Lecture 4: Evolved Radio Access

Networks
ELEC-E7230 Mobile Communications Systems

Edward Mutafungwa, 2016

Department of Communications and Networking
Outline

• Background
– Motivation, requirements, RAN architecture

• Long-Term Evolution (LTE)

– LTE downlink and uplink PHY
– LTE radio protocols and channels
– LTE Radio Resource Management

• LTE-Advanced
– LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation
– LTE-A relaying
– CoMP and extended MIMO
1. Background
Motivation for LTE
• The work towards LTE started in 2004 with the definition of the
targets.
• Since it usually takes more than 5 years from setting the system
targets to commercial deployment, the system standardization must
be started early enough.
• Even though HSDPA was not yet deployed at that time, it was
evident that work for the next radio system should be started.
Motivation for LTE
• Some market driving forces behind LTE development:
– Wireline capability evolution: aim was to keep the capacity gap between
wireline and wireless broadband constant.
– Need for additional wireless capacity and lower cost wireless data delivery.
Data delivery cost cannot increase in direct proportion with data rates.
– Competition of other wireless technologies (like Mobile WiMAX).

Source: Schroell, NSN (2008)

1.1 Standardisation
 LTE/LTE-Advanced Standardisation
Release Rel.8 Rel.9 Rel.10 Rel.11 Rel.12 Rel.13

Freeze date 3/2009 3/2010 9/2010 3/2011 3/2015 3/2016

Comment First LTE LTE-A LTE-A Pro Frozen

• 3GPP = Third Generation Partnership Project

• Standards delivered in rolling versions or ”Releases”
• After "freezing", a Release no further functions can be added
• In this lecture LTE discussion follows mainly Rel.8/9 while
the LTE-Advanced discussion follows Rel.10 and Rel.11.
• Rel.12 and Rel.13 (LTE-Advanced Pro) mentioned lightly
 LTE/LTE-Advanced Standardisation
Release Rel.14 Rel.15 Rel.16 Rel.17 Rel.18 Rel.19

Freeze date 6/2017 9/2018

Comment

• Rel.14 and Rel.15 freeze dates are tentative

• Rel.14 = LTE-A Pro / pre-5G
• Rel.15: expectation of specs for 5G Next Generation Radio
(New Radio, NR) start to appear
LTE/LTE-Advanced Standardisation

Source: E. Dahlman et al, 4G

LTE(LTE-Advanced for Mobile
Broababd (2011)

• Each 3GPP Release may include a number of standardisation phases

which may overlap and are iterative
• The term ”Stage” adopted from ITU for categorising specs
– Stage 1  Requirements
– Stage 2  Architecture
– Stage 3  Detailed specs
• 3GPP feasibility studies (Technical Reports)  ”Stage 0”
• Test specifications  ”Stage 4”
1.2 Requirements
Early performance requirements for LTE
• Initial efficiency requirement was that LTE would provide
– In downlink 2-4 times higher spectral efficiency than HSPA
– In uplink 2-3 times higher spectral efficiency than HSPA
– HSPA Release 6 was the reference for performance comparisons
• Initial peak rate requirements were:
– Downlink 100Mbit/s, uplink 50Mbit/s.

SAE GW

• One way radio latency below 5ms

10 ms RTT – Enables round 10ms Round Trip Time (RTT)
eNode B
(minimum) • This target was achieved – on the constraint
that system load is low

UE
Realised LTE peak rates and LTE-
Advanced performance requirements
• Realized LTE Rel.8 peak rates:
– In downlink 150 Mbps can be achieved on 20 MHz bandwidth with 2x2 MIMO.
300 Mbps can be achieved on 20MHz band if 4x4 MIMO is used.
– In uplink 75 Mbps can be reached in LTE Rel.8 with single transmit antenna in
UE.
• LTE-Advanced targets
– 1 Gbps with 4x4 MIMO in downlink and 500 Mbps in uplink
– Note the large improvement target in UL spectral efficiency

LTE Rel.8 LTE-A target

Peak data rate DL 150/300 Mbps 1 Gbps
UL 75 Mbps 500 Mbps
Peak spectral efficiency DL 15 bps/Hz 30 bps/Hz
UL 3.75 bps/Hz 15 bps/Hz
Other early requirements for LTE

