Wireless & Cellular Communication - Module 5 18EC81

Wireless and CELLULAR COMMUNICATION (18EC81)

Module-5
LTE - 4G
OFDMA and SC-FDMA – Multiple Access for OFDM Systems, OFDMA, SCFDMA, Multiuser
Diversity and Opportunistic Scheduling, OFDMA and SC-FDMA in LTE, OFDMA system Design
Considerations. (Text 1, Sec 4.1 – 4.6)
The LTE Standard – Introduction to LTE, Hierarchical Channel Structure of LTE, Downlink OFDMA
Radio Resources, Uplink SC-FDMA Radio Resources. (Text 1, Sec 6.1 – 6.4) L1, L2, L3

Frequency Domain Multiple Access: OFDMA and SC-FDMA

Multiple access strategy used in cellular communication
First Generation (IG), example AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service): FDMA
Second Generation (2G) example 2G GSM or IS-54: TDMA, CDMA.
Third Generation (3G), example UMTS: 3G WCDMA.
Fourth Generation (4G), example LTE: OFDMA for down link, SC-FDMA for uplink.

5.1. Multiple Accesses for OFDM Systems,

• OFDM has wide acceptance in wireless communications as an appropriate broadband
modulation scheme.
• OFDM divides a wideband frequency-selective channel into narrowband flat fading sub-
channels.
• In multi-user systems, these sub-channels can be allocated among different users to
provide multiple access schemes
• The use of adaptive techniques in these sub-channels can further increase the spectral
efficiency of the wireless system.
• Therefore, a main advantages of OFDM is the flexibility in combining adaptive
modulation and multiple access techniques
Multiple-access strategies typically attempt to provide non-interfering, communication
channels for each active base station-subscriber link.
• OFDM is a technique to overcome frequency selectivity (inter symbol Interference).
• OFDM create many parallel streams of data that can principle be used by different users.
• OFDM system such as DSL, 802.11a/g/WiMAX uses single user.

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• For example 802.1 a/g WiFi systems, nearby users share the 20MHz bandwidth by
transmitting at different time after contending for the channel.
• OFDM accommodated by time sharing the channel.
5.1.1. Multiple-Access Overview
The most common ways to divide the available channel among the multiple users is through
• Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA): Each user receives a unique carrier
frequency and bandwidth.
• Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA): Each user is given a unique time slot, either on
demand or in a fixed rotation.
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA): Systems allow each user to share both the bandwidth
and time slots with many other users.
TDMA, FDMA, and orthogonal CDMA all have the almost same theoretical capacity in an
additive noise channel.
 Limitation of above multiple access:
 FDMA, TDMA, CDMA are bandwidth or interference limited system.
 Orthogonality is not possible in dense wireless systems.
 The above techniques only guarantee orthogonality between users in the same cell.
 Different multiple access techniques have different delay characteristics and so may be appropriate for
different types of data.
 Conclusion: The above limitation of conventional multiple access can be mitigated by principle merits of
OFDMA.
5.1.2. Random Access Vs. Multiple Access
• CSMA-Carrier Sense Multiple Access
• Used in Packet based communication System eg., Ethernet and wireless LAN such as 802.11.
• In random access, users contend for the channel, rather than being allocated a reserved time, frequency, or
code resource. Eg., ALOHA, SLOTTED ALOHA, CSMA.
• In ALOHA users simply transmit packets at will without regard to the other users. If the packet is not
acknowledged by the receiver after some period, it is assumed and is retransmitted.
• ALOHA is an inefficient method and delay is more as intensity of the traffic increases, as many
transmission result in collision and hence retransmission.
• SLOTTED ALOHA overcomes the problem of ALOHA by a factor of two since users transmits on
specified time boundaries hence collision reduces.
• CSMA improves upon ALOHA, SLOTTED ALOHA through carrier sensing, in which users listen to the
channel before transmitting in order to avoid collision.
• CSMA uses Distributed coordination function (DCF) of 802.11 in which user waits for a random amount

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of time after the channel is clear before transmitting in order to reduce the probability to two stations
transmitting immediately after the channel becomes available
• The random access tends to be inefficient, systems sophisticated enough to have a frequency and code slots
generally opt for coordinated multiple access, rather than random access
5.1.3. Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDM-FDMA)
 Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) can be readily implemented in OFDM systems by assigning
different users their own sets of subcarriers.
 Available sub-carriers are distributed among all the users for transmission at any time instant
 Each user is allocated a pre-determined band of subcarriers. Allows adaptive techniques per sub-carrier,
based on sub-channel condition.

Fig. 5.1. FDMA (left) and a combination of FDMA with TDMA (right)
 The simplest method is a static allocation of subcarriers to each user, as shown on the left of figure 5.1. For
example, in a 64-subcarrier OFDM system, user 1 could take subcarriers 1-16, with users 2, 3, and 4 using
subcarriers 17-32, 33-48, and 49-64, respectively.
 The allocations are enforced with a multiplexer for the various users before the IFFT operation.
 OFDMA in LTE, however, has explicit time-sharing and procedures to allow for the dynamic allocation of
subcarriers.
 In LTE use dynamic subcarrier allocation based upon channel state conditions. For example, due to
frequency selective fading, user 1 may have relatively good channels on subcarriers 33- 48, while user 3
might have good channels on subcarriers 1-16. Obviously, it would be mutually beneficial for these users to
swap the static allocations
5.1.4. Time Division Multiple Access (OFDM-TDMA)
• A particular user is given all the sub-carrier of the system for any particular symbol duration.
• Each user is assigned a time slot during which all the sub-carriers can be used for the particular user

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• Adaptive loading can be performed on all the subcarriers, depending on channel conditions.
• The number of symbols per frame can be varied based on each user’s requirement.
• Power consumption reduction (less activity). Degrading performance should be taken into account in delay
constrained systems.
• A packet-based system like LTE can employ more sophisticated scheduling algorithms based on
queue-lengths, channel conditions, and delay constraints to achieve much better performance than
static TDMA.
5.1.5. Code Division Multiple Access (OFDM-CDMA or MC-CDMA)
• User data is spread over several sub-carriers and/or OFDM symbols using spreading codes, and combined
with signals from other users. OFDM and CDMA are shown in fig. 5.2.
• Hybrid access scheme that combines benefits:
• OFDM: Provides a simple method to overcome the ISI effect of the multi-path frequency selective channel
• CDMA: Provides frequency diversity and multi-user access scheme
• Several users transmit over the same sub-carriers.
• In wireless broadband networks the data rates already are very large, so spreading the spectrum further is
not viable.
• OFDM and CDMA are not fundamentally incompatible; they can be combined to create a Multicarrier
CDMA (MC-CDMA) waveform. MC-CDMA is not part of the LTE standard

Fig.5.2. OFDM and CDMA

The advantages and disadvantages in multiple types is shown in table 5.1

5.2. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)

OFDMA systems allocate subscribers time-frequency slices (in LTE, "resource grids").
• A resource block (RB) is the smallest unit of resources that can be allocated to a user.

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• It consisting of M subcarriers over some number of consecutive OFDM symbols in time.

The M subcarriers can either be
• Spread out over the band, It often called a "distributed," "comb," or "diversity" allocation or
Bunched together in M contiguous subcarriers which is often called a "band AMC," "localized," or
"grouped" cluster.
• The distributed allocation achieves frequency diversity over the entire band, and would typically rely on
interleaving and coding to correct errors caused by poor subcarriers.
• In a highly mobile system, then a distributed allocation would typically be preferred in order to maximize
diversity.
• The band AMC mode, instead attempts to use subcarriers where the SINR is roughly equal and to choose
the best coding and modulation scheme for that SINR.
• If accurate SINR information can be obtained at the receiver about each band's SINR, then band AMC
outperforms distributed subcarrier allocation.

Table 5.1 Advantages and disadvantages in multiple types

Multiple types Advantages Disadvantages

Simple implementation
OFDM_TDMA Frequency-reuse factor ≥ 3
Flexibility
Power savings Simple resource
Relatively high latency
OFDM_FDMA allocation Frequency-reuse factor ≥ 3
Lowest flexibility
Easiest to implement
Spectral efficiency
Frequency diversity Requirement of power control
OFDM_CDMA MAI and ICI interference resistance
Frequency-reuse factor = 1 Implementation complexity
Highest flexibility
•
•

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Fig.5.3. OFDMA downlink transmitter

The Table 4.2 shows the notations used in OFDMA

Table 5.2 OFDMA notations
Symbol Explanation
K Number of Active users
L Total number of subcarriers
M Number of subcarriers per active user k
Envelope of the channel gain for user k in subcarrier l
Transmit power allocated for user k in subcarrier l
AWGN power spectrum density
Total transmit power available at the base station
B Total transmission bandwidth

Fig. 5.4. OFDMA downlink receiver for user 1.

5.2.1. OFDMA Working
• The block diagram of downlink OFDMA transmitter and receiver is shown in figure 5.3 and 5.4
respectively.
• Each of the K active users—who by design have orthogonal subcarrier assignments—have a different
receiver that only detects the Mk subcarriers intended for it
• In theory it is possible to have users share subcarriers, this never occurs in practice, so ∑ = 𝐿 and each

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subcarrier only has one user assigned to it.

• At each receiver, the user cares only about its own 𝑘 subcarriers, but still has to apply an L point FFT to
the received digital waveform in order to extract the desired subset of subcarriers.
• Receiver has to know which time-frequency resources it has been allocated in order to extract the correct
subcarriers: the control signaling that achieves.
• OFDMA downlink receiver must mostly demodulate the entire waveform, which wastes power, but
digital separation of users is simple to enforce at the receiver and the amount of residual inter user
interference is very low compared to either CDMA or FDMA.

