WiFi design for Logistics Warehouses

[hayden_searle_i]

I'd like to ask for some advice on where to get design information for logistics warehouses. Essentially I'm trying to design and validate past designs but am having trouble finding attenuation values for water being held in plastic 1000L containers or similar. As the contents of the warehouses will change over time, I am needing to plan for pretty much the worst possible scenario, so large water containers or Oil Drums etc would be potentially listed as the contents of the racks. Does anyone have values I could use to create a custom attenuation zone in ZonePlanner, or is there a resource/whitepaper I can review to help me with these design challenges?
We will also be purchasing Ekahau Site Survey and the bundled Sidekick to help validation of the existing sites, but I need to be able to design new sites with confidence of the results

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Hayden,

It's great news that you're purchasing Ekahau Site Survey (just renamed Ekahau Pro).

Ekahau will be the best tool to also dimension your new sites with it's predictive design functionality.  All Ruckus APs are supported in Ekahau for predictive designs.  https://www.ekahau.com/products/ekahau-site-survey/features/#3d-wifi-network-planning

You will be able to use your Ekahau Pro software, Ekahau Side-Kick and a Ruckus AP to accurately measure the attenuation of any wall, material or item in your organisation.  Simply place the AP (ideally on a tripod or similar) at least 1 metre away from the item or wall you want to measure the attenuation of and using the Ekahau system, perform a live survey taking detailed signal measurements (by walking slowly and even being stationary) between the AP and the attenuating item/wall and then survey again using the same method with the attenuating item/wall between you and the access point. 

Once you have the signal measurements you can calculate the signal loss incurred by the attenuating item/wall.  E.g. Signal at attenuating item/wall with AP 1 metre away: -40dB, Signal with attenuating item/wall between sidekick and AP: -70dB = 30dB loss.  You can then create a custom wall or attenuating area in Ekahau and plan your network appropriately!
More details here: https://www.ekahau.com/blog/2015/09/07/wi-fi-planning-walls-and-dbs-measuring-obstruction-losses-for...

I hope that helps!

Thanks,
Darrel.

[brian_powers]

I'd also note to not forget about including some value for path loss using the Inverse Square Law.  If you're 1 meter from the AP and move to 2 meters with no obstructions, you'll lose 6 dB of power.  Going from 2 meters to 4 loses 6 dB more.  And so on and so forth. 

Every time you double the distance, you receive only one-fourth the power.

I traditionally try to measure attenuation of walls/objects while fairly far from my RF source.  Simply because of the above - it is less impactful of the degradation of signal.