A Tutorial on LTE

Prof. Jun ZHANG ELEC 536 Dept. of ECE, HKUST

Outline
Introduction Downlink Processing Uplink Processing Advanced Techniques
Main reference:
A. Ghosh, J. Zhang, J. G. Andrews, and R. Muhamed, Fundamentals of LTE, Prentice-Hall, 2010.
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Evolution of Cellular Systems

Standards bodies 3GPP (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project)

3GPP2

IEEE 802.16

(From 3G American, Transition to 4G)

What is LTE?
Separable network structure in 3GPP
Radio Access Network (RAN) + Core Network (CN)

LTE (Long-Term Evolution): The project focusing on enhancing the 3G

RAN, and optimizing 3GPPs overall radio access architecture

EPC (Evolved Packet Core): The project focusing on the CN evolution

with a packet-based architecture

EPS (Evolved Packet System): The complete packet system consisting

of LTE and EPC

3G Network

LTE Network

The Road to LTE -- Performance Evolution of 3GPP Standards

Motivations for LTE

Need to ensure the continuity of competitiveness of the 3G system for the future User demand for higher data rates and quality of service Packet Switch optimized system Continued demand for cost reduction (CAPEX and OPEX) Low complexity Avoid unnecessary fragmentation of technologies for paired and unpaired band operation

Key Features of LTE

High spectral efficiency
OFDM in Downlink, frequency domain channel-dependent scheduling & MIMO DFTS-OFDM(Single-Carrier FDMA) in Uplink, Low PAPR, User orthogonality in frequency domain Multi-antenna (MIMO) transmission

Very low latency

Short setup time & Short transfer delay Short handover latency and interruption time

Support of variable bandwidth

1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz

Key Features of LTE

Simple protocol architecture
Shared channel based PS (packet switch) mode only with VoIP capability

Simple Architecture
eNodeB as the only E-UTRAN node Smaller number of RAN interfaces

Compatibility and inter-working with earlier 3GPP Releases Inter-working with other systems, e.g. cdma2000 FDD and TDD within a single radio access technology Efficient Multicast/Broadcast
Single frequency network by OFDM
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Network Architecture of LTE

UE: mobile terminal eNode-B: base station

MME: Mobility management entity Serving GW: Serving gateway PDN GW: Packet data network gateway

Radio Interface Protocol

An IP packet flow with a defined QoS between the PDN-GW and the UE

What to transmit: defined based on the type of information it carries How to transmit: characterized by how and with what characteristics data is transferred

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Hierarchical Channel Structure

Logical Channels: What to Transmit
Provide services to the RLC Logical control channels
Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) Multicast Control Channel (MCCH) Paging Control Channel (PCCH) Common Control Channel (CCCH) Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH)

Logical traffic channels

Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH) Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH)
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Hierarchical Channel Structure

Transport Channels: How to Transmit
Provide services to the MAC Downlink transport channels
Downlink shared channel (DL-SCH) Broadcast channel (BCH) Multicast channel (MCH) Paging channel (PCH)

Uplink transport channels

Uplink shared channel (UL-SCH) Random access channel (RACH)

Control information
Downlink control information (DCI) Control format indicator (CFI) H-ARQ Indicator (HI) Uplink Control Information (UCI)
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Hierarchical Channel Structure

Physical Channels: Actual Transmission
Correspond to a set of resource elements Downlink physical channels
Physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) Physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) Physical broadcast channel (PBCH) Physical multicast channel (PMCH) Physical hybrid-ARQ indicator channel (PHICH) Physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH)

Uplink physical channels

Physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) Physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) Physical random access channel (PRACH)

Physical signals
Reference signal Synchronization signal
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Hierarchical Channel Structure

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Downlink Processing

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Downlink OFDMA Radio Resource

Why OFDM?
OFDM is efficient in combating the frequency-selective fading channel, which makes it a suitable technique for wireless broadband systems such as LTE It is possible to exploit frequency-selective scheduling with OFDMbased multiple access OFDMA The transceiver structure of OFDM with FFT/IFFT enables scalable bandwidth operation with a low complexity OFDM makes it much easier to support multi-antenna transmission OFDM enables multicast/broadcast services on a synchronized single frequency network

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Time Domain Frame Structure

Frame Structure Type 1 (For FDD)

CP (Cyclic Prefix) Normal CP: for urban environment and high data rate applications Extended CP: for multicell multicast/broadcast and very large cells
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Time Domain Frame Structure