Fig. 5.5. OFDMA uplink transmitter for user 1, where user 1 is allocated subcarriers 1,2….M of L total subcarriers.
[Adaptive modulation and coding]

Fig.5.6. OFDMA uplink receiver. All K active users-who by design have orthogonal subcarrier assignments—are
aggregated at the receiver and demultiplexed after the FFT. [EQ-equalizer]
OFDMA is not used in the LTE uplink. The block diagram of uplink OFDMA transmitter and receiver is
shown in figure 5.5 and 5.6 respectively.
• The transmitter modulates user 𝑘′𝑠 bits over just the subcarriers of interest: in this case, we
have chosen 𝑘 = for all users, and shown user 1 occupying subcarriers 1,2, • • , M of the L
total subcarriers.
• All the users' signals collide at the receiver's antenna, and are collectively demodulated using the
receiver's FFT.
• Assuming each subcarrier has only a single user on it, the demodulated subcarriers can be de-
mapped to the detectors for each of the K served users.

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• It should be noted that uplink OFDMA is considerably more challenging than downlink OFDMA
since the uplink is naturally asynchronous, that is the users' signals arrive at the receiver offset
slightly in time (and frequency) from each other.
• This is not the case in the downlink since the transmitter is common for all users. These time and
frequency offsets can result in considerable self-interference if they become large.
• Particularly in the distributed subcarrier mode, sufficiently large frequency offsets can severely
degrade the orthogonality across all subcarriers.
• The timing offsets also must typically be small, within a fraction of a cyclic prefix.
• In LTE the uplink multi access scheme uses only the localized subcarrier mode due to the SC-
FDMA nature of the uplink.
• In this case, the lack of perfect frequency and time synchronization between the multiple users
leads to some ICI (Inter Channel Interference) but this is limited only to the subcarriers at the
edge of the transmission band of each user.
• Frequency and timing synchronization for the uplink is achieved relative to the downlink
synchronization, which is done using the synchronization channels.
• A higher level view of OFDMA can be seen in figure 5.7 Here, a base station is transmitting a
band AMC-type OFDMA waveform to four different devices simultaneously.
• The three arrows for each user indicate the signalling that must happen in order for band AMC-
type OFDMA to work.
• First, the mobiles measure and feedback the quality of their channel, or channel state
information (CSI) to the base station.
• Usually, the CSI feedback would be a measurement corresponding to SINR.
• The base station would then allocate subcarriers to the four users and send that subcarrier
allocation information to the four users in an overhead message.
• Finally, the actual data is transmitted over the Subcarriers assigned to each user.
• Here, it can be seen that the base station was successful in assigning each user a portion of the
spectrum where it had a relatively strong signal.

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Fig. 5.7. In OFDMA, the base station allocates each user a fraction of the subcarriers, preferably, in a range where
they have a strong channel.

5.2.2. OFDMA Advantages and Disadvantages

 Advantages of OFDMA start with the advantages of single user OFDM in terms of robust multipath
suppression, relative low complexity, and the creation of frequency diversity.
 In addition OFDMA is a flexible multiple access techniques that can accommodate many users with
widely varying applications, data rates and QoS requirements.
 Because the multiple access is performed in digital domain (before the IFFT operation) dynamic, flexible,
and efficient bandwidth allocation is possible. This allows the time and frequency scheduling algorithms.
 Lower data rates such as voice and burst data are handled much more efficiently in OFDMA than in single
user OFDM (i.e., OFDM-TDMA) or with CSMA.
 Take the first case voice as an example. If OFDMA has not used, each downlink user receive a very high
data at signal for a very short period of time- particularly in channels with a large bandwidth such as 10 or
20 MHz,
 This requires receiver to quickly process large amount of data, would have bad latency and jitter properties
as voice decompressor (vocoder) would frequently have to wait for a while before new decoded bits were
available.
 The switching between the user is very Rapid more frequency overhead signalling would be
required, reducing the overall system throughput
 In the uplink OFDM-TDMA would be even more toxic as in addition to these concerns the subcarrier
would have to transmit avoid signal at very high total power for a very short time. This would put a large

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strain on the power amplifier.

 OFDMA does not suffer from these problems because the allocation of time-frequency resources to users
is extremely flexible and can be adopted dynamically to meet arbitrary throughput delay and possibly
other QoS constraints.

5.3. Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SCFDMA)

• SC-FDMA is employed in the LTE uplink.
• Conceptually, this system evolves naturally from SC-FDE modulation approach.
• SC-FDE is a single-carrier modulation technique; it is not possible for an uplink user to use only
part of the spectrum. SC-FDMA can reasonably be called "FFT (or DFT) pre-coded OFDMA.
• SC-FDMA more closely resembles OFDMA because it still requires an IFFT operation at the
transmitter in order to separate the users.
• The goal of SC-FDMA is
• Take the low peak-to-average ratio (PAR) properties of SC-FDE.
• Achieve an OFDMA-type system that allows partial usage of the frequency band.

5.3.2. SCFDMA-Working
SC-FDMA uplink transmitter:
• SC-FDMA uplink transmitter is shown in figure 5.8.

Fig. 5.8: SC-FDMA uplink transmitter for user 1, where user 1 is allocated subcarriers 1, 2,…...M of L total
subcarriers
• The only difference that the user's 𝑘 complex symbols are pre-processed with an FFT of size 𝑘

and refer as time-domain complex symbols as x[n].

• In LTE, 𝑘 is related to the number of resource blocks allocated to the user 𝑘 for its uplink
transmission.
• The FFT operation creates a frequency domain version of the signal X[m] = FFT(x[n],

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• The time-domain outputs of the IFFT correspond to an over-sampled and phase-shifted

version of the original time-domain signal x[n].
• x[n] is oversampled by a factor of L/M and experiences a phase shift that depends on which inputs
to the IFFT are used.
The SC-FDMA uplink receiver:
• Figure 5.9 shows SC-FDMA uplink receiver, here we explicitly assume that each user occupies a
fraction M/L of the spectrum like OFDM.
• The difference now being that for each user's 𝑘 "subcarriers," an additional small IFFT must be
applied prior to detection to bring the received data back into the time domain.
• Frequency domain equalization is applied to each user's signal independently after the FFT, and
users' signals are de-mapped based on the current subcarrier allocation.

Fig.5.9. SC-FDMA uplink receiver.

5.3.2. SC-FDMA Advantages and Disadvantages
Table 5.3: SC-FDMA Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages Disadvantages
It is similar to OFDMA SC-FDMA can experience more spectral leakage than
OFDMA, and achieve frequency diversity differently,
leading to slight difference in performance.
Only one part of frequency spectrum is used by SC-FDMA has complexity disadvantages vs. OFDMA
any one user at a time. in both TX and Rx as an additional FFT of size Mk has
to be performed for each user at the TX And RX
The band used to be chosen adaptively for
higher throughput.
PAR of SC-FDMA is significantly lower than
the OFDMA.
Reducing PAR reduces the cost of RF power
amplifier. Hence the SC-FDMA is suitable for
uplink
Suitable For uplink due to simple transmitter.

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5.4. Multiuser Diversity and Opportunistic Scheduling,

 Multiuser diversity is a diversity technique using user scheduling in multiuser wireless channels where
user scheduling allows the base station to select high quality channel users so as to transmit information
through a relatively high quality channel in time, frequency and space domains based on the channel
quality information fed back from all candidate UEs (User Equipment).
 Multiuser diversity describes the gains available by selecting a user from a subset of users that have "good"
conditions.
 Adaptive modulation is the means by which good" channels can be exploited to achieve the higher data
rates their high SINRs make viable.
5.4.1. Multiuser Diversity
The main motivation for adaptive subcarrier allocation in OFDMA systems is to exploit multiuser diversity.
Even though OFDMA has number of subcarriers, here we focus on the allocation for a single subcarrier among
multiple users.
Consider a K-user system, where the subcarrier of interest experiences independent and identically distributed
(i.i.d).
Rayleigh fading, that is each user’s channel gain is independent of the others, and is denoted by h k. The probability
density function (PDF) of user k’s channel gain is given by

The base station only transmits to the user with highest channel gain, expressed as
.
It is easy to verify that the PDF of is

Figure 5.10 shows the PDF of for different values of K.

As the number of users’ increases, the PDF of shifts to right, which means the probability of getting a large
channel gain, improves.
Figure 5.11 shows how this increased channel gain improves the channel capacity and bit error rate (BER) for
uncoded QPSK.
Both the graph show that the Multiuser Diversity gain improves as the number of users in the system increases,
but the majority of the gain is achieved from just the first few users.

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Fig. 5.10. Probability density function of , the maximum of K users’ channel gains

Fig. 5.11. Avearge capacity (left) and QPSK bit error rate (right) for different numbers of users K.

5.4.2. Opportunistic Scheduling Approaches for OFDMA

The idea is to develop algorithms for determining which users to schedule. How to allocate subcarriers to
them, and how to determine the appropriate power levels for each user on each subcarrier.
The different possible approaches to resource allocation are discussed here. Obtaining high throughput with fairness
among the users in the system is the class of technique used.

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We generally assume that the outgoing queues for each user are full, but in practice the algorithms discussed here
can be modified to adjust for queue length. The subcarrier mapping must be broadcast to all users whenever
the resource allocation changes:
Typically, the resource allocation must be performed on the order of the channel coherence time;
The resource allocation is usually formulated as a constrained optimization problem to either
(1) Minimize the total transmit power with a constraint on the user data rate or to
(2) Maximize the total data rate with a constraint on total transmit power.

