A NEW MOBILE APPLICATION FOR PHYSICAL MEASUREMENT IN A CELLULAR NETWORK

Mobile cellular network operators conduct network parameter measurements, known as ‘driving tests’, at regular intervals to understand service quality and plan network capacity. To reduce manpower and the cost required for these driving tests, these measurements can be obtained with a mobile application running on user equipment. Moreover, end-user measurements of cellular network parameters can be used to improve network performance in various ways, such as troubleshooting network problems or determining the number and capacity of base stations. In this paper, existing smartphone applications for network parameter measurement have been investigated, and a new Android-based application, CoverME (Coverage of My Environment), has been developed. CoverME provides all the measurements performed by existing applications and supports four additional measurements. The developed application allows the measurement accuracy to be analyzed with the help of the Round Trip Time (RTT) parameter and monitors the battery level. In addition, it is designed to operate semi-autonomously, limiting energy consumption. CoverME maintains a record that contains key performance parameters of LTE communication systems, such as RSRP, RSRQ, RSSI, and CQI values. These values are matched with cell ID, download speed, latency, and current location for the consistency of the application. As a case study, measurements were made on a predetermined route in Isparta province using the developed application. Utilizing the obtained measurements, the relationships between these values and their correlation with download speed were examined.