• Improved terminal power efficiency

• Flexible frequency allocation
– Frequency bands between 1.4MHz and 20MHz.
R8/9 UE

…
1.4MHz 20MHz

• Packet switched only

• Support for high mobility
– Speeds up to 500km/h was discussed (yet, support for e.g. high speed
trains is weak)
1.3 Architecture
Basic LTE system architecture
• Architecture is divided into four main domains:
• User Equipment (UE), S1-U: User Plane interface
between eNB and S-GW
• Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN),
S1-MME: Control Plane
• Evolved Packet Core Network (EPC), interface between eNB and MME
• Services domain. X2: Interface between eNBs
Uu: Radio Interface between UEs
and eNB
• Note: E-UTRAN + EPC = EPS
SAE GW

UE E-UTRAN EPC Services

Uu S1-U
S-GW P-GW

operator IMS
External networks,
eNode B

X2 S11 PCRF

eNode B
MME HSS
S1-MME
E-UTRAN
• E-UTRAN contains only one element type: Evolved Node B (eNode B).
• All radio functionalities are controlled by eNode B. All radio related protocols
are terminated in eNode B.
• E-UTRAN network is just a mesh of eNodeBs connected to neighboring
eNodeBs through the X2 interface.
• Functionally eNodeB acts as a layer 2 bridge between UE and the EPC, by
being the termination point of all the radio protocols towards the UE.
• From functionality point of view the UE is similar like in 3G.
E-UTRAN

• eNode B performs
– Ciphering/deciphering of the User Plane data
– IP header compression/decompression
– Radio Resource Management (resource allocation, prioritizing, scheduling,
resource usage monitoring)
• eNode B is also involved with Mobility Management (MM).
– The eNode B controls and analyses radio signal measurements carried out by
the UE,
– eNode B makes signal measurements itself
– Based on measurement information eNode B makes decisions to handover
UEs between cells.
2. LTE air interface
WCDMA/HSPA limitations
• Higher capacities achieved by allocating wider carrier bandwidths
• WCDMA/HSPA spectrum allocation don’t allow wider carrier bandwidth
than 5 MHz
– WCDMA/HSPA interference cancellation receiver (equalizer) against
multipath distortion shows good performance at 5 MHz
– However, if carrier bandwidth is increased to e.g. 10-20MHz, then WCDMA
performance suffers due to increased multipath components and complexity of
required equalizer in the receiver grows rapidly with bandwidh.

direct
LTE: OFDMA benefits
• The multiple access schemes in LTE:
– Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in downlink
– Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) in uplink
• WCDMA/HSPA data stream sent at a very high speed over a single 5MHz
carrier
• OFDMA splits the data stream into many slower data streams (longer
symbol duration) that are transported over many carriers simultaneously
=> better orthogonality between users
=> less interference and/or interference that can be cancelled more easily than in
WCDMA/HSPA system
=> better network capacity can be achieved through extending carrier bandwidths to 20
MHz or wider

Frequency
2.1 Basic principles of OFDM
 OFDM: Multicarrier system with narrow
tightly packed subcarriers
Conventional multicarrier approach

OFDM

• OFDM subcarriers have a frequency response resulting in overlap in the

frequency domain. This overlap does however not cause interference due to the
orthogonality of the subcarriers.
 Sampling points
OFDM principle
Δf
• OFDM divides spectrum into large
number of tightly packed narrow
subcarriers
• LTE subcarrier spacing Δf = 15kHz
• At the peak of each subcarrier, all other
subcarriers have amplitude zero =>
avoids subcarrier interference
• OFDMA has been recently adopted by
many access technologies like LTE,
WiMAX and WLAN.
• OFDM is applied together with time
division multiplexing
OFDM parameters for LTE
• LTE subcarrier spacing Δf = 15kHz represents the
best found trade-off
– The subcarrier spacing should be as small as Δf
possible. Then Tu =1/Δf is large and CP overhead is
small
– The smaller the subcarrier spacing is, the more
sensitive the system is for frequency errors
• Channel Doppler spread: High mobile speed =>
large Doppler spread => intercarrier
interference
• Inaccurate frequency synchronization: This can
result from transmitter and receiver inaccuracies
2.2 Cyclic Prefix
Intersymbol Interference (ISI)
• Multipath propagation leads to ISI