The first objective is appropriate for fixed-rate applications (e.g., voice), while the second is more appropriate for
bursty applications like data and other IP applications.
5.4.3. Maximum Sum Rate Algorithm
The objective of the maximum sum rate (MSR) algorithm is to maximize the sum rate of all users, given a total
transmit power constraint.
The drawback of the MSR algorithm is that it is likely that a few users that are close to the base station (and
hence have excellent channels) will be allocated all the system resources.
The SINR, data rate, and power and subcarrier allocation that is achieved by the MSR algorithm are
discussed.
Let denote user k's transmit power in subcarrier l. The signal-to-interference plus-noise ratio for user k in
subcarrier l, denoted as can be expressed as

∑
𝐿
where AWGN power spectrum density
L Total number of subcarriers

B Total transmission bandwidth

Using the Shannon capacity formulas the throughput measure, the MSR algorithm maximizes the following
quantity:

∑∑
𝐿

with the total power constraint

∑∑

The sum capacity is maximized if the total throughput in each subcarrier is maximized.
Hence, the max sum capacity optimization problem can be decoupled into L simpler problems, one for each
subcarrier.
Further, the sum capacity in subcarrier l, denoted as , can be written as

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∑
𝐿

here denotes other users' interference to user k in subcarrier l.

It is easy to show that is maximized when all available power is assigned to just the single user with the
largest channel gain in subcarrier l. This is sometimes referred to as a "greedy" optimization.
5.4.4 Maximum Fairness Algorithm
Although the total throughput is maximized by the MSR algorithm, in a cellular system like LTE where
the path loss attenuation will vary by several orders of magnitude between users, some users will be
extremely underserved by an MSR-based scheduling procedure.
The maximum fairness algorithm aims to allocate the subcarriers and power such that the minimum
user's data rate is maximized.
This essentially corresponds to equalizing the data rates of all users, hence the name "Maximum
Fairness."
The maximum fairness algorithm can be referred to as a Max-Min problem, since the goal is to
maximize the minimum data rate.
The optimum subcarrier and power allocation is considerably more difficult to determine than in the
MSR case because the objective function is not concave.
It is particularly difficult (NP-hard) to simultaneously find the optimum subcarrier and power
allocation.
Therefore, low-complexity suboptimal algorithms are necessary, in which the subcarrier and power
allocation are done separately.
A common approach is to assume initially that equal power is allocated to each subcarrier, and then to
iteratively assign each available subcarrier to a low-rate user with the best channel on it.
Once this generally suboptimal subcarrier allocation is completed, an optimum (waterfilling) power
allocation can be performed.
It is typical for this suboptimal approximation to be very close to the performance obtained with an
exhaustive search for the best joint subcarrier-power allocation, both in terms of the fairness achieved
and the total throughput.

5.4.5. Proportional Rate constraints Algorithm

A weakness of the Maximum Fairness algorithm is that the rate distribution among users is not
flexible.
Further, the total throughput is largely limited by the user with the worst SINR, as most of the resources
are allocated to that user, which is clearly suboptimal.

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In a wireless broadband network, it is likely that different users require application-specific data rates that
vary substantially.
A generalization of the Maximum Fairness algorithm is the Proportional Rate Constraints (PRC)
algorithm, whose objective is to maximize Sum throughput, with the additional constraint that each
user's data rate is proportional to a set of pre-determined system parameters . Mathematically, the
proportional data rate's constraint can be expressed as

where each user's achieved data rate is

∑
𝐿
𝐿
and can only be the value of either 1 or 0, indicating whet her subcarrier is used by user k or not. Clearly, this
is the same setup as the Maximum Fairness algorithm if =1 for each user.
The advantage is that any arbitrary data rates can be achieved by varying the values.
The PRC optimization problem is also generally very difficult to solve directly, since it involves both
continuous variables and binary variables and the feasible set is not convex.
As for the Maximum Fairness case, the prudent approach is to separate the subcarrier and power allocation, and to
settle for a near-optimal subcarrier and power allocation that can be achieved with manageable complexity.
5.4.6. Proportional Fairness Scheduling
The three algorithms we have discussed thus far attempt to instantaneously achieve an objective such as the total
sum throughput (MSR algorithm), maximum fairness (equal data rates among all users), or pre-set
proportional rates for each user.
Alternatively one could attempt to achieve such objectives over time, which provides significant additional
flexibility to the scheduling algorithms.
In this case, in addition to throughput and fairness, a third element enters the tradeoff, which is latency.
In an extreme case of latency tolerance, the scheduler could simply just wait for the user to get close to the base
station before transmitting.
In fact, the MSR algorithm achieves both fairness and maximum throughput if the users are assumed to have the
same average channels in the long term (on the order of minutes, hours, or more), and there is no constraint with
regard to latency.
Since latencies even on the order of seconds are generally unacceptable, scheduling algorithms that balance
latency and throughput and achieve some degree of fairness are needed.
The most popular framework for this type of scheduling is Proportional Fairness (PF) scheduling.
The PF scheduler is designed to take advantage of multiuser diversity, while maintaining comparable long-
term throughput for all users.

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Let denote the instantaneous data rate that user k can achieve at time t, and be the average
throughput for user k up to time slot t.
The Proportional Fairness scheduler selects the user, denoted as k*, with the highest for
transmission.
In the long-term, this is equivalent to selecting the user with the highest instantaneous rate relative to its mean
rate.
The average throughput for all users is then updated according to

( ) 𝑘 𝑘

( ) 𝑘 𝑘
{

Since the Proportional Fairness scheduler selects the user with the largest instantaneous data rate relative to
its average throughput, "bad channels for each user are unlikely to be selected.
On the other hand, users that have been consistently underserved receive scheduling priority, which promotes
fairness.
The parameter controls e latency of the system. If is large, then the latency increases, with the benefit of
higher sum throughput. If is small, the latency decreases since the average throughput values change more
quickly, at the expense of some throughput.
The Proportional Fairness scheduler has been widely adopted in packet data systems such as HSPDA and
lxEVDO, where is commonly set between 10 and 20.

One interesting property of PF scheduling is that as , the sum of the logs of the user data rates is
maximized. That is, PF scheduling maximizes ∑ or equivalently∏ .

Although the Proportional Fairness scheduler was originally designed for a single users channel, time-
slotted system, it can be adapted to an OFDMA system.
In an OFDMA system, due to the multiple parallel subcarriers in the frequency domain, multiple users can
transmit on different subcarriers simultaneously.
The original PF algorithm can be extended to OFDMA by treating each subcarrier independently.

Let be the supportable data rate for user k in subcarrier in at time slot t. Then for each subcarrier the
user with the largest is selected for transmission.
Let denote the set of subcarriers in which user k is scheduled for transmission at time slot t, then the
average user throughput is updated as

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( ) ∑

for k = 1,2,.. . , K. Other weighted adaptations and evolutions of PF scheduling of OFDMA are certainly
possible.
5.4.7. Performance Comparison
In this section, we briefly compare the performance of the various scheduling algorithms for OFDMA that we
have discussed, in order to gain intuition on their relative performance and merits.
In these results, an exponentially decaying multipath profile with six multipath components was used to
generate the frequency diversity.
All users have the same average SNR. The absolute capacity numbers are not especially important; what are
important are the trends between the different curves.

Throughput First, we consider the multiuser diversity gains of the different types of algorithms. Figure 5.12
shows the capacity (normalized by the total bandwidth) for static TDMA (round robin), Proportional Fairness,
and the maximum sum rate (MSR) algorithm.
As expected, the MSR algorithm achieves the best total throughput, and the gain increases as the number of
users’ increases, on the order of log log K.
Static TDMA achieves no multiuser gain, since the users transmit independent of their channel realizations.
It can be seen that the proportional fairness algorithm approaches the throughput of the MSR algorithm, with an
expected penalty due to its support for under-served users.

Fairness Now, let us consider how the worst user in the system does: this is shown the left of Figure 5.13.
As expected, the Maximum Fairness algorithm achieves the best performance for the most under-served user,
with a slight gain for optimal power allocation over its allocated subcarriers (waterfilling) relative to an equal
power allocation.
Also as expected, the MSR algorithm results in a starved worst case user-in fact, Static TDMA performs in-
between the two, with the percentage loss relative to the Maximum Fairness algorithm increasing as the number
of user’s increases, since TDMA does not take advantage of multiuser diversity

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Fig. 5.12 Sum capacity vs. number of users for a single carrier system (scheduling is in time domain only).
Consider a heterogeneous environment with eight users. The first user has an average SINR of 20dB, the second
user has an average SINR of 10 dB and user3-8 have average SINRs of 0dB. This is a reasonable scenario in which
user 1 is close to the base station, user 3-8 are near the cell edge and user 2 is in between.
As shown in figure 5.13. MSR algorithm allocates bulk resources to user 1and user 2 and user3-8 has a through put
of approximately zero. A Proportional rate constraint algorithm (PRC) is balanced algorithm used.

Fig. 5.13. (Left) Minimum user capacity in multiuser OFDMA vs. the number of users (right). Normalized
average throughput per user in a heterogeneous environment
Summary of Comparison
 Table 5.5 compares the four resource allocation algorithms that this chapter introduced for OFDMA
systems.
 In summary, the Maximum Sum Rate allocation is the best in terms of total throughput, achieves a low
computational complexity, but has a terribly unfair distribution of data rates.

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 Hence, the MSR algorithm is viable only when all users have nearly identical channel conditions and a
relatively large degree of latency is tolerable.
 The Maximum Fairness algorithm achieves complete fairness while sacrificing significant throughput,
and so is appropriate only for fixed, equal rate applications.
 The Proportional Rate Constraints (PRC) algorithm allows a flexible tradeoff between these two
extremes, but it may not always be possible to aptly set the desired rate constraints in real time.

Table 5.5 Comparison of different OFDMA Adaptive Resource Allocation Schemes.

