3G/4G Mobile Communications Systems

Dr. Stefan Brck Qualcomm Corporate R&D Center Germany

Chapter VI:

Physical Layer of LTE

Slide 2

Physical Layer of LTE

OFDM and SC-FDMA Basics DL/UL Resource Grid Downlink Operation Downlink Physical Channels Uplink Operation Uplink Physical Channels UE Categories

Slide 3

LTE Key Radio Features (Release 8)

Multiple access scheme DL: OFDMA with CP UL: Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) with CP Adaptive modulation and coding DL modulations: QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM UL modulations: QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM (optional for UE) Rel. 6 Turbo code: Coding rate of 1/3, two 8-state constituent encoders and a contention-free internal interleaver ARQ within RLC sublayer and Hybrid ARQ within MAC sublayer Advanced MIMO spatial multiplexing techniques (2 or 4)x(2 or 4) downlink and 1x(2 or 4) uplink supported Multi-layer transmission with up to four streams in DL Multi-user MIMO also supported in UL and DL Implicit support for interference coordination Support for both FDD and TDD
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Slide 4

LTE Frequency Bands

LTE will support all band classes currently specified for UMTS as well as additional bands

Slide 5

LTE Duplexing Modes

LTE supports both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) to provide flexible operation in a variety of spectrum allocations around the world.

Unlike UMTS TDD there is a high commonality between LTE TDD & LTE FDD Slot length (0.5 ms) and subframe length (1 ms) is the same as LTE FDD with the same numerology (OFDM symbol times, CP length, FFT sizes, sample rates, etc.) UL/ DL switching points designed to allow coexistence with UMTS-TDD (TD-CDMA, TD-SCDMA)

Slide 6

LTE Half-Duplex FDD

In addition to FDD & TDD, LTE supports also Half-Duplex FDD (HD-FDD) HD-FDD is like FDD, only the UE cannot transmit and receive at the same time

Note, that the eNodeB can still transmit and receive at the same time to different UEs; half-duplex is enforced by the eNodeB scheduler Reasons for HD-FDD Handsets are cheaper, as no duplexer is required More commonality between TDD and HD-FDD than compared to full duplex FDD Certain FDD spectrum allocations have small duplex space; HD-FDD leads to duplex desense in UE

Slide 7

OFDM Basics Overlapping Orthogonal

OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing OFDMA: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple-Access FDM/FDMA is nothing new: carriers are separated sufficiently in frequency so that there is minimal overlap to prevent cross-talk. conventional FDM

frequency OFDM: still FDM but carriers can actually be orthogonal (no cross-talk) while actually overlapping, if specially designed saved bandwidth ! OFDM
saved bandwidth

frequency
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Slide 8

OFDM Basics Waveforms

f = 1/T
1 0.8

Frequency domain: overlapping sinc functions Referred to as subcarriers Typically quite narrow, e.g. 15 kHz

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2 4 5 6 7 8 9 x 10

freq

Time domain: simple gated sinusoid functions For orthogonality: each symbol has an integer number of cycles over the symbol time fundamental frequency f0 = 1/T Other sinusoids with fk = k f0

T = symbol time
1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.6 -0.8 -1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

time

Slide 9

OFDM Basics The Full OFDM Transceiver

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Slide 10

OFDM Basics Cyclic Prefix

ISI (between OFDM symbols) eliminated almost completely by inserting a guard time TG TG OFDM Symbol OFDM Symbol OFDM Symbol

Within an OFDM symbol, the data symbols modulated onto the subcarriers are only orthogonal if there is an integer number of sinusoidal cycles within the receiver window Filling the guard time with a cyclic prefix (CP) ensures orthogonality of subcarriers even in the presence of multipath elimination of same cell interference

CP Useful OFDM symbol time Useful OFDM symbol time Useful OFDM symbol time CP CP OFDM symbol
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OFDM symbol

OFDM symbol
Slide 11

Comparison with CDMA Principle

OFDM: Particular modulation symbol is carried over a relatively long symbol time and narrow bandwidth LTE: 66.6 sec symbol time and 15 kHz bandwidth For higher data rates send more symbols by using more sub-carriers increases bandwidth occupancy CDMA: Particular modulation symbol is carried over a relatively short symbol time and a wide bandwidth UMTS HSPA: 4.17 sec symbol time and 3.84 Mhz bandwidth To get higher data rates use more spreading codes
time time
0 1 2 3

symbol symbol symbol symbol

0 1 2 3

frequency
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symbol symbol symbol symbol

