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cn
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A high estimated accuracy Random Access Preamble

Detection Algorithm for FDD-LTE System
PENG Feilong, WANG Weidong
**

(Electronic Enginering School, Beijing University of Posts and Communications,100876)

Brief author introduction:PENG Feilong(1989),male,master,wireless communication and software defined radio
Correspondance author: WANG Weidong(1967),male,professer,wireless communication & satellite
communication. E-mail: mengguo9xing@126.com
Abstract: In long term evolution (LTE) uplink transmission, a User Equipment (UE) must be 5
time-synchronized before normal data transmission. So that the Physical Random Access Channel
(PRACH) becomes a crucial factor for LTE access scheme. The main role of PRACH is to detect the
random access signal and estimating the Timing Advance (TA), namely the transmission delay. The
former has gained many discussions, but the latter was seldom touched. However, through a
Systematical theoretical analysis, we can find that the estimate results of the current preamble detection 10
algorithms can not reflect the accurate transmission delay, even we do not consider the noise and
interferences. This paper proposes a novel preamble detection algorithm which has high accuracy of
TA estimation and low computational complexity.
Key words: mobile communicationFDD-LTE; PRACH; preamble sequence; TA estimation;
0 Introduction 15
The Long Term Evolution (LTE), a project of 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), is
standardized to comply with International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced
(IMT-Advanced) 4
th
generation requirements. LTE provides high data rate, flexible scheduling,
and improved QoS by using so me remarkable technologies.
In LTE, physical random access channel (PRACH), the uplink physical channel, is mainly 20
used for initial access requests from the user equipment (UE) to the evolved base station
(eNodeB) . In case of need to access to the LTE network, a UE notices access request by
transmitting the random access (RA) preamble through PRACH. The RA preamble detector of the
eNodeB is to be able to detect the presence of RA preamble, and estimate the exact ID of RA
preamble in order to response correctly to the UE which requested initial access. Moreover, 25
propagation delay between UE and eNodeB should be calculated by RA preamble detector due to
the notification of timing advance (TA) information to UE
[1]
. LTE adopts Zadoff-Chu (ZC)
sequence as a RA preamble for convenient detection of this information.
Many key issues in random access have been discussed accompanied with the rapid
development of LTE system. For PRACH transmitter, two theoretical schemes processed in either 30
time domain or frequency domain, are described in
[2]
, and an efficient implementation method for
LTE PRACH generator is proposed in
[3]
. While these literatures concern the transmitter solutions
in PRACH implementation, the PRACH receiver scheme is an even more important part of the
whole PRACH process. The PRACH detection algorithm illustrated in
[3]
mainly concerns about
increasing the energy efficiency by decreasing the number of antennas and reducing the size of 35
FFT/IFFT operation. A strategy for PRACH receiver is also proposed in
[4]
, which suggests the
detection metric should be adjusted according to the ratio of tentatively detected peaks and noise
level. In all the articles listed above, novel PRACH detection methods are discussed for various
optimization purposes, but few of them describes explicitly the methods for threshold setting,
which is crucial to the detection performance. 40
There are also some theoretical analyses of threshold setting. In
[5]
, it explores the relation
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between the absolute threshold and the noise level. While the method in
[5]
operates multiple
antennas diversity combing and detection threshold setting simultaneously, it is not feasible for
practical implementation because of the calculation complexity. In all the articles listed above,
novel PRACH detection methods are discussed for various optimization purposes, but few of them 45
describes explicitly the accuracy of TA estimation, which is crucial to the time-synchronization of
the LTE system before normal data transmission.
In this paper, we focus on the accuracy of TA detection. Since the transmission scenario is
variablethe transmission delay of different UEs are differentand the TA estimation can not be
completely accurate in real systemsince the noises and interferences are unavoidable. However, we 50
can actually improve the absolute accuracy without considering the noises and other interference
factors.
1 System Model
1.1 Time and Frequency Structure of Prach Preamble
The physical random access preamble, illustrated in Fig. 1, consist of a cyclic prefix of length 55
CP T
, a sequence part of length
SEQ T
and a guard time part of length
G T
.The parameter values
are listed in Table. 1 and depend on the frame structure and the random access configuration
which is controlled by higher layers.