Algorithm Sum Fitness Complexity
Capacity
Maximum Sum Rate Best Poor and inflexible Low
Maximum Fairness algorithm Poor Best but inflexible Medium
Proportional Rate Constraints (PRC) Good Most flexible High
algorithm
Proportional Fairness algorithm Good Flexible Low
5.5. OFDMA and SC-FDMA in LTE,
• Any OFDMA-based standard specify following things in order for the system to work.
• It must specify the "quanta," or units, of time-frequency resource (RB) that can be assigned.
• It must specify messaging protocols that allow the MS to request resources when necessary, and
to know what resources they have been assigned, both for transmission and reception.
• Ranging procedures must be specified so that simultaneous uplink transmissions from several
different mobile units can be reliably decoded at the base station.
• In LTE, mobile units are allocated groups of subcarriers over time and frequency known as a
resource block (RB).
• The size of the resource block is chosen to balance a tradeoff between granularity and
overhead.
• For example, if assign any subcarrier to any user in any time slot increase very large amount of
overhead to specify the current allocation to all the mobile units.
• Much lower overhead would be achieved by an OFDM-TDMA type system, but not efficient in
many respects including total throughput, delay, and the required peak power

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Fig.5.13a The Structure of LTE Time –Frequency Grid (LTE FDD frame of 1.4 MHz channel)
Throughput, delay, and fairness, they are not specified by LTE. Rather, LTE simply specifies how resources may be
assigned, and how to notify the mobile units of the assignment. Figure 5.13a shows the structure of LTE Time –
Frequency Grid (LTE FDD frame of 1.4 MHz channel)

5.5.1. The LTE Time Frequency Grid

In LTE, mobile units are allocated groups of subcarriers over time and frequency known as a resource block.
The size of the resource block is chosen to balance a tradeoff between granularity and overhead.
On the one hand, it would be nice to be able to assign any subcarrier to any user in any time slot; but then
it would take a very large amount of overhead to specify the current allocation to all the mobile units.
On the other hand, the much lower overhead would be achieved by an OFDM-TDMA type system where one
user has access to all the subcarriers and uses the same AMC level on all of them-but as discussed this is not
efficient in many respects including total throughput, delay, and the required peak power.

The downlink resource block of LTE is shown in figure 5.10: a typical resource block consists of 12 subcarriers
over 7 OFDM symbols, also referred to as a timeslot.
A timeslot in LTE spans 0.5 msec and two consecutive timeslots create a subframe.
Resources are allocated to users in units of resource blocks over a subframe, that is, 12 subcarriers over 2 x 7 =
14 OFDM symbols for a total of 168 "resource elements," which used for data since some are used for various
layer 1 and layer 2 control messages.
The subcarriers of a resource block can be allocated in one of two ways.
The first way, known as distributed subcarrier allocation, takes advantage of frequency diversity by
spreading the resource block hop across the entire channel bandwidth. This can be accomplished by using a
"comb" pattern at any given point of time for a given user, so that its subcarriers occur at even intervals across

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the entire frequency bandwidth. This approach is typically used in the downlink (OFDMA) when distributed
subcarrier allocation is used.

Alternatively, frequency diversity can be achieved by hopping a contiguous block of subcarriers in time, for
example, the 12 subcarriers in a resource block could hop to a different part of the spectrum over each of the 14
OFDM symbols utilized.
Since the channel is generally relatively constant over 14 OFDM symbols, frequency diversity is achieved as
long as sufficient interleaving is employed: this is certainly the case 1n LTE systems, which are heavy on
interleaving.
This approach is used in the uplink, Since SC-FDMA transmitters in general operate on contiguous sets of
subcarriers as seen in figure 5.8.
The second way to allocate subcarriers is adjacent subcarrier allocation. This approach relies on a channel-
aware allocation of resources, so that each user can be allocated a resource block where they have a strong
channel. Since a block of 12 subcarriers is typically smaller than the coherence bandwidth of the channel,
frequency diversity is not achieved, which is helpful as long as the scheduler is able to assign "good" blocks to
each user.

5.5.2. Allocation Notification and Uplink Feedback

In order for each MS to know which subcarriers to use in downlink reception and transmission, the BS
must broadcast this information to the pool of active users in its cell.
Similar to previous UMTS standards such as wideband CDMA, overhead signalling is done on a logical
control channel, in this case, the PDCCH (physical downlink control channel).
The PDCCH specifies the following:
 Downlink resource block allocation
 Uplink resource blocks allocation.
 QAM constellation to use per resource block
 Type and rate of coding to use per resource block

Once a user is able to decode the PDCCH, it knows precisely where to receive (downlink or to transmit
(uplink), and how. The PDCCH is sent over the first 2-3 OFDM symbols of each subframe across all the
subcarriers.
Each allocation, which consists of a resource block subframe, consisted of 168 subcarriers over 14 OFDM
symbols. Since the first 2-3 symbols in each subframe are used by the PDCCH, about 14-21% of the total
downlink capacity is used by the PDCCH.

Additional downlink capacity is also used by other control channels and the pilot symbols.

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To aid the base station in uplink scheduling, LTE units utilize buffer status reporting (BSR), wherein each
user can notify the BS about its queue length, and channel quality information (CQI) feedback.

Once the BS is well informed about the channels to/from the users and their respective queue lengths, it can
more appropriately determine users. In the downlink, the BS has inherent knowledge of the amount of
buffered data for each user, while in the uplink it can estimate the channel from each user.
Hence, BSR feedback is only used for uplink scheduling while CQI feedback is only used for downlink
scheduling and AMC-mode selection. The CQI reporting can be either periodic or aperiodic, wideband or
subband, and multiple CQI feedback modes are defined for different scenarios.

5.5.3. Power Control

Although OFDMA (and SC-FDMA) systems are designed to have orthogonality within a cell (unlike many
CDMA systems, for example), they still suffer from two forms of self-interference.
The first is intercell interference, whereby neighbouring cells allocate the same time frequency resource blocks
and hence cause interference. This intercell interference can occur in either the uplink or the downlink, but is
typically the most problematic for cell edge in the downlink since they are approximately equidistant between
two base stations and hence doubly suffer from lower desired power and higher interference power.
Interference-aware allocation approaches that can mitigate this problem and power control is one part of the
solution.

The second form of self-interference is related to imperfect time-frequency-power synchronization between

the different uplink users,
This is not a problem in the downlink since each mobile station receives a single waveform from the base
station.
On the other hand, in the uplink, the received waveform is aggregated “in the air” as the summation of the
different transmits waveforms for each user.
Because these distributed transmitters are bound to be at least slightly unsynchronized in time and frequency,
the orthogonality of the subcarriers will be degraded at the receiver, for OFDM.

Furthermore, if power control is not used, the different signals may be received with very different powers,
which causes a dynamic range problem when the signal is A/D converted-that is, the strong users will dominate
the A/D dynamic range and the weak users will experience severe quantization noise, making digital
reconstruction of those signals difficult or impossible.
In short, some uplink power control is needed in OFDMA (or SC-FDMA) systems.

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In LTE, closed-loop power control is possible in the uplink where the BS can explicitly indicate the maximum
transmit power density (power per resource block) that can be used by each user.
This information is carried on the PDCCH when the uplink allocation for each user is specified.
The uplink loop power control algorithm in LTE is flexible in terms of the amount of channel inversion it
performs.
On one extreme, channel inversion can be used, which results in the same received power for all users
regardless of their channel conditions.
This maximizes fairness. On the other hand, no power control can be used-all users transmit at full power- but
low battery efficiency and poor fairness, as cell edge users are disadvantaged.

These two extremes can be balanced by fractional power control, whereby the channel is partially inverted, that
is, the transmit power is proportional to where s is a fractional value between 0 and 1. Note that fixed
transmit power corresponds to s =0 and full channel inversion to s = 1.

Fractional power control is the open-loop power control scheme in LTE. In the downlink, no closed-loop
power control is specified in the standard
5.6. OFDMA system Design Considerations.
The first concerns the allocation of resources n à cellular network, where the actions of one base station affect
its neighbours.
The second is a point is diversity gain from opportunistic scheduling in a system like LTE and channel using
coding, adaptive modulation, OFDM, and multiple antenna techniques.

5.6.1. Resource Allocation in Cellular System

The scheduling algorithms discussed thus far in this module are all very dependent on the perceived SINR tor
each user.

For example, if a certain MS near the cell edge (presumably with a low SINR) is selected to transmit in the
uplink at high power, this will lower the effective SINRs of all the users in the cell next to it, hence perhaps
changing the ideal subcarrier allocation and burst profile for that cell. Therefore, a cellular OFDMA system
greatly benefits from methods for suppressing avoiding the interference from adjacent cells.
A simple approach is to use a unique frequency hopping pattern for each base station to randomize to the
other cell interference, an approach popularized by the Flarion (now part of Qualcomm) scheme called FLASH-
OFDM. Although this scheme reduces the probability of a worst-case interference scenario, under a high-
system load the interference levels can still rapidly approach untenable levels and the probability of collision
can grow large.

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A more sophisticated approach is to develop advanced receivers that are capable of cancelling the interference
from a few dominant interference sources. This is a challenging proposition even in a single-carrier system, and
its viability in a cellular OFDMA system is open to debate.

An appealing approach is to revisit the resource allocation algorithms discussed in Section 5.4.2 in the context
of a multi-cell system. If each base station is unaware of the exact conditions in the other cells, and no
cooperation among neighbouring base stations is allowed, the subcarrier and power allocation follows the theory
of non-cooperative games and typically results in a Nash equilibrium, where no user can benefit by unilaterally
deviating from their current allocation.

Simply put, this scenario is the equivalent of gridlock: for example, the users reach a point where neither
increasing nor decreasing their power improves their capacity.

The convergence time of such approaches is generally not fast enough to be of much use in an LTE system
anyway.

Better performance can be obtained if there is some cooperation between the base stations. For example, there
could be a master scheduler for all the base stations that knew the channels in each and every base station and
made multi-cell resource allocation schedules accordingly.

