DEVELOPMENT OF DRIVE TEST TOOL FOR GSM NETWORKS

In wireless field, drive test is one of the major components which is carried out to measure the end customer/user radio signal level along with its quality. The measured level and quality is then analyzed to check whether the service targets are met or not. To perform a drive test for any wireless technology i.e. GSM or CDMA, we require a drive test tool. In this paper, a simple drive test tool is presented to check and monitor the quality of service of any GSM service provider  e.g.  Ufone, Mobilink, etc. The work is basically software but to make it functional, we have attached a mobile phone and a GPS receiver with it. The tool extracts geographical information (latitude and longitude) from the GPS receiver and the signal strength (RSSI) from the mobile phone. After receiving data from both the devices, it saves as well as displays the data continuously on a map. The GUI of this application is developed in C# environment. It has the standard Microsoft functionality. It displays the signal quality in any area using different color codes.