Direct  Symbol 1 Symbol 2 Symbol 3

Reflected 1  Symbol 1 Symbol 2 Symbol 3

Reflected 2  Symbol 1 Symbol 2 Symbol 3

 Cyclic Prefix
• A guard band added to OFDM symbol to mitigate against
intersymbol interference
– Delay spread = time difference between direct path and reflected path
– CP inserted after OFDM modulation

Tolerable delay spread

CP OFDM symbol without CP

Copy first of symbol and paste it back

Direct  CP Symbol 1 CP Symbol 2 CP Symbol 3

Reflected 1  CP Symbol 1 CP Symbol 2 CP Symbol 3

CP Symbol 1 CP Symbol 2 CP Symbol 3

Reflected 2 
Cyclic Prefix
• Delay spread = time difference between direct path and reflected path
• The cyclic prefix (CP) length should be longer than the maximum channel
delay spread
– Channel delay spread depends on the cell size and e.g. BS antenna height and
transmission power
– If CP is too short, it may limit the cell size, BS transmission power and
antenna configuration.
OFDM parameters for LTE
• ΔL =Lreflected - Ldirect difference in travelled distance
between reflected and direct signal
• CP duration = ΔL /c
– where c = 3 x 108 m/s
• Normal CP = 5.2µs or 4.7µs
– The CP time duration for the first symbol is 5.2 us.
– For other symbols the CP time duration is 4.7 us
– ΔL up to 1.4 km (small/medium sized cells in urban
environments)
• Extended CP = 16.7µs
– ΔL up to 5 km (for large cells and/or extreme radio
environments with long channel spreads )
2.3 OFDM transmitter/receiver
 OFDMA transmission/receiption
Serial to parallel conversion Source: M. Sauter,
From GSM to LTE : an introduction to mobile
of data streams to modulate networks and mobile broadband, 2011
individual subcarriers.

Computationally efficient
IFFT processing and DAC to
obtain OFDM time waveform

Parallel to seriel FFT processing and ADC

conversion after data converts OFDM time waveform
back to frequency domain
recoved from subcarriers
3. LTE Frame Structure
LTE time frame structure
• LTE time-frame:
– Contains 10 sub-frames of duration 1ms => Frame length is 10ms
– Each 1 ms subframe contains 2 time slots (0.5ms)
– Each 0.5 ms time slot contains 6-7 OFDM symbols per slot (6 for extended
CP, 7 for normal CP)
– The OFDM symbol time duration is always 66.7 us
LTE time-frequency structure
• Resources are grouped into two dimensional Resources Blocks (RBs)
– RB contains 12 subcarriers (180kHz in total) and 7 consecutive symbols
(normal CP) or 6 symbols (extended CP)
– User allocated resources in bundles of RBs
• Example time-frequency structure for 20 MHz carrier
 LTE time-frequency structure
• LTE provides bandwidth flexibility => refarming of frequency bands is easier

Bandwidth (B) 1.4MHz 3 MHz 5MHz 10MHz 15MHz 20MHz

Subcarriers (Nc) 72 180 300 600 900 1200
Resource Blocks (𝑁𝑟𝑏) 6 15 25 50 75 100

Narrowband options to Compatible with High data rate

be used for refarming WCDMA/HSPA options
of e.g. GSM bands
5
3.4 Modulation
 LTE Modulation (DL and UL)
• Available modulations for user data transmission are QPSK (2bits/symbol),
16QAM (4bits/symbol) and 64QAM (6bits/symbol)
• In uplink 64QAM is not mandatory capability for UE.
• When using 16QAM or 64QAM the UE applies lower TX power than in case of
using QPSK due to increased peak-to-average power ratio
• BPSK is used on some control channels
3.5 Downlink reference signals
LTE downlink reference signals

