Proceedings of International Conference on Applied Innovation in IT  ·  2026/06/12  ·  Vol. 14  ·  Issue 3  ·  pp. 15–23
Machine Learning for Path Loss Prediction in 5G Wireless Networks
Asseel Jabbar Almahdi, Zahraa Sadeq Khaleel, Mohammed Baker Yousif, Murteza Hanoon Tuama, Ahmed Majid Abdul Abbas, Areej Muayad Hamzah and Ali Kadhim Jasim
The problem of accurate path loss prediction is still one of the key issues of 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) implementation, where nonlinear propagation processes have complicated the precision of standardized empirical models. This paper introduces a machine learning system that combines the geometric, temporal, and environmental aspects systematically with the aim of providing a prediction fidelity never before seen. Evaluated on 20,000 propagation samples across 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands in Urban Microcell and Indoor Hotspot scenarios, LightGBM achieves RMSE = 4.21 dB [95% CI: 3.86-4.56] and R² = 0.919 [95% CI: 0.912-0.926] on held out test data representing a statistically significant 29% reduction in RMSE over 3GPP TR 38.901 baselines and 4-10% improvement over alternative ensemble methods (Random Forest, Histogram-based Gradient Boosting, XGBoost). SHAP analysis verifies physical interpretability with the second most important predictor a factor traditionally overweighted in empirical models being RMS delay spread. In practice, the framework achieves 75-percent accurate predictions with the ±3 dB planning margin with the 0.12 ⁻ 1 ms/sample computational cost that is appropriate to real time network planning. The paper makes machine learning a credible upgrade of commercial radio planning systems, allowing covering estimates that are more accurate and lower link margins to implement next generation 5G/6G applications.
5G Networks Millimeter-Wave Propagation Path Loss Prediction Machine Learning LightGBM.
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