A Concise Introduction to
Practical LTE Systems
Pho Hale
Uplink
Physical
Channel
UE
Downlink
Physical Perspective
An eNodeB communicates through a physical channel
with a specific UE.
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eNodeB
To establish a connection to an LTE network,
a UE must first determine the following from
the eNB base station:
Complete time and frequency
synchronization information
Unique Cell Identity
Cyclic Prefix (CP) Length
Access Mode (FDD/TDD)
Synchronization requirements in LTE
Symbol Timing Acquisition
Carrier Frequency Synchronization
Sampling Clock Synchronization
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Accomplished by broadcasting two special signals:
1. Primary Synchronization Service (PSS): Used for initial
synchronization.
2. Secondary Synchronization Service (SSS): Used for handoff
synchronization.!
These synchronization signals are transmitted twice per 10ms radio
frame.
For the sake of simplicity, we will assume from this point that:
all parameters necessary for communication between the UE and the
radio-access network are known to both entities (RRC_CONNECTED)
our UE has successfully established a synchronized connection to our
eNB (IN_SYNC).
Physical Channel
Simply the region between the
UE and the eNB.
If the physical channel did not
alter the signal (i.e. a vacuum)
the waveform transmitted
would be identical to the
waveform received.
Physical
Channel
If the physical channel altered
the signal in a predictable and
deterministic fashion (i.e.
attenuation) the waveform
transmitted could be
determined exactly by
applying an operation on the
waveform received.
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Unfortunately, the physical channel modifies the
transmitted signal in a random fashion.
The presence of obstacles and reflectors in the
communications environment create multiple paths a
transmitted signal can traverse.
Each copy of a transmitted signal experiences
differences in attenuation, delay, and phase shift.
This results in either constructive or destructive
interference when observed at the receiver.
Known as multipath fading
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The multiple copies of a transmitted signal generated by
multipath fading arrive at the receiver at different times, inducing
and effect known as time dispersion.
In the frequency domain, time dispersion corresponds to a nonconstant channel frequency response.
Flat Fading:
All frequency components experience the same magnitude of
fading.
Frequency-Selective Fading:
Different frequency components experience uncorrelated
fading.
In LTE, the downlink (eNB -> UE) uses OFDM to ameliorate
performance detriments due to frequency-selective fading.
OFDM
OFDM divides a wideband signal into tightly packed
narrowband subcarriers.
Each subcarrier is now exposed to flat fading, rather than
frequency-selective fading.
Two modulated OFDM subcarriers are mutually orthogonal
over a given time interval, known as a symbol length, and
denoted T_{u}.
Unfortunately the delay introduced by multipath fading can
shift one subcarrier out of the interval of inter-subcarrier
orthogonality, resulting in interference between subcarriers.
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To solve this interference problem, the duration of
each symbol interval is extended by duplicating the
last portion of a symbol and adding it as a prefix to
the symbol.
This is termed cyclic-prefix insertion, and it extends
the symbol time from T_{u} to T_{u} + T_{cp}.
As long as the span of the time dispersion is shorter
than T_{cp}, the problem is solved.
One last issue: a frequency-selective channel still has
the ability to strongly attenuate a given subcarrier.
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Channel Coding spreads out each bit of
information over multiple code bits.
These code bits may be distributed in the
frequency domain over the entire transmission
bandwidth, a process known as frequency
interleaving.
This provides frequency diversity to each data
bit, ensuring resilience to the failure of any
specific subcarrier.
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User Equipment
Concerned with power
consumption.
Assigned one or more
Resource Block (RB)
UE
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LTE Resource Grid
unused
Cell RS
PSS
SSS
PBCH
PCFICH
PHICH
PDCCH
PDSCH
70
60
Subcarrier index
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
OFDM symbol index
Logical Perspective
A Resource Grid represents a 2D data structure over
both the time and frequency domain.
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Time-Domain Resources
Radio Frame
Subframe
Slot
10 ms
1 ms
0.5 ms
0.5/7 ms
Variable Symbol Duration
Time quantum:
Duration (ms)
Number of Quanta ( )
Radio Frame
10
307200
Subframe
30720
Slot
0.5
15360
Symbol
0.5/7
2048
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Frequency Domain Resources
15 kHz
Subcarrier
Frequency
Resource Block
12 Subcarriers
Subcarrier spacing of 15 kHz
LTE bandwidth is highly flexible
1 MHz to 20 MHz is standard, even more with carrier aggregation.
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LTE Resource Grid
unused
Cell RS
PSS
SSS
PBCH
PCFICH
PHICH
PDCCH
PDSCH
70
60
Subcarrier index
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
20
40
60
80
OFDM symbol index
15
100
120
140
Estimate of channel magnitude frequency repsonse
2.5
Magnitude
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
140
Subcarrier index
120
10
100
80
60
40
20
0
OFDM symbol index
Algorithmic Perspective
Both the receiver and the transmitter implement methods
to reduce the detrimental effect of the channel.
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Adaptive Processing
In dynamic rate control, a transmitter dynamically adjusts the data
rate in response to varying channel conditions.
The data rate is increased by increasing the channel coding rate
and/or modulation scheme when the channel is clear, and
decreasing them under disadvantageous conditions.
Transmission power is kept constant
Also known as Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)!
Channel conditions can be determined by the receiver by analyzing
a transmitted pilot or reference signal.
These results are then reported to the transmitter.
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Error Correction and
Retransmission
Forward Error Correction (FEC)!
Goal: Introduce redundancy to a transmitted signal to allow bit errors to be corrected by the receiver.
These redundant bits, known as parity bits, are computed by applying a coding scheme to the
information to be transmitted.
Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ)!
Goal: Introduce redundancy to a transmitted signal to allow bit errors to be detected by the receiver.
The receiver validates all received packets:
if valid: receiver notifies transmitter with an ACK, data is used
if invalid: receiver notifies transmitter with a NAK, data is discarded
Hybrid ARQ (HARQ)!
Uses FEC to correct a subset of all errors, falling back to ARQ for uncorrectable errors.
May optionally use soft combining!
Packets deemed uncorrectable are stored in a buffer for later use instead of being discarded.
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DL-SCH
CRC Generation
Segmentation
CRC Generation
TB is split into smaller code blocks, each with their
own 24-bit CRC.!
Coding
24-bit CRC appended to each transport block (TB)
Downlink Shared Channel
Turbo Coding is used to encode each code block
in parallel.
Rate Matching - HARQ
each code block is interleaved with a circular buffer
the appropriate number of code bits is selected
based on cell parameters to be transmitted within a
given subframe.
Scrambling
the block of code bits is XORed with a cell-specific
scrambling sequence.
ensures any potentially interfering signals are
randomized, appearing as gaussian white noise to
a receiver.
Coding
Rate MatchingHARQ
Scrambling
Modulation
Modulation
Segmentation
transforms the block of scrambled bits to a
corresponding block of complex modulation
symbols.
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Sources
The information for the slides was compiled from the notes I took
while reading the following three texts:
Dahlman, Erik, Stefan Parkvall, Johan Skold, and Per
Beming. 3G Evolution: HSPA and LTE for Mobile
Broadband. Amsterdam: Academic, 2008. Print.!
Dahlman, Erik, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skld.4G LTE/
LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband. 2nd ed. Amsterdam:
Elsevier/Academic, 2011. Print. !
Zarrinkoub, Houman. Understanding LTE with MATLAB:
From Mathematical Modeling to Simulation and
Prototyping. N.p.: Wiley, n.d. Print.
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