• Mobile radio channel is subject to multipath fading which causes Inter-

Symbol Interference (ISI).
• OFDM is robust against ISI due to use of CP. Yet, practical mobile systems
apply coherent detection where channel knowledge is exploited.
• Thus, for efficient detection of information the amplitude and phase of the
complex channel should be known as accurately as possible.
• Most common way to arrange the channel estimation is to use reference
signals (RS)
• Reference signals carry symbols that are known for both transmitter and
receiver
• Let us briefly consider LTE reference signals in more details.
 LTE downlink reference signals
• In LTE downlink 5 different RS types has been defined. In the following
discussion we focus on cell specific RSs while other RS types are omitted
– Cell specific RSs (also called as common RSs): These RSs are available (and
the same) for all users in the cell.
• In LTE reference symbols are placed in time-frequency domain in
predefined locations
– Location of RSs depend on the number of TX antennas (called as antenna
ports) and CP type (normal/extended). See examples on the next slides
• RSs are QPSK modulated and formed using unique patterns
– Help UE to distinguish RS transmissions from different eNode Bs (also refered
to as Physical Cell Identifiers)
• In LTE Rel’8 cell specific RSs are available for up to 4 antenna ports
– In 3GPP terminology ‘antenna port’ can be implemented using one or more
physical antenna elements.
Cell specific reference signals: one
antenna port

R0 R0
Frequency

R0 R0

R0 R0

R0 R0

Time
Cell specific reference signal locations in a resource element
when using one antenna port and normal CP.
 Cell specific reference signals: two
antenna ports Cell specific reference signal locations in
resource elements when using two antenna
Antenna port 0
ports and normal CP.
‘E’ refers to empty resource element (RE).
E R0 E R0 Use of empty REs prevent interference
towards reference symbols
R0 E R0 E
Antenna port 1

E R0 E R0
R1 E R1 E

R0 E R0 E
E R1 E R1

Remark:
• Illustrated REs are transmitted at the same R1 E R1 E

time and frequency from separate antenna ports.

E R1 E R1

Remark: Cell specific RSs for 4 antenna ports

are omitted in this presentation
Cell specific RS design principles

• Notes on cell specific RSs:

– UE can use cell specific RSs to estimate the
channel.
– Cell specific RS are equidistant in time-
frequency domain =>
• Optimal estimation of the channel in between
RSs locations
– Density of RSs has been selected based on
• Expected terminal speed (Doppler spread)
• Radio environment (Channel frequency
selectivity)
– UE uses cell specific RSs also to define
Channel State Information (CSI) feedback.
4. LTE uplink physical layer
LTE uplink requirements

• Following requirements for the LTE uplink accesss were set:

– User Equipments of the same cell should be orthogonal in uplink
– Uplink should be able to provide high user rates similarly as in
downlink
– The Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) in uplink should be
minimized to enable use of low-cost, energy-efficient power amplifier
in handsets => longer battery life
– Uplink should allow flexible frequency band use (same bandwidths
available as in LTE downlink)
– Uplink design should not prevent use of effective multi-antenna
transmission methods.
• LTE uplink solution: Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA)
 SC-FDMA for LTE uplink
• In SC-FDMA uplink transmission only one modulated symbol is being
transmitted at a time similarly to TDMA systems such as GSM.
– Example below: shows how QPSK symbols are mapped to OFDMA and SC-FDMA
– For OFDMA each adjacent subcarrier is modulated by a different QPSK data symbol
=> high PAPR when subcarriers with different symbols added together
– For SC-FDMA all N subcarriers are modulated by same QPSK data symbol but
occupy only 1/N of SC-FDMA symbol period => low PAPR because added
subcarriers have same symbol (= PAPR of individual QPSK data symbol)

Ref: Agilent
SC-FDMA for LTE uplink

• Resource blocks in uplink as in DL:

