China Mobile Guangxi: Buzzing from efficiency with drone site surveys

Unique geography, unique surveys

Noted for the “thousand pinnacles” that frame Li River around the city, Guilin in Guangxi thrills millions of tourist with its impressive but treacherous mountain terrain, the result of unique geological conditions and climate. While Guangxi’s natural environment is a major pull for those who want to mix beauty and adventure, the same isn’t true for site surveyors who want to build robust communication networks – dense forest, steep terrain, inclement weather, and risks like snake bites mean that surveys are no walk in the park, nor are they cheap or quick. 

But, sitting at the summit of CMG’s priorities is the lofty goal of providing users with wide, high-quality network coverage, a feat that requires engineering parameters that act as information sources and conduits for efficient network planning and optimization. However, CMG’s mountain-spanning network features many types of base stations, street light sites, and tower and mast sites. In fact, coordinated sites make up 62.8 percent of the operator’s network. 

Drone surveys take flight 

CMG and Huawei began working on an LTE Experience PLUS Network in 2014. Since then, CMG has seen rapid user and data traffic growth, and has been able to refine user experience on an ongoing basis. Precise network planning, scenario-focused construction, meticulous optimization, and theme-led innovation have enabled the operator to drive up network quality and user experience, establishing a benchmark for LTE networks.

The 2016 drone project with Huawei was part of CMG’s joint drive for innovative MBB network applications. Traditional manual surveys involve pre-coordinating site visits, ensuring safety when access is difficult, and frequently chaotic post-survey data management, with data regularly lost. 

But, the drones remove the need for engineers to visit sites and climb towers, instead automatically acquiring and performing backhaul on survey data with high accuracy.

Huawei combines its eSurvey cloud platform and app for drones. Smart task assignment, smart aerial photographic surveys of antenna RF parameters including whole sites and cell coverage, data backhaul, and the automatic output of survey reports are some of the benefits that shorten completion time and cut out costs like crane rental. 

Efficiency is higher because work surveys and antenna altitude indicator surveys can be performed together, and data can be uploaded in real time. RF parameter surveys on existing sites enable CMG to optimize its network, while surveys on new sites provide a reference for site planning, helping increase efficiency and network-building precision.

Drones to the rescue

Drones have clear advantages in different site survey scenarios. In mountainous areas, base stations are typically placed at heights of roughly 100 m, representing a difficult climb for a surveyor. Using a drone to survey the Wutangzhou village base station, for example, saves nearly an hour on coordinating the visit and getting up and down the mast. The drone takes 360-degree photographs at the site summit and quickly acquires the surrounding wireless environment. It ensures a clear sector survey, boosting survey efficiency by an average of 37 percent. 

When incorporated into street lights, base stations are up to 8 m high. There are fewer safety measures and greater risk involved in surveys, with cranes frequently required. At the Liusha Farm base station, using a drone saves 15 minutes of climbing to the tower and enhances survey efficiency 21 percent.

Mast or tower base stations are riskier and more time consuming. Usually located at heights of 30 m and above, surveyors need to arrange safety fencing, collect keys, and get to the site. At the Chendongjiang-HLH site, drones save the 23 minutes required to climb the tower and automatically output survey reports, boosting average efficiency by 41 percent.

Coordinated base stations are also normally around 30 m in height, and tend to be located in residential areas in company or organization s’ premises. Coordinating site visits is difficult, and requires site documentation and site keys. Because drone surveys require neither documentation nor the owner to be present, surveys at the Kuangchan Building-HLH base station are 30 minutes quicker, representing a doubling of efficiency.

Flying high

Thanks to drones, CMG has made coordinating site visits and ascending and descending masts more efficient and has improved worker safety. With Huawei’s eSurvey cloud platform, CMG saw a significant improvement in survey data management and management efficiency. Using the eSurvey app, survey engineers receive survey tasks and download survey templates. Weather permitting, they can use the drone and app to check site latitude and longitude; log basic site, project, and property contact information; measure antenna height, azimuth, and down-tilt; and take photographs, including shots of the entire site, the antenna platform, and a 360-degree shot of the locale.

Once the survey is complete, the drone returns survey data to the eSurvey cloud platform, which automatically outputs a survey report that usually needs less than 10 minutes work for the engineer to finalize. 

Survey data can be saved and managed on the eSurvey cloud platform for better data management and security. The eSurvey cloud platform can create a database of site information to systematically store information on base station sites across the whole network, facilitating data queries, sharing, and maintenance. Data and photographs collected by the eSurvey app can be imported at the press of a button, data standardization and accuracy in survey reports is ensured, and reports and data can be quickly customized according to project requirements. 

The eSurvey app can increase survey and document production efficiency, reduce labor, and improve report quality.

Drones have also proven to be a very useful tool for CMG to construct its LTE Experience PLUS Network. Yuan Bing, general manager of CMG’s wireless network optimization center and company vice president Huang Tao heaped praise on the benefits of drones, with Huang commenting, “UAV RF base station surveys represents a new survey method that provides an excellent solution to the problems of visiting sites that are hard to access. They greatly increase the efficiency of maintenance and optimization work.” Commenting on future plans, he says that, “We will expand the use of UAVs to work such as network optimization testing and transmission line patrols, which will help further boost automation. I think UAVs will prove very useful in these and a number of other areas.”

Where CMG has led, others are sure to follow – and CMG will prove a useful reference for them to do so. As drone performance and modeling algorithms continue to improve, drone base station surveys will become more accurate and efficient, and we can expect to see drones used in more and more scenarios.