Frame Structure Type 2 (For TDD)

Special fields DwPTS (Downlink Pilot TimeSlot), GP (Guard Period), UpPTS (Uplink Pilot TimeSlot) Provide large guard period to switch between transmission and reception
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Physical Resource Blocks for OFDMA

Each resource block is 180 kHz in the frequency domain, and 0.5 ms in the time domain (one slot) The resource block is the basic element for radio resource allocation The minimum size of radio resource that can be allocated is one subframe of 1ms, corresponding to two resource blocks
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Typical Parameters for DL Transmission

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DL Transport Channel Processing

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Channel Coding
Provide error detection Prevent excessive complexity and memory requirement for decoding

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Channel Coding

Rate 1/3 tail-biting convolution encoder

Rate 1/3 turbo encoder

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Rate Matching
Rate matching performs interleaving, repetition or puncturing to generate a transport block that fits the payload size

Interlacing: guarantee equal number of parity 1 and parity 2 bits

The virtual circular buffer

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Modulation
Scrambing before modulation
Coded sequence Scrambing sequence

To randomize inter-cell interference

Modulation schemes for different physical channels

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MIMO Modes in DL
7 different transmission modes
Single-antenna port (port 0): single antenna transmission Transmit diversity Open-loop (OL) spatial multiplexing Closed-loop (CL) spatial multiplexing MIMO Modes CL MIMO Multiuser MIMO Modes Closed-loop rank-1 precoding Single-antenna port (port 5): beamforming

Antenna configuration
Baseline: 2@Base, 2@UE Higher order: up to 4@Base, 4@UE
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Layer Mapping and Precoding

Layer mapping and precoding are for MIMO modes
The layer mapper maps Nc codewords to v spatial layers The precoder maps the v layers to P antenna ports

This two-step approach allows the inclusion of processing of all the MIMO modes in a single framework

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Layer Mapping and Precoding

Codeword
The output of each channel coding/rate matching stage associated with a single transport block coming from the MAC layer In LTE, limited to two codewords

Layer
Correspond to a data stream of the spatial multiplexing channel Each codeword is mapped into one or multiple layers, so v>=Nc

Antenna port
A logical entity, may not correspond to an actual physical antenna Antenna ports 0-3 are cell specific, used for DL MIMO Antenna port 4 is for multicast/broadcast services Antenna port 5 is used for beamforming to a single UE

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Codeword-to-layer mapping for spatial multiplexing

Supported MIMO Modes for Different Physical Channels

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OL Transmit Diversity
For two antenna ports
Space Frequency Block Code (SFBC) Similar to the Alamouti code, indexed in the frequency domain

For four antenna ports

SFBC combined with Frequency Switched Transmit Diversity (FSTD) Diversity order is 2

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OL Spatial Multiplexing

W(i): codebook-based precoding matrix D(i): to support large-delay cyclic delay diversity U: a fixed unitary DFT-based precoding matrix D(i)U effectively makes sure that all layers undergo the same channel quality
This reduces signaling overhead as only a single CQI needs to be fed back Also provides increased robustness against imperfect link adaptation
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OL Spatial Multiplexing

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CL MIMO Techniques
CL MIMO requires explicit feedback
Rank indication (RI), precoder matrix index (PMI)

CL Spatial Multiplexing
Each UE feeds back the index of the precoder (PMI)

CL Rank-1 Precoding (RI=1)

A special case of CL spatial multiplexing
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Codebook for CL MIMO

For 2 antenna ports

For 4 antenna ports

The codebook uses a Householder generating function the input vectors are given in the standard
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MU-MIMO in DL
In 3GPP Release 8, there is a limited support for MU-MIMO in the downlink The precoder for MU-MIMO is the same as that for the rank-1 precoding The eNodeB transmits to two UEs simultaneously with a rank1 precoder for each UE Mutual interference can be suppressed during the scheduling process by selecting UEs with near-orthogonal channel directions, or with advanced interference cancelation at the UE

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OFDMA Signal Generation

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Downlink Shared Channels

Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH) carriers both traffic and control data from logical channels
Modulation: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM Encoder: rate 1/3 convolutional turbo code MIMO modes: all 7 transmission modes

Shared-channel transmission
The PHY layer resources are treated as a common resource that can be dynamically shared among different UEs Enable dynamic scheduling

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Downlink Control Channels

Downlink Control Information (DCI)