Fig.1 PRACH preamble format 60
Multiple preamble formats are needed due to wide range of environment, as Table.1
illustrates. For large cell rangethe sequence part will repeat once for good performance .
Tab.1 Preamble Format
Preamble Format
CP T
SEQ T

G T

0 3618TS
24576TS 2976TS
1 21024TS
24576TS 15840TS
2 6240TS
2 24576TS 6048TS
3 21024TS
2 24576TS 21984TS

In LTE, the PRACH occupies 1.08 MHz which corresponds to 6 resource blocks (RB) each 65
one with 12 carriers and 15 kHz carrier spacing, as Fig. 2 illustrates. The offset which defines the
frequency location of the PRACH is configured by higher layers.

Fig.2 The frequency location of PRACH
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1.2 Prach signal generation 70

According to the LTE specification, the time-continuous randomaccess signal ( ) s t is defined
by
( ) ( )
( ) 1 1
0
2 1
2
2
,
0 0
ZC ZC
RA CP
ZC
nk
N N
j j k K k f t T
N
PRACH u v
k n
s t x n e e
t
t
|

| | | |
+ + +
| |
\ . \ .
= =
=

1
Where the parameters
PRACH
|
,

, K

0
k
and
RA
f A
are defined in
[1]
.
The random access preambles are generated from Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequences with zero 75
correlation zone, generated from one or several root Zadoff-Chu sequences which have good
auto-correlation characteristic and constant envelope cross-correlation characteristic. Each cell
has 64 available preambles. Additional preamble sequences, in case 64 preambles cannot be
generated from a single root Zadoff-Chu sequence, are obtained from the root sequences with the
consecutive logical indexes until all the 64 sequences are found. The relation between a logical 80
root sequence index and physical root sequence index u is given in
[6]
.
The
th
u root Zadoff-Chu sequence is defined by
( )
( ) 1
, 0 1
ZC
un n
j
N
u ZC
x n n N
e
t +

= s s
2

Where the length
ZC N
of the Zadoff-Chu sequence is 839 for FDD-LTE or 139 for
TD-LTE. From the
th
u
root Zadoff-Chu sequence, random access preambles with zero 85
correlation zones of length 1
CS N
are defined by cyclic shifts according to
( ) ( ) ( )
,
= +
u v u v ZC
x n x n c modN 3
Where the cyclic shift
v c
is given by
0,1,..., 1, 0
0 0
CS ZC CS CS
v
CS
vN v N N N
c
N
= = (
=

=

4


CS N
is the cyclic shift offset given in
[6]
and was discussed in detail in
[7]
.This method of 90
calculating
v c
is only for normal speed, high speed mode is not involved in this paper.
Fig. 3 shows the procedure of PRACH signal generation
4
.

Fig.3 The procedure of PRACH generation
The DFT operation after the preamble sequence been generated is to reduce the PAPR 95
(Peak-to-Average Power Ratio), and the IDFT operation is to do SC-FDMA modulation.