CDMA

OFDM

frequency
Slide 12

Comparison with CDMA Time Domain

Short symbol times in CDMA lead to ISI in the presence of multipath CDMA symbols
4 3 4

1 1 1

2 2 2

3 3

Multipath reflections from one symbol significantly overlap subsequent symbols ISI

Long symbol times in OFDM together with CP prevent ISI from multipath

CP CP CP

1 1 1

CP CP CP

2 2 2

Little to no overlap in symbols from multipath

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Slide 13

Comparison with CDMA Frequency Domain

In CDMA each symbol is spread over a large bandwidth, hence it will experience both good and bad parts of the channel response in frequency domain In OFDM each symbol is carried by a subcarrier over a narrow part of the band can avoid send symbols where channel frequency response is poor based on frequency selective channel knowledge frequency selective scheduling gain in OFDM systems

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Slide 14

OFDM Basics Choosing the Symbol Time for LTE

Two competing factors in determining the right OFDM symbol time: CP length should be longer than worst case multipath delay spread, and the OFDM symbol time should be much larger than CP length to avoid significant overhead from the CP On the other hand, the OFDM symbol time should be much smaller than the shortest expected coherence time of the channel to avoid channel variability within the symbol time

LTE is designed to operate in delay spreads up to ~5s and for speeds up to 350km/h (1.2ms coherence time @ 2.6GHz). As such, the following was decided: CP length = 4.7 s OFDM symbol time = 66.6 s(= 1/20 the worst case coherence time)
f = 15 kHz ~4.7 s ~66.7 s

CP

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Slide 15

Scalable OFDM for Different Operating Bandwidths

20 MHz bandwidth 10 MHz bandwidth

With Scalable OFDM, the subcarrier spacing stays fixed at 15 kHz regardless of the operating bandwidth
1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, 20 MHz Symbol time is fixed to 66.6 s

5 MHz bandwidth

3 MHz bandwidth common channels 1.4 MHz bandwidth centre frequency

The total number of subcarriers is varied in order to operate in different bandwidths

This is done by specifying different FFT sizes (i.e. 512 point FFT for 5 MHz, 2048 point FFT for 20 MHz)

Influence of delay spread, Doppler due to user mobility, timing accuracy, etc. remain the same as the system bandwidth is changed robust design
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Slide 16

LTE Downlink Frame Format

Radio frame = 10ms

subframe = 1.0ms slot = 0.5ms slot = 0.5ms

OFDM symbol

Subframe length is 1ms

Consists of two 0.5ms slots

7 OFDM symbols per 0.5ms slot

14 OFDM symbols per 1ms subframe

In UL center SC-FDMA symbol used for the data demodulation reference signal (DM-RS)
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Slide 17

LTE Downlink Frame Structure

Subframe length relevant to the latency requirement

Spectrum allocation Slot duration Sub-frame duration Sub-carrier spacing Sampling frequency FFT size Number of sub-carriers OFDM symbols per slot CP length Short Long

1.4 MHz

3 MHz

5 MHz

10 MHz 0.5 ms

15 MHz

20 MHz

1.0 ms ( = 2 slots) 15 kHz (7.5 kHz for MBMS) 1.92 MHz (1/2 3.84) 128 75 3.84 MHz 256 150 7.68 MHz (2 3.84) 512 300 15.36 MHz (4 3.84) 1024 600 23.04 MHz (6 3.84) 1536 900

Sampling rates are multiples of UMTS chip rate, to ease implementation of dual mode UMTS/LTE terminals
30.72 MHz (8 3.84) 2048 1200

7 (short CP), 6 (long CP) 4.69 s x 6 5.21 s x 1 16.67 s

FFT size scales to support larger bandwidth Scalable OFDM

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Slide 18

Downlink/Uplink Resource Grid

Resource Element (RE)
Fundamental element in time/frequency grid (1 subcarrier x 1 symbol)

Resource Block (PRB)

Minimum resource set for DL/UL data channel assignment (12 subcarriers x 1 slot) Physical Resource Block (180 kHz x 1 ms) Virtual Resource Block (same size as PRB)