– 15kHz subcarriers
– 12 subcarriers form resource blocks
– Resource block width in frequency is 180kHz
• Frame structure:
– 10ms Frame that consists of 10 subframes (1ms) and 20 slots (0.5ms).
• Notes:
– Cyclic prefix is added after a block of 6-7 symbols, not after each
symbol like in LTE downlink.
– The number of symbols in a resource block depends on the CP length;
if long CP is used, then number of symbols is 6.
– The receiver still needs to deal with inter-symbol interference but the
cyclic prefix prevents inter-symbol interference between blocks of
symbols.
 Uplink resource sharing

• One of the main differences between DL and UL is that UL

transmission is continuous in frequency while in DL user may
be granted frequency resources from different parts of the
spectrum.
• After Rel.11 also non-continuous UL transmissions have been
allowed.
Uplink transmissions from 4 terminals Downlink transmissions to 4 terminals

Time

Frequency Frequency

1 ms and 180kHz resource blocks

Uplink reference signals

• In LTE uplink two types of reference signals (RSs) are used:

– Demodulation RSs: These are associated with data and control
transmission. For channel estimation when data transmission is
ongoing.
– Sounding RSs: not associated with data and control, used for channel
quality determination for uplink frequency domain scheduling.
Sounding RSs are transmitted on the last symbol in subframe.
5. Radio (air interface) protocols and
channels
5.1 Radio protocols
LTE protocol entities
• The radio interface protocols are needed to set up, reconfigure and release
the Radio Bearer services:
– Radio Bearer is build up in order to give for core network an illusion of a fixed
communication path to UE (new bearer may be initiated by UE or core network)
– Within a Radio Bearer the network sets connection based on service QoS Class
Identifier (QCI) and its related QoS parameters (packet loss, packet delay, priority etc.)
– Best effort default bearer (with non Guaranteed Bit Rate (non-GBR)) setup when UE
attaches to the network for the first time
– Dedicated bearer acts as an additional bearer on top of default bearer providing
dedicated tunnel with GBR or non-GBR (for VoIP, streaming video etc.)
 QoS Class Indentifiers (QCI)

• 3GPP release 8 specifications define a mapping table for nine different

QCIs and their typical services:
Dedicated
bearer
default bearer
Dedicated or
 LTE radio protocol stack
UE
Control plane User plane
Non Access Stratum (NAS)
Layer 3
Radio Resource Control IP
(RRC)
Control traffic
Packet Data Convergence Protocol
(PDCP)
Layer 2
Radio Link Control (RLC)
Logical channels
Medium Access Control (MAC)
Transport channels
Layer 1
Physical layer (PHY)
Physical channels
- UE-eNodeB control signalling
for establishment and release of
connection
- Encapsulate NAS messages
eNodeB - Produce RRC messages with
C-plane U-plane parameters for configuration and
control of Layer 2 and Layer 1
protocol entities
UE-MME
signaling
messages RRC -Encryption/decryption user and
User signaling traffic over the air
traffic interface
-IP header compression
PDCP -Encapsulation of higher layer
protocols in PDCP data units
RLC -Segment/concatenate PDCP
PDUs according size indicated by
MAC layer.
MAC -Reassembles the RLC PDUs to
reconstruct PDCP PDUs.
PHY - Ensuring QoS by instructing
RLC on restrictions on packet
size, number etc.
- Multiplexing of RLC PDUs to
data bearers
- Modulation/demodulation - Managing Hybrid ARQ
- Channel encoding/decoding - Addressing individual devices,
- Etc. power management etc.
Radio Resource Control (RRC) modes
• RRC has two modes: RRC_CONNECTED and RRC_IDLE.

RRC_IDLE RRC_CONNECTED
UE transmit/receive data to/from
UE is asleep but wakes up periodically to
network. UE monitors control
monitor paging channel, perform
channels s and provides control
neighbor cell measurement for handover
feedback to eNodeB, and performs
etc.
neighbour cell measurements for
handover.
5.2 LTE air interface channel structure
Channel types
• All higher layer control plane and user plane data traffic are organized into
channels
• Channels defined between different layers
– Channels mapped and/or multiplexed/demultiplexed between adjacent layers
– Different channel labels used in uplink and downlink (even if having similar
function)
– Note: Next slides provide further explanation of transport channels (logical and
physical channels are omitted in this presentation for brevity).