This would be prohibitively complex, though, due to (1) transferring large amounts of real-time information to
and from this centralized scheduler, and (2) the computational difficulties involved in processing this quantity
of information to determine a globally optimal or near-optimal resource allocation.

5.6.2. Fractional Frequency Reuse in Cellular System

Compared to CDMA based cellular Systems OFDMA-based cellular systems are more vulnerable to inter-cell
interference, which especially degrades the performance of users at the cell edge.
Frequency planning techniques have been proposed for LTE systems to mitigate inter-cell interference instead
of standard universal frequency reuse.
Fractional frequency reuse (FFR) is one such strategy that partitions a cell into several regions and applies
different frequency reuse factors in each region.
The inter-cell interference can be significantly reduced since FFR increases the spatial distance between
neighbouring interferers.
Figure 5.14 shows examples of the two main types of FFR deployments:

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Strict FFR and Soft Frequency Reuse (SFR). In a Strict FFR system, users in the interior of the cells
universally share a common sub-band of frequencies, while the cell edge users' bandwidth is
partitioned based on a reuse factor of N, requiring a total of N+1 sub-bands.
It is termed "strict" because interior users do not share any spectrum with edge users, which reduces interference
for both interior users and edge cell users.

Fig.5.14. Strict fractional frequency Reuse (left) and Soft Frequency Reuse (right) geometry with N=3 cell
edge reuse factors.
Soft Frequency Reuse employs a similar partitioning strategy as Strict FFR, with the exception that interior
users can share the same bandwidth as edge users in adjacent cells.
As a result, cell interior users typically transmit at lower power levels than the cell-edge users in order to reduce
interference to neighbouring cells.
While SFR is more bandwidth efficient than strict FFR, it allows more interference to both cell interior and edge
users.
Since the cell partitions are based on the geometry of the network, the locations of the users are important in
order to determine the frequency partitions.
However, one practical method to determine user classifications is for each cell to use the average received
SINR of its users, which is usually a good indicator of the distance of the user from its base station.
The base station then classifies users with average SINR less than a pre-determined threshold as edge users,
while users with average SINR greater than the threshold are classified as interior users.
Figure 5.15 shows the results of a simulation comparing the two main FFR schemes with standard N = 1
frequency reuse.
A total of 48 resource blocks (RBs) are available, users are uniformly distributed over the 12-cell network, and a
high traffic load is assumed.

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The cell coverage radius is 1 km and the interior radius, which determines the number of interior and edge users
served, is varied from 0.25 to 0.95 km.
The plot on the left of figure 5.15 shows the significant benefit the Strict FFR scheme provides for edge users
over SFR and universal frequency reuse.
However, the plot on the right shows that if the network has a moderate or high traffic load, this benefit comes
at a cost of not being able to fairly serve all users.

Fig. 5.15 Edge user performance (left); Spectral efficiency of the reuse schemes

5.6.3 Multiuser Diversity vs. Frequency and spatial Diversity

Diversity is a key source of performance gain in OFDMA systems.
In particular, OFDMA exploits multiuser diversity among the different MSs, frequency diversity across the
subcarriers, and time diversity by allowing latency.
Spatial diversity is also a key aspect of LTE systems. One important observation is that these sources of
diversity will generally compete with each other.
For example, imagine that the receiver has two sufficiently spaced antennas.
If two-branch selection diversity is used for each subcarrier, then the amount of variation between each
subcarrier will decrease significantly, since most of the deep fades will be eliminated by the selection process.

Now, if ten different users were to execute an OFDMA scheduling algorithm, although the overall
performance would increase further, the multiuser diversity gain would be less than that without the selection
diversity, since each user has already eliminated their worst channels with the selection combining.
The intuition of this simple example can be extended to other diversity-exploiting techniques, like coding and
interleaving space-time and space-frequency codes, and so on.
In short, the total diversity gain will be less than the sum of the diversity gains from the individual techniques.

Figure 5.16 shows the combined effect off multiuser and spatial diversity for five different configurations of

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2 x 1 MIMO systems: single antenna (SISO), opportunistic beam- forming, Alamouti STBCs (Space Time
Block Coding), and transmit beamforming with limited feedback (1-bit CSI) and perfect CSI.

For a single user, the SISO and opportunistic BF is the lease effective, since opportunistic BF requires
multiuser diversity to get a performance gain over SISO.
Alamouti codes increase performance, in particular reducing the probability; of a very low SINR from
occurring.
The CSI-endowed techniques do the best; notably the perfect CSI case is always 3 dB better than Alamouti
codes regardless of the number of users.
When the system does have 50 users, however, some of the conclusions change considerably.
Now, Alamouti codes actually perform worse than single-antenna transmission. This is because Alamouti
codes harden the received SINR toward the average and so the SINR difference between the users is attenuated
but this is exactly what is exploited by a multiuser scheduler that picks the best out of the 50 users.

Fig. 5.16 The SINR of multiuser diversity combined with antenna diversity techniques.
The numbers of users K=1 (left), K=50 (right).

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The LTE Standard: Overview and Channel Structure of LTE

Fig. 5.17. Radio Interface architecture of UTRAN and E-UTRAN

The LTE project in 3GPP focusses on enhancing the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA).
Another parallel project in 3GPP is the evolved packet core (EPC), which focuses on the core network evolution
with flatter all IP, packet based architecture.
A Radio Interface of a wireless network is the interface between the mobile terminal and the base station.
UTRAN consists of two logical entities.
The Node-B (radio base station).and the RNC (radio network controller).
Radio Interface architecture of UTRAN and E-UTRAN are shown in figure 5.17. Compared to the traditional
Node-B, the e-Node B supports features such as radio resource control, admission control, and mobility
management; these were present in RNC (Radio Network Controller).
E-UTRAN provides higher throughput and low latency over the radio interface.

5.7. Introduction to LTE

• LTE is the next step in the evolution of mobile cellular systems and was standardized as part of the 3GPP
Release & specifications.

• Unlike 2G and 3G cellular systems that were designed mainly with voice services in mind, LTE was
designed primarily for high-speed data services, which is why LTE is a packet-switched network from end
to end and has no support for circuit-switched services.

• However, the low latency of LTE and its sophisticated quality of service (QoS) architecture allow a
network to emulate a circuit-switched connection on top of the packet-switched framework of LTE.

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5.7.1. Design Principles

The basic design principles that were agreed upon and followed in 3GPP while designing the LTE specifications
include:

Network Architecture:

• Unlike 3G networks, LTE was designed to support packet- switched traffic with support for various QoS
classes of services.

• Previous generations of networks such as UMTS/HSPA and IxRTT (Single carrier Radio Transmission
Technology/EvDO-Evolution Data Optimized) also support packet-switched traffic but this was
achieved by subsequent add-ons to the initial version of the standards.

• For example, HSPA, which is a packet-switched protocol (packet-switched over the air), was built on
top of the Release 99 UMTS network and as a result carried some of the unnecessary burdens of a
circuit-switched network.

• LTE supports packet switching for high data rate services from thestart.

• The LTE radio access network, E-UTRAN, was designed to have the minimum. number of interfaces (i.e.,
the minimum. number of network elements) while still being able to provide efficient packet-switched
transport for traffic belonging to all the QoS classes such as conversational, streaming, real-time, non-
real-time, and background classes.

Data Rate and Latency:

• The design target for downlink and uplink peak data rates for LTE are 100 Mbps und 50 Mbps,
respectively, when operating at the 20MHz frequency division duplex (FDD) channel size.

• The user-plane latency is defined in terms of the time it takes to transmit a small IP packet from the UE
to the edge node of the radio access network (also called as base station) or vice versa measured on the IP
layer.

• The target for one-way latency in the user plane is 5 ms in an unloaded network, that is, if only a
single UE is present inthe cell.

• For the control-plane latency, the transition time from a camped state to an active state is less than 100
ms, while the transition time between a dormant state and an active state should be less than 50 ms.

Performance Requirements:

• The target performance requirements for LTE are specified in terms of spectrum efficiency, mobility, and
coverage, and they are in general expressed relative to the 3GPP Release 6 HSPA.
• Spectrum Efficiency

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• The average downlink user data rate und spectrum Efficiency target is three to four times that of the
baseline HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) network. Similarly, in uplink the average user
data rate and spectrum efficiency.
• Similarly, in the uplink the average user data rate and spectrum efficiency target is two to three times that
of the baseline HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) network.
• The cell edge throughput, measured as the 5th percentile throughput, should be two to three times that of
the baseline HSDPA and HSUPA

Mobility
• The mobility requirement for LTE is to be able to support hand off/ mobility at different terminal speeds.
• Maximum performance is expected for the lower terminal speeds of 0 to 15 km/hr, with minor degradation
in performance at higher mobilespeeds up to 120 km/hr.

• LTE is also expected to be able to sustain a connection for terminal speeds up to 350 km/hr but with
significant degradation in the system performance.

Coverage

• For the cell coverage, the above performance targets should be met up to 5 km.

• For cell ranges upto 30km, a slight degradation of the throughput is tolerated and a more
significant degradation for spectrum efficiency is acceptable, but the mobility requirements
should be met.
• Cell ranges up to 100 km should not be precluded by the specifications.
MBMS Services:
• LTE should also provide enhanced support for Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS)
compared to UTRA operation.

Radio Resource Management:

The radio resource management requirements cover various spots such as enhanced support for
 end-to-end QoS,
 efficient support for transmission of higher layers,
 and support for load sharing/balancing and
 Policy management enforcement across different radio access technologies.

Deployment Scenario and Co-existence with 3G

 LTE supports two deployment scenarios:

 Standalone deployment scenario, where the operation deploys LTE either with no previous network
deployed in the area or with no requirement for interworking with the existing UTRAN/GERAN (GSM

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EDGE radio access network).