10 different DCI formats (scheduling information, modulation and coding scheme, etc.) DCI format 0, for uplink transmission DCI format 1/1A/1B/1C/1D, for downlink transmission with one codeword without spatial multiplexing DCI format 2 and 2A, for downlink transmission with spatial multiplxing DCI format 3 and 3A carry transmit power control commands for the uplink Coding: rate 1/3 convolution code Modulation: QPSK Carried on PDCCH, located in the first n OFDM symbols of each subframe
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Downlink Control Channels

Control Format Indicator (CFI)

Indicates how many OFDM symbols the DCI spans The CFI takes values of 1, 2, or 3 CFI is mapped to PCFICH in the first OFDM symbol of the subframe Encoder: rate 1/16 linear block code Modulation: QPSK For H-ARQ acknowledgement in response to uplink transmission HI=1 for positive ack, HI=0 for negative ack Encoder: rate 1/3 repetition code Modulation: BPSK
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H-ARQ Indicator (HI)

Broadcast Channels
Carry system information such as downlink system bandwidth, antenna configuration, reference signal power Divided into two portions
Master Information Block (MIB) transmitted on PBCH System Information Block (SIB) transmitted on PDSCH

Encoder: rate 1/3 convolutional code Modulation: QPSK Resource mapping:

Modulated symbols are mapped onto the 72 subcarriers centered around the DC subcarrier in slot 1 in subframe 0 during 4 consecutive radio frames Independent of bandwidth and duplex mode, allows UEs to decode without any prior knowledge
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Multicast Channels
Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS) supports multicast/broadcast services LTE provides enhanced support for the MBMS transmission
Enhanced MBMS (E-MBMS) Achieved through Single-Frequency Network (SFN) operation Multicell multicast/broadcast transmissions appear as a single transmission over a multipath channel OFDM is efficient in combating multipath channels Only single antenna port transmission is supported (antenna port 4) The reduced subcarrier space of 7.5kHz is defined Extended CP

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Downlink Physical Signals

Downlink reference signals:
for channel estimation that enables coherent demodulation and for channel quality measurement to assist user scheduling Cell-specific reference signals, associated with non MBSFN transmission MBSFN reference signals, associated with MBSFN transmission UE-specific reference signals, support single-antenna port transmission

Synchronization Signals
Primary synchronization signal Secondary synchronization signal Enable acquisition of symbol timing and the precise frequency
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Cell-Specific Reference Signal

Cell-specific reference signals are defined separately for antenna ports 0, 1, 2, and 3 Reference signals on different antennas are orthogonal to each other Antenna ports 0 and 1 have twice as many reference symbols as ports 2 and 3

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Synchronization Signals
Primary synchronization signal: carry the physical-layer ID within the cellID group Secondary synchronization signal: carry the physical-layer cell-ID group

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Uplink Processing

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Uplink SC-FDMA Radio Resource

Why SC-FDMA in the uplink?
SC-FDMA possesses most of the merits of OFDM SC-FDMA has a lower PAPR (peak-average-power-ratio), which is highly desirable in the uplink as less expensive power amplifiers are needed at UEs An SC-FDMA transceiver has a similar structure as OFDM, so the parametrization of radio resource in UL enjoys similarities to DL
SC-FDMA symbols, SC-FDMA carriers

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Physical Resource Blocks for SC-FDMA

SC-FDMA can be regarded as conventional OFDM with a DFT-based precoder The resource grid is similar to DL
SC-FDMA symbols SC-FDMA carriers

Only one subcarrier spacing: 15kHz No antenna port is defined, as only single antenna transmission is supported

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PHY Layer Processing

Spatial multiplexing is not supported in the UL

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Coding and Modulation

Channel Coding
Similar to DL Uplink shared channel (UL-SCH): rate 1/3 turbo code Control information: block code or convolutional code

Modulation
UL-SCH supports QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM QPSK and 16QAM are mandatory, 64QAM is optional

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MIMO Modes
Limited MIMO support in UL due to complexity/cost Transmit Antenna Selection
No antenna selection: UE shall transmit from antenna port 0 CL antenna selection: based on commands from eNode-B (in DCI) OL antenna selection: may select antenna based on H-ARQ feedbacks

MU-MIMO in UL
Also referred to as virtual MIMO Two UEs transmit simultaneously on the same radio resource Provides spatial multiplexing gain, even with single-antenna UEs Orthogonal reference signals are assigned to each of 2 UEs

