMap” that visually represents the signal strength and coverage boundaries of a given area. This “Heat Map” provides additional data points and allows engineers to install access points in the best location to achieve full coverage and the best performance given the environment.
There are many tools that can create a heatmap, for this lab NetSpot is recommended as it is a free to use phone. You are welcome to use any tool that you have access to.
Step 1: Get a floor plan to survey
Step 2: Find a heatmap app
Step 3: Scan your area
We walked around CCM for our scan
Write two paragraphs analyzing your results.
- What do you notice about the heatmap?
We noticed that there seemed to be a spot on the map that might have been a false positive, as it was green, but in an area that we didn't go to. We thought it might have been extrapolating because the green spot was in between 3 dorms and we walked by two of them, but we still think it wasn't accurate. The other green block was over the quad, closer to the Ireland Building which makes sense as that's where a lot of classes are and most likely a lot of AP's.
- If you were to take another heatmap survey what would you do differently?
If we were to take another heatmap survey we would like to plot more points when measuring. Along with that we would rather have used a mobile application for measurement as it would have the GPS precision that a laptop does not.
- Do you notice any areas of weak signal?
The majority of the area we surveyed was in the yellow, so nothing in the red/weak signal area.
- If you were the network administrator for this network, what changes would you make to ensure all users have a good signal from any location in your map?
For a campus that doesn't have any outdoor AP's we were surprised that there weren't any red or completely empty zones in the outside area we surveyed. If the campus wanted to have a stronger signal on the Quad, they could install outdoor weatherproof AP's on the streetlamps.