April 21, 2010

EE 497A

Concept and Challenges of Femtocells

Presentation by, Rachana Reddy

Overview
Introduction
Evolution of cellular systems Need for Femtocells Benefits Industry Activities Design Issues Architecture Usage Model Radio Issues Coverage Interference

Evolution of Cellular Systems

Single Base Station

Macro Stations

Evolution of Cellular Systems

2G 3G

4G

As throughput demand and usage increases, cell size decreases

Macro Base Stations

Current Traffic Trend Future Traffic Trend

Femto Stations

Need for Femtocells

Macrocell cannot provide good signal strength for indoor coverage Higher data rate Femtocells can enable higher capacity Reduce the power on the macrocells Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operators network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections

Reference: FemtoForum.org

Benefits
For Operators For Consumers
Reduce cost. (Free calls at home!) No need for expensive new device. Superior indoor coverage and quality without change in phones. Simplicity: One phone One mode One number.

Low cost solution Improve reliability Increases both coverage and capacity Reduce Macrocell backhaul capacity requirements Works with all existing handsets no need for expensive subsidizes on dual-mode (3G + Wi-Fi) Increases 3G adoption

Industry Activities
Femto Forum (70 members)
Founded in 2007 to promote femtocell deployment Members include mobile operators, telecom hardware, software vendors, content providers, startups Industrial partnerships with 3GPP, 3GPP2, GSM Assoc.
Manufacturer Samsung(Ubicell) Partner/Operator Sprint(Airave) Region North America Technology
a) b)

IS-95, CDMA2000, 1xEV-DO WCDMA

AirWalk Communications Ericsson Airvana Altacel-Lucent Axion Wireless Ubiquisys (Zonegate)

Tatara Systems and Tango North America Networks Europe Nokia-Siemens North America PicoChip Kineto Wireless, Google United Kingdom United Kingdom

CDMA 1x RTT &1x-EVDO GSM/3GPP UMTS 3GPP UMTS 3GPP UMTS

a) b)

3GPP UMTS WiMAX

3GPP UMTS/HSPA

Industry Activities
Ericsson, NEC, Samsung, Nokia-Siemems, Airvana, Qualcomm, et. al. had launched 3Gfemtocellbase stations or femto-optimized handsets.

FemtoForum has joint forces with Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN) Alliance to look beyond the use of femtocells in 3G mobile networks.

IEEE 802.16m and LTE-Advanced have taken the femtocell option into consideration.

In WiMAX Forum, the Service Providers Working Group (SPWG) has started to draft system requirements for femtocells from perspective of network operators.

Major WiMAX service providers such as Sprint-Nextel and KT (Korea Telecom) are introducing femtocell into their networks.

Overview
Introduction
Evolution of cellular systems Need for Femtocells Benefits Industry Activities Design Issues Architecture Usage Model Radio Issues Coverage Resource Allocation

Architecture
Current 2G/3G Network Architecture
RNC(Radio network controller):

GGSN

Connected with tens to hundreds BS. RRM and handoff between BSs.

PSTN

SGSN MSC

MSC (Mobile switching center):

Connected with several RNCs Roaming between RNCs.

RNC

Operator IP Network

PSTN(Public switched telephone network) SGSN &GGSN(Serving GPRS support node & Gateway GPRS support node)

Support mobile data services.

Macrocell Node B

Architecture
With Femtocells
Home cell controller: interface between IP internet and operators own IP Network Base station Router(BSR) concept Flat:

GGSN

PSTN
IP Internet SGSN

Tens to thousands femtocells in a Macrocell

Operator IP Network
Home cell controller /gateway

MSC RNC

Current Architecture (e.g. RNC) may not be able to handle so many devices Femtocell Architecture should be flat

IP Based: IP Backhaul provided by ISP

WiMAX Networks are suitable due to flat all-IP network architecture

Macrocell Node B

Home cell

Femtocell architecture reference model

Femto Management System
FAP-MS
Fm

FGW-MS
Fg

HPLMN Core Network

Fr Fs Fb-cs Subscriber Databases CS Core PS Core Fas IMS Core Femto AS

Mobile device

Radio Femto i/f

Fa Broadband IP link

Femto Gateway (FGW)