Logical channels : The topmost

channel layer are used to separate
different kinds of control and user
data flows that have to be
transferred over the air interface.
Medium Access Control (MAC)
Physical channels: Responsible for
offering a physical transmission
medium for one or more transport
channels.
Transport channels: Prepare
downlink data frames for
Radio Link Control (RLC)
transmission over the air interface
Logical channels by splitting them up into smaller
parts, which are encapsulated into
MAC-frames that are more
Transport channels suitable for transmission over the
air interface.
Physical layer (PHY)
Physical channels
Transport channels
• Downlink (DL) Transport channels (from eNode B to UE):
– Broadcast Channel (BCH): Downlink broadcast channel that is used by
eNodeB to broadcast the necessary system parameters to all UEs (e.g.
broadcast general info about the network)
– Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH): Carries the UE data for point-to-point
connections in the downlink direction. All the information (either user data or
higher layer control information) intended for only one user or UE is
transmitted on the DL-SCH.
– Paging Channel (PCH): Carry the paging information for the device in the
downlink direction.
– Multicast Channel (MCH): Used to transfer multicast service content to the
UE in the downlink direction.
• Uplink (UL) Transport channels (from UE to eNode B):
– Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH): Carries the user data as well as device
originated control information in the uplink direction (similar to the DL-SCH
in DL)
– Random Access Channel (RACH): Used in the uplink to respond to the
paging message or to initiate connection through random access procedure.
Mapping of transport channels to
physical channels
• Example: A UE that has been assigned logical data and control channels
will them mapped on the DL-SCH before they are mapped to the
PDSCH, that is, to individual resource blocks together with the general
cell-specific PBCH.
DL transport channels Physical channels

BCH PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel

DL-SCH PDSCH Physical DL Shared Channel

PCH

MCH PMCH Physical Multicast Channel

UL transport channels Physical channels

RACH PRACH Physical Random Access Channel

UL-SCH PUSCH Physical UL Shared Channel

6 LTE Radio Resource Management
RRM role and functions

• The role of Radio Resource Management (RRM):

– Ensure that the radio resources are efficiently used
– Use effectively the available (link/channel) adaptation techniques
– Serve the users according to their configured Quality of Service (QoS) .
 RRM algorithms
• The mapping of the RRM functionalities to the different protocol layers is
show below
• As an example we briefly look at admission control, scheduling and
link adaptation in the next slides
Layer 3

QoS Admission Persistent

PDCP RRC management control scheduling
Layer 2

RLC RLC HARQ Dynamic Link

manager Scheduling Adaptation
MAC MAC
Layer 1

PHY PHY PDCCH CQI Power

adaptation manager control
6.1 Admission control
6.2 Scheduling and link adaptation
Scheduling and link adaptation

• In scheduling the controlling RRM entity is the dynamic Packet Scheduler

(PS), which performs scheduling by allocating Physical Resource Blocks
(PRBs) to the users
– Decisions performed every Transmit Time Interval (TTI) = 1ms (every subframe)
• The overall packet scheduling goal is to maximize the cell capacity, while
making sure that the minimum QoS requirements for bearers are fulfilled.
• The scheduling decisions are carried out on a per user basis even though a
user has several data flows.
 Scheduling and link adaptation
• Packet scheduling is carried out
jointly with the link adaptation i.e.
scheduling decisions include selection
of the modulation and coding scheme.
– The allocated PRBs and selected
modulation and coding combinations are
informed to the scheduled users through
physical downlink control channel
(PDCCH).
– The link adaptation unit primarily bases its
decisions on Channel Quality Indicator
(CQI) feedback from the users in the cell.
• CQI values derived from UE
measurement for estimating channel
state information from measurements
(e.g. received signal power)

Ref: 3GPP TS 36.213

 Resource blocks in frequency-time
domain Channel time-frequency
selective power response for
PRBs as seen by UEs.

Resource sharing between ‘blue’

and ‘yellow’ users decided by
eNodeB scheduler.

Source: Dahlman, Parkvall &

Sköld, 4G LTE/LTE-Advanced for
mobile broadband
 Thank You!

Slides originally prepared by

Prof. Jyri Hämäläinen

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