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2 Correlation Algorithm
The key point of PRACH preamble detection is to utilize the good auto-correlation
characteristic and constant envelope cross-correlation characteristic of Zadoff-Chu sequence. If 100
two ZC sequences are generated from different root ZC sequences of which the value of physical
index u in (2) are different, then the result of the correlation calculation of this two ZC sequences
will be a constant value sequence. Or the two ZC sequences are generated from the same root
sequences, and then a sharp peak will appear in a certain position after the correlation calculation.
We can search for the correlation peak, and then calculate the preamble-id and transmission delay 105
with the position of the peak.
2.1 Time domain detection algorithm
The whole detection procedure of time domain algorithm can be divided into two parts as Fig.
4 illustrates.
110
Fig.4 PRACH receiver model
According to the procedure of send side introduced in the last section, for the first step, we
have to process the received signal contrary to the transmitter. The processing procedure, in order,
is removing CP (cyclic prefix) and GT (guard time), conducting OFDM (Orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing) demodulation with DFT, subcarrier de-mapping, and IDFT. In order to 115
increase the compute efficiency, the DFT and IDFT can be replaced by FFT and IFFT. The
time-domain preamble sequence of length
ZC N
can be obtained after these processing
procedures.
In the correlation detection part, we generate 64 local root Zadoff-Chu sequences and do
correlation operation with extracted preamble sequence in due order. 120
The correlation operation of the extracted preamble sequence ( ) y n and the local root
Zadoff-Chu sequence ( ) x n can refer to (5).
( ) ( ) ( )
1
*
0
z , 0,1, , 1
N
ZC
n
i y n x n i modN i N

=
= + = . (

5
Where( )
*
denotes the operation of taking conjugate.
Its needed to combine the correlation results when multi-antenna is used or the preamble 125
format is 2 or 3. For format 2 and format 3, the Zadoff-Chu sequence parts of the preamble is been
repeated twice to resist the decrease caused by long-distance transmission.
From (6), we can find that the correlation operation in time-domain needs
2
ZC N
times
multiplication calculation and ( ) 1
ZC ZC N N
times addition calculation. For FDD system,
ZC N

is a big number (i.e., 839). So this algorithm has high computational complexity. 130
2.2 Modified frequency domain algorithm
Compared to the time domain algorithm, the frequency domain algorithm has a lower
computational complexity. The main difference between these two algorithms is the part of
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correlation calculation. The frequency domain process is depicted as follows.

135
Fig.5 PRACH receiver model
As it is illustrated in Fig. 5, the correlation calculation is transformed from the time domain
to the frequency domain.
After the received frequency domain preamble sequence is de-mapped from the
time-frequency resource grids, it will not be transformed to time domain with IDFT as done in the 140
time domain detection algorithm. Then the subsequent process is as follows.
We transform the local Zadoff-Chu root sequence to the frequency domain, and then do
conjugate multiplication operation with the extracted preamble sequence.
According to the property of Fourier transformation, for complex sequence, the conjugate
multiplication in frequency domain is equivalent to the cyclic correlation in time domain. Using 145
this property, ( ) z i in (5) can be efficiently computed in the frequency domain as
*
( ) ( ) ( ), 0,..., 1
ZC
Z k Y k X k k N = =
6
Thus
( ) { ( )} ,...,
i ZC
z i IDFT Z k i 0 N 1 = , =
7
Where ( ) Y k and ( ) X k represent the DFT results of the extracted preamble sequence ( ) y n 150
and the local root Zadoff-Chu sequence ( ) x n .
Since the periodic convolution is avoided in this algorithm, the computational complexity
largely reduces to ( )
ZC
O
N
.
3 Improved Detection Procedure
In the last section, we discussed two typical correlation algorithms, which is the key part of 155
PRACH detection. Through the comparison, we draw the conclusion that the frequency domain
algorithm is better. However, in order to simplify the discussion, we did not take the transmission
delay into account.
Since LTE is based on OFDM technology, the uplink transmission signals of different UEs
need strict alignment to ensure the orthogonality of different signals, so as to effectively eliminate 160
the interference between the orthogonal subcarriers. Signal transmission has a certain delay, and
the distance between eNodeB and different UEs are different, so establishing the time
synchronization is an essential part of the uplink transmission in LTE system. Time calibration for
uplink transmission is mainly through the use of a timing advance in the UE (TA, Timing
Advance). 165
Taking the transmission delay into account, we will analysis the procedure of the PRACH
detection again.
Take the bandwidth of 5MHz for example, assumed that
k Y
is the transmitted signal in
frequency domain,
'
k Y
is the received signal in frequency domain, and transmission delay
ism TS - (TS is the system sampling interval), not considering noise, we can draw that 170
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( ) 0
2
'
6144
km
j j
k k
Y
e
Y
e
t

| |

|
\ .
=
8
Next, we observe the expression of the transmission delay in the power delay profile. From
the analysis in the last section, we derive that
( )
'
.
k k
s n I Y DFT X ( = -


