Transmission Mode

In LTE, usually they use multiple Antenna for downlink (at least from Category 3 UE and
higher), meaning that eNode (Network) has use multiple Tx Antenna and UE use multiple Rx
antenna.
Now you almost automatically think about 'MIMO', but in reality 'multiple antenna' does not
automatically mean 'MIMO'. For example, you have two downlink antenna. You can use
these two antenna in various ways. Of course, one ways is to use it as 2 x 2 MIMO, but this
is not the only way. You can use the two antenna in diversity configuration rather than
MIMO configuration. Or you can just use only one of the antenna and sometimes you would
like to use various different multiplexing, precoding methods etc.

In LTE, they give a special name for each of the way of transmission and it is called
'Transmission Mode'. For example, what we normally call 'SISO' (Single Transmission
Antenna and Single Reciever Antenna) is called 'TM1(Transmission Mode 1)'. What we
normally call 'Diversity' is called 'TM2'. What we call 'MIMO' but no feedback from UE is
called 'TM3'. MIMO and UE feedback from UE (CQI, PMI, RI) is called 'TM4'.

A good summary of each Transmission Mode can be as following table from 36.213.

Considering these various possibilities, 3GPP provides several predefined transmission

methods and this transmission method is called 'Transmission Mode'. For now, there are
seven predefined predefined transmission mode as shown in the following table (TS 36.213)
To understand very details of each transmission mode requires almost complete knowledge
of physical layer processing. Three important blocks in physical layer to determin the
transmission mode can be illustrated as follows. You will find many different ways from the
data input (left most arrow) through the final antenna ports (rightmost arrows). Each
transmission mode determin which path the input data should follow through.

Some important parameter sets for each transmission mode are as follows. (To understad
this process in detail, it is crucial to understand details of Precoding in basic procedure
page).
 TM No of Codewords No of Layers Precoding Codebook N
36.211 6.3.4.1
TM1 1 1 a single antenna port
N/A

36.211 6.3.4.3
TM2 1 2 Transmit diversity
N/A

1 2
TM3
2 2
1 2
TM4
2 2
2(cell specific)
36.211 6.3.4.3
Transmit diversity
N/A
36.211 6.3.4.2.2 Fixed. 36.211 6.3.4.2.3 Table 6.3.4.2.3-1
Large delay CDD {Number of layers, Codebook index} = {2, 0}
36.211 6.3.4.2.3 Table 6.3.4.2.3-1
36.211 6.3.4.2.1
without CDD
{Number of layers, Codebook index} =
{1, 0} or {1, 1} or {1, 2} or {1, 3}
36.211 6.3.4.2.3 Table 6.3.4.2.3-1
36.211 6.3.4.2.1
without CDD
{Number of layers, Codebook index} =
{2, 1} or {2, 2}
36.211 6.3.4.3
Transmit diversity
N/A

TM5 1 36.211 6.3.4.2.3 Table 6.3.4.2.3-1

36.211 6.3.4.2.1
2 without CDD
{Number of layers, Codebook index} =
{1, 0} or {1, 1} or {1, 2} or {1, 3}

36.211 6.3.4.2.1 36.211 6.3.4.2.1

TM6 1 2 without CDD without CDD
36.211 6.3.4.3
2(cell specific) Transmit diversity
N/A
TM7 1
36.211 6.3.4.1
1 N/A
a single antenna port
36.211 6.3.4.1
1 a single antenna port
N/A
1
36.211 6.3.4.3
TM8 2(cell specific) Transmit diversity
N/A

36.211 6.3.4.4
2 2 Spatal multiplexing N/A
with UE-specific RS

Example 1 > Transmission Mode changes while driving in live network

When a UE drive through multiple different networks (e.g, during driving test), it may
experience various transmission mode. Let's take a look at a measurement done by a UE in
the field. Following plot is from the data captured by a drive test tool Azenqos Drive Test
tool (AZQ Android). I got the log captured by the tool and exported the data as csv file and
then plot it on Microsoft Excel and figured out the transmission mode setting based on RRC
Connection Configuration message that are captured by the same tool. It is almost
impossible to correlate the transmission mode and throughput performance just from the
following plot because there are so many factors are involved. My intention is to show you
how dynamically the transmission mode changes in the live network.