 Integrating with existing UTRAN/GERAN deployment scenario, where the operator already has either
a UTRAN and/or GERAN network deployed with full or partial coverage in the same geographical area.

Flexibility of Spectrum and Deployment:

In order to become a truly global standard, LTE was designed to be operable under a wide variety of spectrum
scenarios, including its abilityto coexist and share spectrum with existing 3G technologies.

Service providers in different geographical regions often have different spectrums in terms of the carrier
frequency and total available bandwidth, which is why LTE was designed to have a scalable bandwidth from
1.4MHz to 20MHz.

In order to accommodate flexible duplexing options, LTE was designed to operate in both frequency division
duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) modes.

Interoperability with 3G and 2G Networks:

Multimode LTE terminals, which support UTRAN and/or GERAN (GSM EDGE Radio Access Network) (

Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) GSM-Global System for Mobile Communication) operation
should be able to support measurement of, and handover from and to, both 3GPP UTRAN und 3GPP GERAN
systems with acceptable terminal complexity and network performance.

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Fig.5.18: LTE end to end network architecture

5.7.2. Network Architecture

Figure 5.18 shows the end-to-end network architecture of LTE and the various components of the network.
The entire network is composed of the radio access network (E-UTRAN) and the core network (EPC), both of
which have been defined as new components of the end-to-end network in Release 8 of the 3GPP specifications.
In this sense, LTE is different from UMTS since UMTS defined a new radio access network but used the same
core network as the previous-generation Enhanced GPRS (EDGE) network. The main components of the E-
UTRANand EPC are

• UE: The mobile terminal. (User Equipment).

• eNode-B: The eNode-B (also called the base station) terminates the air interface protocol and is the first
point of contact for the UE.
As in figure 5.17.The eNode-B is the only logical node in the E-UTRAN, so it includes some
functions previously defined in the RNC of the UTRAN, such as radio bearer management, uplink
and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility
management.

• Mobility Management Entity (MME): MME is similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving
GPRS Support Node (SGSN). It manages mobility aspects in 3GPP access such as gateway selection and
tracking area list management.

• Serving Gateway (Serving GW): The Serving GW terminates the interface towards E-UTRAN, and
routes data packets between E-UTRAN and EPC.

• It is the local mobility anchor point for inter eNode-B handovers and also provides an anchor for inter-3GPP
mobility. The other responsibilities include lawful intercept, charging and dome policy enforcement. The
Serving GW and the MME may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes.

• Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW): The PDN GW terminates the SGi interface toward the Packet
Data Network (PDN). It routes data pickets between the EPC and the external PDN, and is the key node for
policy enforcement and charging data collection. It also provides the anchor point for mobility with non-
3GPP accesses. The external PDN can be any kind of IP network as well as the IP Multimedia Subsystem
(IMS) domain. The PDN GW and the Serving GW may be implemented in one physical node or separated
physical nodes.

• S1 Interface: The S1 interface is the interface that separates the E-UTRAN and the EPC. It is split into two

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parts:

• the S1-U, which carries traffic data between the eNode-B and the Serving GW, and the

• S1-MIME, which is a signaling-only interface between the eNode-B and the MME.

• X2 Interface: The X2 interface is the interface between eNode-Bs, consisting of two parts:

• The X2-C is the control plane interface between eNode-Bs,

• While the X2-U is the user plane interface between eNode-Bs.

• It is assumed that there always exists an X2 interface between Node-Bs that needs to communicate with
each other, for example, for support of handover.

5.7.3. Radio Interface Protocols

LTE radio interface is designed based on a layered protocol stack, which can be divided into control plane and
user plane protocol stacks and is shown in figure 5.19. The packet flow in the user plane is shown in figure 5.20.
The LTE radio interface protocol is composed of the following layers

Radio Resource Control (RRC): The RRC layer performs the control plane functions including paging,
maintenance and release of an RRC connection- security handling-mobility management, and QoS management.

Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP):

The main functions of the PDCP sub layer include IP packet header compression and decompression based on
the Robust Header Compression (ROHC) protocol, ciphering of data and signaling and integrity protection for
signaling. There is only one PDCP entity at the eNode-B and the UE per bearer.

Fig. 5.19: The LTE radio interface protocol stack

Radio Link Control (RLC): The main functions of the RLC sublayer are segmentation and concatenation of

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data units, error correction through the Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) protocol, and in-sequence delivery of
packets to the higher layers. It operates in three modes:

– The Transparent Mode (TM): The TM mode is the simplest one, without RIC header addition, data
segmentation, or concatenation, and it is used for specific purposes such as random Access.
– The Unacknowledged Mode (UM): The UM mode allows the detection of packet loss and provides packet
reordering and reassembly, but does not require retransmission of the missing protocol data units (PDUs)
– The Acknowledged Mode (AM): The AM mode is the most complex one, and it is configured to request
retransmission of the missing PDUs in addition to the features supported by the UM mode.
There is only one RLC entity at the eNode-B and the UE per bearer.

Medium Access Control (MAC): The main functions of the MAC sublayer include error correction through
the Hybrid-ARQ (H-ARQ) mechanism, mapping between logical channels and transport channels,
multiplexing/'demultiplexing of RLC PDUs on to transport blocks, priority handling between logical channels
of one UE, and priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling.

Physical Layer (PHY): The main function of PHY is the actual transmission and reception of data in the
forms of transport blocks. The PHY is also responsible for various control mechanisms such as
signalling of H-ARQ feedback, signalling of scheduled allocations, and channel measurements.

Fig. 5.20: The packet flow in the user plane

5.8. Hierarchical Channel Structure of LTE,

To efficiently support various QoS classes of services, LTE adopts a hierarchical channel structure. There
are three different channel types defined in LTE

-- Logical channels: What to transmit

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--Transport channels: How to Transmit

--Physical channels: Actual Transmission

Each layer is associated with a service access point (SAP) between different layers.

These channels are used by the lower layers of the protocol stack to provide services to the higher
layers. The radio interface protocol architecture and the SAPs between different layers are shown in figure
5.21.

Logical channels provide services at the SAP between MAC and RLC layers, while transport channels
provide services at the SAP between MAC and PHY layers.

Physical channels are the actual implementation of transport channels over the radio interface.

Fig. 5.21: The radio interface protocol architecture and the SAPs b/w different layers

5.8.1. Logical Channels: What to Transmit

Logical channels are used by the MAC to provide services to the RLC. Each logical channel is defined
based on the type of information it carries. In LTE, there are two categories of logical channels depending
on the service they provide: logical control channels and logical traffic channels.

• Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH): A downlink common channel used to broadcast system

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control information to the mobile terminals in the cell, including downlink system bandwidth,
antenna configuration, and reference signal power. Due to the large amount of information carried on
the BCCH, it is mapped to two different transport channels: the Broadcast Channel (BCH) and the
Downlink Shared Channel (DL- SCH).

• Multicast Control Channel (MCCH): A point-to-multipoint downlink channel used for

transmitting control information to UEs in the cell. It is only used by UEs that receive
multicast/'broadcast services.

• Paging Control Channel (PCCH): A downlink channel that transfers paging information to
registered UEs in the cell, for example, in case of a mobile-terminated communication session.

• Common Control Channel (CCCH): A bi-directional channel for transmitting control

information between the network and UEs when no RRC connection is available, implying the UE is
not attached to the network such is in the idle state. Most commonly the CCCH is used during the
random access procedure.

• Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH): A point-to-point, bi-directional channel that transmitted

dedicated control information between a UE and the network. This channel is used when the RRC
connection is available, that is, the UE is attached to the network.

The logical traffic channels, which are to transfer user plane information, include:

• Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH): A point-to-point, bi-directional channel used between a

given UE and the network. It can exist in both uplink and downlink.

• Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH): A unidirectional point-to-multipoint data channel that transmits
traffic data from the network to UEs. It is associated with multicast/broadcast service.

5.8.2 Transport Channels: How to Transmit

The transport channels are used by the PHY to offer services to the MAC.

A transport channel is basically characterized by how and with what characteristics data is transferred over the
radio interface, that is, the channel coding scheme, the modulation scheme, and antenna mapping.

LTE defines two MAC entities: on in the UE and one in the E-UTRAN, which handle the following
downlink/uplink transport channel.

Downlink Transport Channels

• Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH): Used for transmitting the downlink data, including both control

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and traffic data, and thus it is associated with both logical control and logical traffic channels. It supports H-
ARQ, dynamic link adaption, dynamic and semi-persistent resource allocation, UE discontinuous reception,
and multicast/broadcast transmission.

• Broadcast Channel (BCH): A downlink channel scouted with the BCCH logical channel and is used to
broadest system information over the entire coverage area of the cell. It has a fixed transport format defined
by the specifications.

Multicast Channel (MCH): Associated with MCCH and MTCH logical channels for the
multicast/broadcast service. It supports Multicast/Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN)
transmission, which transmits the same information on the same radio resource from multiple synchronized
base stations to multiple UEs.

• Paging Channel (PCH): Associated with the PCCH logical channel. It is mapped to dynamically
allocate physical resources, and is required for broadcast over the entire cell coverage area. It is transmitted
on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), and supports UE discontinuous reception.
Uplink Transport Channels

• Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH): The uplink counterpart of the DL-SCH. It can be associated to
CCCH, DCCH, and DTCH logical channels. It supports H-ARQ, dynamic link adaption, and dynamic and
semi-persistent resource allocation.