Access Point (FAP) FL

Fb-ps Fb-ims

Home GW

HPLMN RAN

Usage Model
Easy plug and play setup by the user Purchase and Registration Plug in power and backhaul connectivity Auto configuration of initial parameters

Uplink, downlink frequency, Cell ID, Location, Routing and service area codes, Initial pilot, maximum transmit power based on target range

Location check Ongoing self-optimization

Usage Model
Open Access
All users are allowed to connect to the FAP Hotspot type scenario: coffee shop or airport Femtocell becomes another part of the public mobile network Improves capacity, but increases handovers

Closed Access
Only authorized users are allowed to connect to a privately accessible Femto-AP Home or enterprise environments Emergency calls bypass access restrictions

Hybrid Access

OFDMA Femtocells
OFDMA femtocells are more promising than CDMA ones Inter-cell interference avoidance Robustness to multipath OFDMA FAPs can exploit channel variations in both frequency and time domains for avoidance of interference, while CDMA can only exploit the time domain

Overview
Introduction
Evolution of cellular systems Need for Femtocells Benefits Industry Activities Design Issues Architecture Usage Model Radio Issues Coverage Interference

Radio Issues
There are three respects in which radio issues differ for femtocells compared with macro base stations

Required coverage deliberately limited to the area of the house or small office associated with a given user group Interference between macrocells and femtocells is controlled via entirely automated means rather than via manual planning The cost of femtocells must be minimized, so radio specifications which drive excessive cost without significant performance benefits must be avoided

Pathloss model
To analyze femtocell performance, it is important to study coverage Path loss model recommended by ITU known as ITU-R P.1238 is used
Assumes aggregate loss through furniture, internal walls and doors represented by power loss exponent n that depends on type of building

Path Loss model is: L50 ( r ) = 20 log (fc) +10n logloss exponent-28 n = Path r + Lf(nf)
Lf (nf)=Floor penetration loss

Coverage
Total Loss LT=L50(r ) +LFM + LW
LFM = Shadow fade margin LW = Loss that represents outer wall of building

Coverage

The maximum acceptable path loss required to deliver an adequate pilot channel signal quality Ec/N0

Pmax =maximum power transmitted by the femtocell, NUE = user equipment receiver noise power PCPICH = proportion of the femtocell power allocated to the pilot channel.

Coverage
200 180 160 140 Coverage radius (m) 120 100 80 60 40 20 -3 0 -2 5 -2 0 -1 5 -1 0 -5 0 5 F e m t o c e ll m a x im u m t ra n s m it p o w e r (d B m ) 10 C o ra g e o f fe m Click to editveMaster to c e lls styles text Seconde level e flo o r(m ) C o ve ra g o n s a m o ve ra g e w it h 1 flo o r s e p a ra t io n (m ) C Third level Fourth level Fifth level

Parameters
LFM = 7.7 dB Lf(nf)=9 dB(for 1 floor)

Lf(nf)=19 dB(for 2 floors) LW = 10 dB Path loss exponent n=2 UE Noise figure = 7 dB Fc = 1.5 GHz Ec/N0 = -16 dB PCPICH = 0.1

Interference Analysis
Cross-layer

Femto-Macro interference Aggressor (Femto Access Point) and Victim(Macrocell user) belong to different network layers

Femtocell

Macrocell

Co-layer

Femto-Femto Interference Both aggressor(FAP) and victim (neighboring femtocell user) belong to the same network layer
Femtocell Femtocell

Femtocells can cause degradation of the macrocell performance, but the overall performance increases.
x 10 7.6
7

T h ro u g h p u t a n a ly s is w it h re s p e c t t o n u m b e r o f fe m t o c e lls