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SC-FDMA Signal Generation

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Uplink Shared Channels

Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH) is the only transport channel carrying traffic data in the UL Encoder: 1/3 turbo encoder Modulation: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM (optional) MIMO Modes: antenna selection, MU-MIMO 52

Frequency Hopping
Provide frequency diversity gain in UL Intra-subframe and inter-subframe frequency hopping

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Uplink Control Information

Uplink Control Information (UCI) provides following information
Downlink CQI (channel quality indicator): for adaptive modulation and coding, channel-dependent scheduling H-ARQ acknowledgement (H-ARQ ACK): for downlink H-ARQ process Scheduling Request (SR): to request radio sources for UL transmission PMI and RI: for DL MIMO transmission

Without uplink resource allocation, UCI is transmitted on PUCCH With uplink resource allocation, UCI is frequency-multiplexed with the UL-SCH data on PUSCH

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Uplink Control Information -- Channel Coding and Modulation

Different types of control information are encoded differently
e.g., for UCI on PUCCH
CQI/PMI are encoded with linear block code H-ARQ-ACK, encoded as 1 or 0 CQI/PMI+H-ARQ-ACK, linear block code

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Uplink Control Information -- Resource Mapping

PUCCH is time-division multiplexed with the PUSCH from the same UE PUCCH can be frequency-division multiplexed with the PUSCH from other UEs PUCCH is transmitted at the bandwidth edge, to provide contiguous bandwidth for data transmission The intra-subframe frequency hopping provides frequency diversity

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Uplink Reference Signals

LTE defines two types of reference signals in UL
Demodulation reference signals: for coherent demodulation, defined for both PUSCH and PUCCH Sounding reference signals: wideband reference signals for measuring UL channel quality for uplink resource allocation Why two types? Demodulation reference signals in UL only transmitted on the subcarriers assigned to UEs, cannot provide sufficient wideband channel quality information

Reference signals in UL cannot be transmitted at the same time with user data (Considering PAPR)

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Uplink Reference Signals -- Resource Mapping

Demodulation reference signals for PUSCH Sounding reference signals

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Random Access Channels

Random access is for initial access or re-establish UL synchronization Random access preamble:

No intra-cell interference from multiple random access attempts using different preambles (Zadoff-Chu sequences) In frequency domain, random access occupies six consecutive resource blocks (72 subcarriers)

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Advanced Techniques

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H-ARQ
H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest): improve reliability
Combines forward error correction (FEC) and retransmission (ARQ) Type I H-ARQ (chase combining): retransmission is identical to the first transmission Type II H-ARQ (incremental redundancy): retransmission provides different redundancy In LTE, rate 1/3 turbo coding is used as the FEC code while a CRC is applied for error detection At the transmitter: each (re)transmission, the same turbo-coded data is transmitted with different puncturing, i.e., different redundancy version At the receiver: decode the received code block combined with previously received versions
No error detected, then feed back ACK Error detected, feed back NACK
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H-ARQ
Time interval between two successive H-ARQ transmission
Typically 8 msec in LTE

To avoid waiting time, an N-channel Stop-and-Wait protocol is used, consisting of N parallel H-ARQ processes

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H-ARQ
DL: Asynchronous Adaptive H-ARQ
H-ARQ processes can be transmitted in any order without fixed timing Provides higher throughput with re-scheduling or changing modulation/coding Avoid potential collision of H-ARQ retransmissions with high priority scheduling transmissions, e.g., persistent scheduling Requires more overhead, e.g., redundancy version, etc

UL: Synchronous H-ARQ

Retransmissions are scheduled on a periodic interval Requires no explicit signaling for H-ARQ process number Depends on the duplexing mode and H-ARQ operation types

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Adaptive Coding and Modulation (AMC)

AMC is to take advantage of fluctuations in the channel over time and frequency, i.e., exploiting fading
Transmit as high a data rate as possible when and where the channel is good Transmit at a lower rate when and where the channel is poor Requires knowledge of instantaneous channel information

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Adaptive Coding and Modulation (AMC)

A possible realization of AMC
With AMC, we approach the Shannon capacity within 2-4 dB

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Scheduling and Resource Allocation

Objective: to efficiently allocate the available radio resource to UEs Channel-independent scheduling
The allocation is random and not based on channel condition, e.g., round-robin scheduling