• Random Access Channel (RACH): A specific transport channel that is not mapped to any logical
channel. It transmits relatively small amounts of data for initial loss or, in the case of RRC, state changes.
• Downlink Control Information (DCI): It carries information related to downlink/uplink scheduling
assignment, modulation and coding scheme, and Transmit Power Control (TPC) command, and is sent
over the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH). The DCI supports 10 different formats, listed in
Table 5.6. Among them, Format 0 is for signalling uplink transmission allocation, Format 3 and 3A
for TPC andthe remaining formats ire for signalling downlinks transmission allocation.

Control Format Indicator (CFI): It indicates how many symbols the DCI spans in that sub frame. It takes
values CFI = 1, 2, or 3, and is sent over the Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH).

• H-ARQ Indicator (HI): It carries H-ARQ acknowledgment in response to up link transmissions, and is
sent over the Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Chanel (PHICH). HI = 1 for a positive acknowledgement
(ACK) and HI = 0 for a negative acknowledgment (NAK).

Table 5.6 DCI Formats

SL. Format Carried Information

NO

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1 Format 0 Uplink scheduling assignment

2 Format 1 Downlink scheduling for one codeword

3 Format 1A Compact downlink scheduling for one codeword and random access
procedure

4 Format 1B Compact downlink scheduling for one codeword with precoding

information

5 Format 1C Very compact downlink scheduling for one codeword

6 Format 1D Compact downlink scheduling for one codeword with precoding and power
offset information

7 Format 2 Downlink scheduling for UEs configured in closed-loop spatial

multiplexing mode

8 Format 2A Downlink scheduling for UEs configured in open-loop spatial multiplexing

mode

9 Format 3 TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH with 2-bit power adjustment

10 Format 3A TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH with 1-bit power adjust

5.8.3. Physical Channels: Actual Transmission:

 These channels are also used in both direction downlink and uplink directions.

 Each physical channel corresponds to a set of resources elements in the time frequency grid that carry
information from higher layers.

 The basic entities of physical channel are resources elements and resources blocks.

 A resource element is a single subcarrier over one OFDM symbol and typically carry one symbol.

 A resource block is a collection of resource elements and in the frequency domain this represents smallest
quanta of resources that can be allocated.

Downlink Physical Channel

Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH): It carries information about the transport format and
resource allocation related to the DL-SCH and PCH transport channels, and the H-ARQ information related
to the DL-SCH. It also informs the UE about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ
information related to UL-SCH. It is mapped from the DCI transport channel.

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Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH): This channel carries user data and higher-layer signalling.
It is associated to DL-SCH and PCH.

Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH): It-corresponds to the BCH transport channel and carries system
information.

Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH): It carriers multicast/broadcast information for the MBMS service.
Physical Hybrid-ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH): This channel carries H-ARQ ACK/NAKs associated
with uplink data transmissions. It is mapped from the HI transport channel.

Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH): It informs the UE about the number of OFDM
symbols used for the PDCCH. It is mapped from the CFI transport channel.

Uplink Physical Channels

Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH): It carries uplink control information including Channel
Quality Indicators (CQI), ACK/NAKs for H-ARQ in response to downlink transmission, and uplink
scheduling requests.

Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH): It carries user data and higher layer signalling. It corresponds
to the UL-SCH transport channel.

Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH): This channel carries the random access preamble sent by
UEs.

The physical signals defined in the LTE specifications are

Reference signal: It is defined in both downlink and uplink for channel for estimation that enable
coherent demodulation. Three different receive signal in downlink are

Cell-specific reference signals, associated with non-MBSFN (Multicast/Broadcast Single

Frequency Network ) transmission.

MBSFN reference signals, associated with MBSFN transmission

UE-specific reference signals: There are two types of uplink reference signals:

Demodulation reference signal, associated with transmission of PUSCH or PUCCH

Sounding reference signal, to support uplink channel-dependent scheduling

Synchronization signal: It is split into a primary and a secondary synchronization signal, and is only
defined in the downlink to enable acquisition of symbol timing and the precise frequency of the downlink
signal.

5.8.4. Channel Mapping

From the description of different channel types, we see that there exists a good correlation based on the purpose

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and the content between channels in different layers.

.
Fig. 5.23: Mapping between different channel types

This requires a mapping between the logical channels and transport channels at the MAC SAP (Service
Access Points) and a mapping between transport channels and physical channels at the PHY SAP.

Such channel mapping is not arbitrary, and the allowed mapping between different channel types is shown in
Figure 5.23, while the mapping between control information and physical channels is shown in Figure 5.24.
It is possible for multiple channels mapped to a single channel, for example, different logical control channels
and logical traffic channels are mapped to the DL-SCH transport channel

Fig. 5.24: Mapping of control information to physical channels

5.9. Downlink OFDMA Radio Resources,

In LTE, the downlink and uplink use different transmission schemes due to different considerations.

Here, we describe downlink and uplink radio transmission schemes, respectively. In the downlink, a scalable
OFDM transmission/multi-access technique is used that allows for high spectrum efficiency by utilizing
multiuser diversity in a frequency selective channel.

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On the other hand, SC- FDMA transmission, multi-access technique is used in the uplink since this reduces the
peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the transmitted signal.

The transceiver structure of OFDM with FFT/IFFT enables scalable bandwidth operation with a low
complexity, which is one of the major objectives of LTE.

As each subcarrier becomes a flat fading channel, compared to single-carrier transmission OFDM makes it
much easier to support multi-antenna transmission, which isa key technique to enhance the spectrum efficiency.

• OFDM enables multicast/broadest services on a synchronized single frequency network, that is, MBSFN,
as it treats signals from different base stations is propagating through a multipath channel and can efficiently
combine them.

The multiple access in the downlink is based on OFDMA. In each TTI (Transmission Time Interval), a
scheduling decision is made where each scheduled UE is signed a certain amount of radio resources in the time
and frequency domain. The radio resources allocated to different UEs are orthogonal to each other, which
mean there is no intra-cell interference.

Further, we describe the frame structure and the radio resource block structure in the downlink, as well as
the basic principles of resource allocation and the supported MIMO modes.

5.9.1. Frame Structure

Before going into details about the resource block structure for the downlink, we first describe the frame
structure in the time domain, which is a common element shared by both downlink and uplink.

In LTE specifications, the size of elements in the time domain is expressed as a number of time units T =
1/(15000 x 2048) seconds. As the normal subcarrier spacing is defined to be f = 15kHz, T, can be regarded as
the sampling time of an FFT-based OFDM transmitter/receiver implementation with FFT size N = 2048. Note
that this is just for notation purpose, as different FFT sizes are supported depending on the transmission
bandwidth. LTE supports both TDD and FDD.

Frame Structure Type 1

Frame stricture type 1 is applicable to both full duplex and half duplex FDD. There are three different kinds of
units specified for this frame structure, illustrated in figure 5.25. The smallest one is called a slot, which is of
length. = 1536* = 0.5ms. Two consecutive slots are defined as a sub frame of length 1ms, and 20 slots,
numbered from 0 to 19, constitute a radio frame of 10ms.
Channel-dependent scheduling and link adaptation operate of a sub frame level. Therefore, the subframe
duration corresponds to the minimum downlink TTI, which is of 1 ms duration, compared to a 2 ms TTI for
the HSPA and a minimum 10 ms TTI for the UMTS. A shorter TTI is for fast link adaptation and is able to
reduce delay and better exploit the time-varying channel through channel-dependent scheduling.

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Figure 5.25: Frame structure type 1 . For the normal CP, =160. 𝑠for the first OFDM symbols. and
=144. 𝑠 for the remaining OFDM symbols, which together fill the entire slot of 0.5ms. For extended
CP, =512. 𝑠

Frame Structure Type 2:

Frame structure type 2 is applicable to the TDD mode. It is designed for coexistence with legacy systems such
as the 3GPP TD-SCDMA-based standard. As shown in figure 5.26 each radio frame of frame structure type 2 is
of length ; = 30720 * = 10 ms, which consists of two half-frames of length 5ms each.
Each half frame is divided into five subframes with 1ms duration.
There are special subframes consists of three fields
 Downlink Pilot TimeSlot(DwPTS)
 Guard Period (GP)
 Uplink Pilot TiemSlot(UpPTS)

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Figure 5.26: Frame structure type 2

The DwPTS field: This is the downlink part of the special subframe, and can be regarded is as on ordinary but
shorter downlink sub frame for downlink data transmission. Its length can be varied from three up to twelve
OFDM symbols.

The UpPTS field: This is the uplink part of the special subframe, and has a short duration with one or two
OFDM symbols. It can be used for transmission of uplink sounding reference signals and random access
preambles.

The GP field: The remaining symbols in the special sub frame that have not been allocated to DwPTS or
UpPTS are allocated to the GP field, which is used to provide the guard period for the downlink-to-uplink and
the uplink-to-downlink switch.

5.9.3 Physical Resource Blocks for OFDMA

The physical resource in the downlink in each slot is described by a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid,
is illustrated in Figure5.27. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM
systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid
correspond to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in
the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time frequency unit in a resource grid is
denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid consists of a number of resource blocks, which describe the
mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. The detail of these resource units is described as
follows.
Resource Grid
The structure of each resource grid is characterized by the following three parameters
The number of downlink resource blocks : It depends on the transmission bandwidth and shall fulfill
, Where and =110 are for the smallest and largest downlink
channels bandwidth, respectively. the values of for several current specified bandwidth are listed.
The number of subcarriers in each block ( ): It depends on the subcarrier spacing =180kHz, that is
each resource block is of 180kHz wide in the frequency domain.
The values of ) for different subcarrier spacing’s are shown in table.
The total number of ) subcarriers in each resource gird.
The number OFDM symbol in each block ( : It depends on both the CP length and the subcarrier
spacing, as specified in table 5.4.
Therefore, each downlink resource grid has )X X resouces elements.

• Cell-specific reference signals support a configuration of 1, 2, or 4 antenna ports

• MBSFN reference signals are transmitted on antenna port p=4.

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• UE-specific reference signals are transmitted on antenna port p=5.