7.5

throughput of macrocell

7.4

7.3

7.2

7.1

20

40

60

80 100 120 140 n u m b e r o f fe m t o c e lls

160

180

200

Ways to overcome interference

Use of Sectorial Antennas at the FAP Dynamic selection of pre-defined antenna patterns to reduce power leakage outdoors Hardware based approaches increase in FAP cost Power control algorithms Efficient sub-channel allocation

Downlink Scenario
L2 6 7 2 L7 L6 L5 L1 L3 3 L4 4 5 1

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 OFDMA subchannels

Downlink Allocation of OFDMA subchannels in a macro/femtocells network with co-channel assignment

Spectrum Allocation
Subchannels allocation in OFDMA Femto/Macrocells networks

Orthogonal channel assignment

Co-channel assignment

Spectrum allocation

Subchannels sharing

Static

Dynamic

Centralized

Distributed

Cooperative
Dependent on the geographic area Depends on traffic demand, user mobility

Non-cooperative

Automatic frequency planning

Distributed frequency planning

Random Access Fragmented spectrum access

Throughput
Cellular OFDMA system with 100 active users.

Single Macrocell serving all 100 users 50 femtocells, with 2 active users in each femtocell
T h ro u g h p u t C D F p e r u s e r F e m t o c e ll M a c ro c e ll Users per Macrocell =100

C = W log 2(1+ SIR/10[dB]/10) Parameters

Macrocell Radius = 400m Femtocell Radius =40m Transmit/Receive Antennas=1 Transmit Power(Macro) = 43dBm Lognormal Std.Dev.(Macro) = 8dB Macrocell Path Loss(dB)=34 + 40 log(d)

0 .9 0 .8 0 .7 Cum ulativ e Dis tribution func tion 0 .6 0 .5 0 .4 0 .3 0 .2 0 .1

Median throughput gain ~ 1.2 b/s/Hz

Transmit Power(Femto) = 23dBm Lognormal Std.Dev.(Neighboring Femto) = 12dB Lognormal Std.Dev.(Indoor) = 4dB

Number of Femtocells=50 Users per Femtocell =2

Indoor Path Loss(dB)=37+30log(d) Penetration Loss = 10dB =3dB, W=100Hz

0 .5 1 1 .5 2 N o rm a liz e d t h ro u g h p u t p e r u s e r (b / s / H z )

Overview
Introduction
Evolution of cellular systems Need for Femtocells Benefits Industry Activities Design Issues Architecture Usage Model Radio Issues Coverage Interference

Summary
The wireless capacity has doubled every 30 months over the last 104 years
-Martin Cooper of Arraycomm This translates into an approximately million-fold capacity increase since 1957. 25x improvement from wider spectrum 5x improvement by dividing the spectrum into smaller slices 5x improvement by designing better modulation schemes 1600x gain through reduced cell sizes and transmit distance.

Application of class lectures

In the Project Concept of Femtocells, cell size, effect on Cellular concept throughput Industry activities, R&D Status of Femtocells Architecture of femtocells, Usage Model Current and future Wireless Standards From Lecture

Cellular Architecture, Process of telephone call, Move towards flat architecture Multi-access schemes : CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA Inter, intra interference through calculation of SIR, channel assignment

OFDMA Femtocells

Interference Analysis, Allocation of spectrum, Throughput analysis

References
Femto Forum, http://www.femtoforum.org/ S.R. Saunders, S. Carlaw, A. Giustina, Femtocells: Opportunities and Challenges for Business and Technology, John Wiley & Sons. Ltd, 2009 H. Claussen, L.T. Ho, L.G. Samuel, An overview of the femtocell concept, Bell Labs Technical Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 221-246, 2008 V. Chandrasekhar, J.G. Andrews, A. Gatherer, Femtocell Networks: A Survey, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 46, no.9, pp. 59-67, Sept. 2008 S.P. Yeh, S. Talwar, S.-C. Lee, H. Kim, WiMAX Femtocells: A Perspective on Network architecture, Capacity and Coverage, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 46, no. 10, pp. 58-65, Oct. 2008

April 21, 2010

EE 497A

Thank You

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