Channel-dependent scheduling
The allocation is based on channel condition, e.g., proportional fairness scheduler, max CI (carrier-to-interference) scheduler Frequency diverse scheduling: random in frequency domain, exploit time selectivity and frequency diversity Frequency selective scheduling: exploit both time and frequency selectivity of the channel
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Scheduling and Resource Allocation

Resource assignment consists of resource blocks (RB) and modulation and coding schemes (MCS)
Depends heavily on channel information For DL: provided by uplink CQI feedback For UL: by channel sounding at the eNode-B

DL supports both localized and distributed resource allocations

Distributed allocations provide better performance with high overhead Localized allocation provides low overhead alternative

UL only supports localized allocation

Preserve single-carrier property Exploit multiuser diversity in the frequency domain

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Scheduling and Resource Allocation

--Multiuser Diversity Gain
For iid Rayleigh fading channels, with opportunistic scheduling
Sum capacity ~ loglog(K)

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CQI Feedback
CQI (Channel Quality Indicator) from UE
Indicates a suitable downlink transmission data rate, i.e., a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) Based on the observed SINR at the UE

Wideband vs. Subband CQI

Wideband CQI: over the entire channel bandwidth, do not support frequency-selective scheduling Subband CQI: consists of a vector of CQI values each representing SINR over a subband, enables frequency-selective scheduling

Tradeoff between DL performance and UL bandwidth consumption

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CQI Estimation
The UE computes SINR samples over multiple OFDM symbols and subcarriers to calculate an effective SINR

I(.) maps the SINR to a performance metric

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CQI Index
Based on effective SINR, the UE picks the CQI index that indicates the highest MCS level that can be supported with a 10% block error rate

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CQI Feedback Modes

Two reporting modes in the time domain
Periodic reporting: the UE reports CQI, PMI, and RI with reporting periods configured by the higher layer Aperiodic reporting: can be used to provide large and more detail reporting in a single reporting instance via PUSCH

For subband CQI feedback

In periodic reporting
The UE cycles through different subbands from one reporting instance to the next, to reduce overhead

In aperiodic reporting
Higher layer configured subband reporting: UE reports the subband CQI for each band in a single feedback report UE selected subband report: UE reports the subband CQI for the M bands with the highest CQI values
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CQI Feedback Modes

10 MHz FDD

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Cell Search or Synchronization

When a UE powers on
It needs to acquire time and frequency synchronization with a cell and detect the physical-layer cell ID of that cell through the cell search procedure

LTE uses a hierarchical cell search scheme

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Random Access Procedure

Cell search provides downlink synchronization Random access enables uplink synchronization, notifies the eNode-B that the UE has data to transmit, or transmit a small amount of control information and data packets

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Power Control in Uplink

In LTE, orthogonal transmission in UL removes intra-cell interference
No near-far problem Inter-cell interference is the major issue Power control in UL

Objective of Power Control

To control interference caused to neighboring cells, while maintaining the required SINR at the serving cell

Fractional Power Control (FPC)

Allows full or partial compensation of path loss and shadowing Allows edge UEs to operate at lower SINR, with less interference to other cells
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Power Control in Uplink

Power control for PUSCH
Open-loop component + closed-loop component

Open-loop component: FPC

M: # resource blocks, P0: mean received SINR : path loss compensation factor (=1, channel inversion, a=0, no PC)

Open-loop + closed loop

f(.) performs closed loop power control Accumulated: Absolute:

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Inter-cell Interference (ICI) Coordination

ICI randomization
Scramble the codeword after channel encoding with a pseudo-random sequence Interference suppression is achieved through channel coding gain

ICI cancellation
Decode the interfering signals first, and then subtract them Achieved with multiuser detection, or multiple antennas

ICI coordination/avoidance
Apply restrictions to the resource management in a coordinated way between neighboring cells

Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) Transmission/Reception

Also called base station coordination, multicell processing Have great potential, but not supported in LTE
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Inter-cell Interference (ICI) Coordination

Example:
Possible downlink power levels of three neighboring cells. Edge users in each cell would be allocated to the higher power levels.

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Related 3GPP Specifications

3GPP TS 36.201, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); LTE Physical Layer - General Description. 3GPP TS 36.211, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical channels and modulation. 3GPP TS 36.212, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Multiplexing and channel coding. 3GPP TS 36.213, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical Layer Procedures. 3GPP TS 36.321, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification. Available on http://www.3gpp.org/specification-numbering

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