Resource Block Group (RBG)

Group of Resource Blocks

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Slide 19

DL Logical, Transport and Physical Channels

LTE makes heavy use of shared channels common control, paging, and part of broadcast information carried on PDSCH
PCCH BCCH CCCH DCCH DTCH MCCH MTCH

PCCH: paging control channel BCCH: broadcast control channel CCCH: common control channel DCCH: dedicated control channel DTCH: dedicated traffic channel

Downlink Logical channels

PCH: paging channel BCH: broadcast channel

PCH BCH DL-SCH MCH

Downlink Transport channels

DL-SCH: DL shared channel

Downlink Physical Channels

DL-RS SCH PCFICH PBCH PHICH PDSCH PDCCH PMCH

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Slide 20

Physical Channels to Support LTE Downlink

Allows mobile to get timing and frequency sync with the cell

Carries basic system broadcast information

Carries DL traffic

DL resource allocation

eNode-B

Time span of PDCCH

HARQ feedback for DL CQI reporting MIMO reporting

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Slide 21

Downlink Operation
UE reports CQI (channel quality indicator), PMI (precoding matrix indicator), and RI (rank indicator) in PUCCH or PUSCH Scheduler at eNB dynamically allocates DL resources to UE eNB sends user data in PDSCH
UE reads PCFICH every subframe and determines the number of OFDM symbols occupied by PDCCH UE reads PDCCH to determine the assigned DL resources (PRB and MCS) for a specific Tx mode

UE attempts to decode the received packet and sends ACK/NACK using PUCCH or PUSCH

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Slide 22

Downlink Physical Channels in LTE

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Slide 23

Physical Channel Resource Allocation

P-SCH and S-SCH Resource Allocation
Subframe 0 and 5 of every 10th frames Middle of bandwidth (6 PRBs)

PBCH Resource Allocation

Subframe 0 every 10th frames Middle of bandwidth (6 PRBs)

PDCCH, PCFICH, PHICH allocated to the (at most) three OFDM symbols in each subframe The remaining time frequency resources can be allocated for data transmission in the PDSCH

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Slide 24

Downlink Reference Signals

Three Types of DL Reference Signals (DL-RS)

Cell-specific Reference Signals

Associated with PDSCH multiple antenna port transmission Used by UE for coherent demodulation and channel estimation

UE-specific Reference Signals

UE-specific RS are supported for single antenna port transmission (Rel. 8) In Rel. 10 UE-specific RS are also introduced for multiple antenna port transmission

MBSFN Reference Signals

Associated with MBSFN transmission

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Slide 25

DL cell-specific RS for multiple Tx Antennas

RS are allocated on a per antenna port basis Antenna 0 and 1

Transmitted on 2 OFDM symbols every slot 6 subcarrier spacing and 2x staggering (45 kHz frequency sampling)

Antenna 2 and 3
Transmitted on 1 OFDM symbols every slot 6 subcarrier spacing with 2x staggering across slots Same frequency spacing for normal and extended CP

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Slide 26

Spatial Multiplexing
Code Word Transport block format : CRC encoded data Transmission layer Sub stream resulting from a mapping of modulated code word symbols Number of layers number of antenna ports Code book Quantized set of spatial combination vectors for precoding of symbols layer for transmission on antenna ports Rank of MIMO channel Number of independents TX/RX channels offered by MIMO for spatial multiplexing Rank min(NTx, NRx) UE indicates channel quality (CQI), pre-coding matrix (PMI) and rank (RI)

precoding
Select # code words Modulation + coding Modulation + coding Layer mapping

M Tx

N Rx

V
PMI

Demod + decode Demod + decode

RI
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CQI

H = UV

Slide 27

PDSCH Transmission Scheme

Codewords (maximum of 2)
One codeword for rank 1 transmission Two codewords for rank 2/3/4 transmission

Layer mapping
Number of layers depend on the number of Tx antennas and the channel rank Fixed mapping schemes of codewords to layers

Tx antennas (maximum of 4)
Potentially up to 4 layers

Precoding
Used to support spatial multiplexing Code book based precoding

Seven different transmission modes are supported in Rel. 8

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Slide 28

PDSCH Transmission Modes (Rel. 8)