( )
0
2 2
838
6144 839
0
(Y )
km kn
j j
j
k k
k
e e e X
t t

| | | |

| |
\ . \ .
=
=
175
( )
0
2 2
838
j 6144 839
0
km kn
j j
k k
k
Y X e e e
t t

| | | |

| |
\ . \ .
=
| |
= |
|
\ .


( )
0
2 ( 839
6144
839
838
0
e
m
k n
j
j
k k
k
Y X e
t

| |

|
|
|
|
\ .
=
| |
|
|
=
|
|

|

( )
( )
0
2
838
839 j
0
k n n
j
k k
k
Y X e e
t

A | |
|
|
\ .
=
| |
|
=

\ .

|
9
From (4) and Fig. 3, we obtain that
( )
2
839
v
kc
j
k v k
Y DFT x n c X e
t
= + = (

10 180
Compare (9) with (10)we can derive (11)
( )
( )
( )
0
2
838
839 j 2
0
v
k n c n
j
k
k
s n X e e
t

+ A | |
|
|
\ .
=
| |
|

=
|
\ .
11
Where ( ) s n is the signal obtained after the correlation operation in frequency domain. n A
represents how many sampling points the transmission delay m TS - will convert to in the PDP,
on the assumption that the system sampling rate is TS . When
( ) 2
0
839
v
k n n
c
t + A
= , namely 185
v
n n
c
= + A , PDP reaches the maximum.
From the analysis above, the correlation peak locates in the window corresponding to the
adopted value of
v c
, and n A represents the transmission delay. Compare (8) with (9), we can
get that
839
6144
n m A =
12 190
That means if the transmission delay isTS , the detected result will be
839
0.137
6144
TS
TS
-
~ - .
In a digital system of which the sampling interval isTS , that will be zero. Only when the
variation of the transmission delay reach
6144
7
839
TS
TS
-
~ - , the receiver can detect the change.
In (12), 839 represents the samples of IDFT, that is the length of the sequence after the correlation
operation. In order to improve the accuracy of TA estimation, we can increase the samples of 195
IDFT operation in the receiver.
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Fig.6 PRACH receiver model
As Fig.6 describes, zeros will be added to the resulting sequences before IDFT operation. The
position of the added zeros can be figured out from (1). After the padding operation, the length of 200
the sequence will be 6144. So (12) can be modified to

6144
6144
n m m A = =
13
That means if the transmission delay ism TS - , the detected deflection of the correlation
peak will be m samples. The accuracy of TA estimation is improved to TS from 7 TS - .
4 Conclusion 205
In this paper, we analyse the principle of the generation and detection of PRACH preamble
sequence. In the discussion of PRACH preamble detection, we investigate two problems
concerning the computational complexity and the accuracy of TA estimation. Using the property
of Fourier transform, we transform the correlation operation from the time domain to the
frequency domain. Thereby, the computational complexity can be greatly reduced. In section 210
we analyse the principle of TA estimation, and find out the estimation accuracy of the current
algorithm is7 TS - . In the improved algorithm, zeros are added to the resulting sequences to
increase the samples of IDFT operation to 6144.
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[4] He Y, Wang J , Su Y, et al. An efficient implementation of PRACH generator in LTE UE transmitters[A].He
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[6] 3GPP, TS 36.211-2008. Physical Channels and Modulation (Release 8)[S].
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100876
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PRACH LTE PRACH

TA
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TA
FDD-LTE
TN929.5
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