Introduction to HeavyRF

Radio frequency propagation in database

HeavyRF is a radio frequency propagation simulation that supports a variety of use cases, including coverage mapping and customer-based metrics like quality of service (QoS). HeavyRF uses a physically based approach, casting rays from antenna locations and tracing their interactions with several types of "clutter". Clutter is any obstacle that has a significant effect on radio frequency propagation, including terrain, vegetation, and buildings. These can be imported from various sources, including vector GIS boundary representations with height attributes, raster representations, or classified LiDAR point clouds.

HeavyRF is a separately licensed module for the HEAVY.AI Enterprise platform.

The output of this simulation is a set of discrete pixels or voxels, represented as points with RF properties. You can control the resolution of these voxels. Signal strength is estimated at each output location moving away from an antenna position. There are three stopping conditions; a ray can be blocked by an object, attenuated below a minimum strength you configure, or can reach a specified maximum length. In the simplest version of the simulator, only the maximum strength signal for a location is retained. A “top-n” variant is also available in which the “n” strongest signals are stored, which can be useful, for example, in the computation of interference between antennas.

You can use HeavyRF 5G planning where 5G signal strength and propagation is dependent on line of sight and clutter. The HeavyRF solution allows you to compute very large amounts of RF propagation and clutter data quickly and visualize affected regions.