Mode 1: Uses a single Tx antenna at eNB together with cell-specific RS Mode 2: Uses transmit diversity based on Alamouti scheme Mode 3: Open loop spatial multiplexing
No UE feedback Exploits cyclic delay diversity (CDD)

Mode 4: closed loop spatial multiplexing

Up to 2 codewords and 4 layers Rank (RI) and precoding (PMI) feedback

Mode 5: Multi-user MIMO

Single codeword and single layer per UE UE reports PMI but no RI

Mode 6: closed loop Rank = 1 precoding (restricted Mode 4)

No RI reports are needed

Mode 7: same as Mode 1 with UE-specific RS

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Slide 29

Multiple Antenna Techniques Supported in LTE

SU-MIMO
Multiple data streams sent to the same user (max. 2 codewords) Significant throughput gains for UEs in high SINR conditions

MU-MIMO or Beamforming Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA)

Different data streams sent to different users using the same time-frequency resources Improves throughput even in low SINR conditions (cell-edge) Works even for single antenna mobiles

Transmit diversity (TxDiv)

Improves reliability on a single data stream Fall back scheme if channel conditions do not allow spatial multiplexing Useful to improve reliability on common control channels

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Slide 30

Precoding in Transmission Mode 4

For two Tx antennas 4 single layer precoding vectors and 2 dual layer precoding matrices are supported
See table below (TS 36.211)

For four Tx antennas 16 precoding vectors/matrices are supported per layer

The construction is based on Householder transformation For details, see TS 36.211

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Slide 31

PDSCH Transmission Mode Configuration

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Slide 32

CQI/PMI/RI Reporting
CQI/PMI/RI reporting is either on PUSCH or PUCCH, periodic or aperiodic Aperiodic CQI/PMI/RI reporting is defined by the following characteristics:
The report is scheduled by the eNB via the PDCCH Transmitted together with uplink data on PUSCH From the frequency span perspective these reports can be:
Frequency selective: UE Selected Subband CQI and Higher Layer Configured Subband CQI Frequency non-selective: Wideband CQI reports

When a CQI report is transmitted together with Uplink data on PUSCH, it is multiplexed with the transport block by L1
The CQI report is not part of the uplink transport block

Periodic CQI/PMI/RI reporting is defined by the following characteristics:

Periodic CQI reports are sent on PUCCH From the Frequency span perspective these reports can be:
Frequency selective: UE Selected Subband CQI Frequency non-selective: Wideband CQI reports

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Slide 33

CQI Definition

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Slide 34

Downlink Peak Rates

# of parallel streams supported bandwidth 1 1.4 MHz 3 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 15 MHz 20 MHz 5.4 Mbps 13.5 Mbps 22.5 Mbps 45 Mbps 67.5 Mbps 90 Mbps 2 10.4 Mbps 25.9 Mbps 43.2 Mbps 86.4 Mbps 129.6 Mbps 172.8 Mbps 4 19.6 Mbps 50 Mbps 81.6 Mbps 163.2 Mbps 244.8 Mbps 326.4 Mbps

Assumptions: 64QAM, code rate =1, 1OFDM symbol for L1/L2, ignores subframes with P-BCH, SCH

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Slide 35

LTE Uplink Transmission Scheme (1/2)

To facilitate efficient power amplifier design in the UE, 3GPP chose single carrier frequency domain multiple access (SC-FDMA) in favor of OFDMA for uplink multiple access. SC-FDMA results in better PAPR
Reduced PA back-off improved coverage

SC-FDMA is still an orthogonal multiple access scheme UEs are orthogonal in frequency Synchronous in the time domain through the use of timing advance (TA) signaling
Only need to be synchronous within a fraction of the CP length 0.52 s timing advance resolution

UE A

UE B Node B UE C

UE A Transmit Timing UE B Transmit Timing UE C Transmit Timing

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Slide 36

LTE Uplink Transmission Scheme (2/2)

SC-FDMA implemented using an OFDMA front-end and a DFT pre-coder, this is referred to as either DFT-pre-coded OFDMA or DFT-spread OFDMA (DFTS-OFDMA) Advantage is that numerology (subcarrier spacing, symbol times, FFT sizes, etc.) can be shared between uplink and downlink Can still allocate variable bandwidth in units of 12 sub-carriers Each modulation symbol sees a wider bandwidth