Resource Element
Each resource element in the resource grid is uniquely identified by the index pair (k, l) in a slot. where k
= 0. 1.... and l = = 0,1,... , are indices in the frequency and time domains,
respectively. The size of each resource element depends on the subcarrier spacing f and the CP length.
Resource Block
The resource block is the basic element for radio resource allocation. The minimum size of radio
resource that can be allocated is the minimum TTI in the time domain, that is, one subframe of 1ms,
corresponding to two resource blocks. The size of each resource block is the same for all bandwidths,
which is 180 kHz in the frequency domain. There are two kinds of resource blocks defined for LTE:
physical and virtual resource blocks, which are defined for different resource allocation schemes and
are specified in the following section.

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Fig. 5.27: The structure of the downlink resource grid

5.9.3 Resource Allocation
Resource allocation's role is to dynamically assign available time-frequency resource blocks to different
UEs in an efficient way to provide good system performance. In LTE channel-dependent scheduling is

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supported, and transmission is based on the shared channel structure where the radio resource is shared
among different UEs.

With OFDMA, the downlink resource allocation is characterized by the fact that each scheduled UE
occupies a number of resource blocks while each resource block is assigned exclusively to one UE at any
time. Physical resource blocks (PRBs) and virtual resource blocks (VRBs) are defined to support
different kinds of resource allocation types.
The VRB is introduced to support both block-wise transmission (localized) and transmission on non-
consecutive subcarriers (distributed) as a means to maximize frequency diversity. The LTE downlink
supports three resource allocation types: type 0, 1, and 2. The downlink scheduling is performed at the
eNode-B based on the channel quality information fed back from UEs, and then the downlink resource
assignment information is sent to UEs on the PDCCH channel.

A PRB is defined as consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain and Consecutive
subcarriers in the frequency domain, as shown in figure 5.27. Therefore, each PRB corresponds to one
slot in the time domain (0.5 ms) and 180 kHz in the frequency domain. PRBs are numbered from 0 to
in the frequency domain. The PRB number of a resource element (k, l) in a slot is given
by
𝑘

The PRB is to support resource allocations of type 0 and type 1, which are defined for the DCI format 1,
2, and 2A.
In type 0 resource allocations, several consecutive PRBs constitute a resource block group (RBG), and
the resource allocation is done in units of RBGs. Therefore, a bitmap indicating the RBG is sufficient to
carry the resource assignment. The allocated RBGs to a certain UE do not need to be adjacent to each
other, which provide frequency diversity. The RBG size P, that is, the number of PRBs in each RBG,
depends on the bandwidth and is specified in Table 5.6. An example of type 0 resource allocation is
shown in Figure 5.28, where P = 4 and RBGs 0, 3, 4,.. are allocated to a particular UE.

In type 1 resource allocations, all the RBGs are grouped into a number of RBG subsets, and certain
PRBs inside a selected RBG subset are allocated to the UE.
There are a total of P RBG subsets, where P is the RBG size. An RBG subset p, where 0≤ p < P, consists
of every P-th RBG starting from RBG p.

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Therefore the resource assignment information consists of three fields:

The first field indicates the selected RBG subset,
The second field indicates whether an offset is applied and
The third field contains the bitmap indicating PRBs inside the selected RBG subset.
Table5.7 :Resource Allocation RBG Size vs. Downlink System Bandwidth

Fig. 5.28 Examples of resource allocation type 0 and type 1, where the RBG size P=4
This type of resource allocation is more flexible and is able to provide higher frequency diversity, but it
also requires a larger overhead.
An example of type resource allocation is shown in Figure 5.28, where P = 4 and the RBG subset 0
selected for the given UE.

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In type 2 resource allocations that are defined for the DCI format 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D, PRBs are not
directly allocated. Instead, VRBs are allocated, which are then mapped onto PRBs. A VRB is of the same
size as a PRB. There are two types VRBs ; VRBs of the localized type and VRBs of the distributed type.

5.9.4 Supported MIMO Modes.

Multi antenna transmission and reception (MIIMO) is a physical layer technique that can improve both the
reliability and throughput of the communication over wireless channels.
It is considered a key component of the LTE physical layer from the start.
The baseline antenna configuration in LTE is two transmit antennas at the cell site and two receive antennas at
the UE.
The higher-order downlink MIMO is also supported with up to four transmit and four receive antennas.
The downlink transmission supports both single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) and multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO).
For SU-MIMO, one or multiple data streams are transmitted to a single UE through space-time processing: for
MU-MIMO, modulation data streams are transmitted to different UEs using the same time-frequency resource.
The supported ST-MIMO modes are listed as follows:
 Transmit diversity with space frequency block codes (SFBC)
 Open-loop spatial multiplexing supporting four data streams
 Closed-loop spatial multiplexing, with closed-loop precoding as a special case when channel rank = 1.
 Conventional direction of arrival (DOA)-based beamforming
The supported MIMO mode is restricted by the UE capability. The PDSCH physical channel supports all
the MIMO modes, while other physical channels support transmit diversity except PMCH, which only
supports single-antenna-port transmission,

5.10. Uplink SC-FDMA Radio Resources.

For the LTE uplink transmission, SC-FDMA with a CP is adopted. SC-FDMA possesses most of the merits of
OFDM while enjoying a lower PAPR. A lower PAPR is highly desirable in the uplink as less expensive power
amplifiers are needed at UEs and the coverage is improved.
In LTE, the SC-FDMA signal is generated by the DFT-spread-OFDM. Compared to conventional OFDM, the SC-
FDMA receiver has higher complexity, which however, is not considered to be an issue in the uplink given the
powerful computational capability at the base station.
An SC-FDMA transceiver has a similar structure as OFDM, so the parameterization of radio resource in the uplink
enjoys similarities to that in the downlink. Nevertheless, the uplink transmission has its own properties. Different
from the downlink, only localized resource allocation on consecutive subcarriers is allowed in the uplink.
In addition, only limited MIMO modes are supported in the uplink.

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5.10.1. Frame Structure

The uplink frame structure is similar to that for the downlink. The difference is that now we talk about SC-FDMA
symbols and SC-FDMA subcarriers. In frame structure type 1, an uplink radio frame consists of 20 slots of 0.5 ms
each, and one subframe consists of two slots, as in Figure 5.25. Frame structure type 2 consists of ten subframes,
with one or two special subframes including DwPTS, GP, and UpPTS fields, as shown in Figure 5.26. A CP is
inserted prior to each SC-FDMA symbol. Each slot carries seven SC-FDMA symbols in the case of normal CP, and
six SC-FDMA symbols in the case of extended CP.
5.10.2 Physical Resource Blocks for SC-FDMA
As SC-FDMA can be regarded as conventional OFDM with a DFT-based precoder, the f our grid for the uplink
is similar to the one for the downlink, illustrated in figure 5.29, that is, it comprises a number of resource blocks
in the time-frequency plane.
The number of resource blocks in each resource grid, NH depends on the uplink transmission bandwidth
configured in the cell and should satisfy

Where Correspond to the smallest and largest uplink bandwidth respectively

there are
Resource elements in each resource block.

5.10.3 Resource Allocation

 Similar to the downlink, shared-channel transmission and channel-dependent scheduling are supported
in the uplink. Resource allocation in the uplink is also performed at the eNode-B.

 Based on the channel quality measured on the uplink sounding reference signals and the scheduling
requests sent from UES, the eNode-B assigns a unique time frequency resource to a scheduled UE,
which achieves orthogonal intra-cell transmission.

 Such intra-cell orthogonality in the uplink is preserved between UEs by using timing advance such
that the transport blocks of different UEs are received synchronously at the eNode-B.

 This provides significant coverage and capacity gain in the uplink over UMTS, which employ's non-
orthogonal transmission in the uplink and the performance is limited by inter-channel interference.

 In general, SC- FDMA is able to support both localized and distributed resource allocation.

 In the current specification, only localized resource allocation is supported in the uplink, which
preserves the single-carrier property and can better exploit the multiuser diversity gain in the

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frequency domain.

Fig. 5.29: The structure of the uplink resource gird

 Compared to distributed resource allocation, localized resource allocation is less sensitive to

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frequency offset and also requires fewer reference symbols.

 The resource assignment information for the uplink transmission is carried on the PDCCH with DCI
format 0, indicating a set of contiguously allocated resource blocks.

 However, not all integer multiples of one resource block are allowed to be assigned to a UE, which is to
simplify the DFT design for the SC-FDMA transceiver.

 Only factors 2, 3, and 5 are allowed. The frequency hopping is supported to provide frequency diversity,
with which the UEs can hop between frequencies within or between the allocated subframes.

5.10.4. Supported MIMO Modes

 For the MIMO modes supported in the uplink, the terminal complexity and cost are among the major
concerns.

 MU-MIMO is supported, which allocates the same time and frequency resource to two UEs with each
transmitting on a single antenna. This is also called Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA).

 The advantage is that only one transmit antenna per UE is required. To separate streams for different
UEs, channel state information is required at the eNode-B, which is obtained through uplink reference
signals that are orthogonal between UEs.

 Uplink MU-MIMO also requires power control, as the near-far problem arises when multiple UEs are
multiplexed on the same radio resource.

 For UEs with two or more transmit antennas, closed loop adaptive antenna selection transmit diversity
shall be supported.

 Here UE only needs one transmit chain and amplifier. The antenna selection is based on feedback from
eNode-B.

TEXT BOOK
 “Fundamentals of LTE” Arunabha Ghosh, Jan Zhang, Jefferey Andrews, Riaz Mohammed,
Pearson education (Formerly Prentice Hall, Communications Engg and Emerging Technologies),
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-703311-9.

Dr. Asha K & Prof. Prabha K, Dept. of ECE, SVIT Page 52