+1 -1 -1 +1 -1 -1 -1 +1 +1 +1 -1

DFT precoding Slide 37

37

SC-FDMA Signal

SC-FDMA uses DFT precoding of user data

Individual bits mapped across multiple frequencies

DFT size (N) defines number of subcarriers allocated to user data Time domain signal more resembles a single carrier signal
Peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is reduced

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Slide 38

Localized and Distributed SC-FDMA

Localized Assignment
Uses consecutive subcarriers Simpler to implement Used in LTE

Distributed Assignment
Distributes subcarriers across frequency bands Increases frequency diversity Not applied in LTE

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Slide 39

Comparison of OFDMA and SC-FDMA

Figure taken from http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-7898EN.pdf

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Slide 40

Downlink/Uplink Resource Grid

Resource Element (RE)
Fundamental element in time/frequency grid (1 subcarrier x 1 symbol)

Resource Block (PRB)

Minimum resource set for DL/UL data channel assignment (12 subcarriers x 1 slot) Physical Resource Block (180 kHz x 1 ms) Virtual Resource Block (same size as PRB)

Resource Block Group (RBG)

Group of Resource Blocks

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Slide 41

UL Logical, Transport and Physical Channels

CCCH: common control channel DCCH: dedicated control channel DTCH: dedicated traffic channel

RACH: random access channel UL-SCH: UL shared channel

PUSCH: physical UL shared channel PUCCH: physical UL control channel PRACH: physical random access channel

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Slide 42

Physical Channels to Support LTE Uplink

Carries UL Traffic Random access for initial access and UL timing alignment

UL scheduling request for time synchronized IEs

eNode-B

UL scheduling grant

HARQ feedback for UL

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Slide 43

Uplink Operation
If UE does not have UL-SCH resources, UE send SR (scheduling request) on PUCCH Scheduler at eNB allocates resources to UE in terms of UL grant on PDCCH
Assigned resources: PRB and MCS

UE sends user data on PUSCH If eNB decodes the UL data successfully, it sends ACK on PHICH

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Slide 44

Uplink Physical Channels in LTE

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Slide 45

PUSCH
PUSCH may carry
UL data ACK/NACK for DL data CQI/PMI/RI

The allocation of PRB resources is continuous Frequency hopping is supported to obtain frequency diversity
Intra- and inter-subframe hopping are supported

Demodulation-RS (DM-RS ) are embedded in the SC-FDMA symbols

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Slide 46

PUCCH
PUCCH may carry
ACK/NACK for DL data CQI/PMI/RI Scheduling request

PUCCH and PUSCH are never transmitted simultaneously

Reason: Reduction of PAPR

PUCCH uses one PRB in each of the two slots in a subframe Multiple UEs may be assigned the same PRB resource for PUCCH transmission
Assignment of different cyclic shifts of scrambling sequence and orthogonal spreading sequences

(DM-RS are embedded in the SCFDMA symbols

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Slide 47

MIMO Support is Different in Downlink and Uplink

Downlink
Supports SU-MIMO, MU-MIMO, TxDiv

Uplink
Initial release of LTE does only support MU-MIMO with a single transmit antenna at the UE Desire to avoid multiple power amplifiers at UE

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Slide 48

Uplink Peak Rates

Highest Modulation bandwidth 16 QAM 1.4 MHz 3 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 15 MHz 20 MHz 2.9 Mbps 6.9 Mbps 11.5 Mbps 27.6 Mbps 41.5 Mbps 55.3 Mbps 64QAM 4.3 Mbps 10.4 Mbps 17.3 Mbps 41.5 Mbps 62.2 Mbps 82.9 Mbps

Assumptions: code rate =1, 2PRBs reserved for PUCCH (1 for 1.4MHz), no SRS, ignores subframes with PRACH, takes into account highest prime-factor restriction

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Slide 49

LTE-Release 8 User Equipment Categories

Category Peak rate Mbps DL UL 1 10 5 2 50 25 3 100 50 4 150 50 5 300 75

Capability for physical functionalities RF bandwidth Modulation DL UL 20MHz QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM QPSK, 16QAM QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM

Multi-antenna 2 Rx diversity 2x2 MIMO 4x4 MIMO Not supported Not supported Assumed in performance requirements. Mandatory Mandatory

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