Suraj Gachhadar

Clock Error Impact on NB-IoT Radio Link Performance

School of Electrical Engineering

Thesis submitted for examination for the degree of Master of Science in
Communications Engineering.

Espoo 25.01.2018

Thesis Supervisor:

D.Sc. (Tech.) Kalle Ruttik

AALTO UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT OF THE
SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING MASTER’S THESIS

Author: Suraj Gachhadar

Title: Clock Error Impact on NB-IoT Radio Link Performance

Date: 25.01.2018 Language: English Number of pages:11+61

Department of Communications and Networking

Professorship: Communications Engineering code: ELEC3029

Supervisor: D.Sc. (Tech.) Kalle Ruttik

3GPP has recently addressed the improvements in Random Access Network (RAN) and
specified some new technologies such as enhanced Machine Type Communication (eMTC)
and Narrow Band – Internet of Things (NB-IoT) in its release 13 which is also known as LTE-
Advanced Pro. These new technologies are addressed mainly to focus on development and
deployment of cellular IoT services. NB-IoT is less complex and easily deployable through
software upgradation and is compatible to legacy cellular networks such as GSM and 4G
which makes it a suitable candidate for IoT. NB-IoT will greatly support LPWAN, thus, it
can be deployed for Smart cities and other fields such as smart electricity, smart agriculture,
smart health services and smart homes. The NB-IoT targets for low cost device, low power
consumption, relaxed delay sensitivity and easy deployment which will greatly support above
mentioned fields.

This thesis work studies the clock error impact on the radio link performance for up-link
transmission on the NB-IoT testbed based on Cloud-RAN using Software Defined Radios
(SDR) on a LTE protocol stack. The external clock error is introduced to the network and
performance issues are analyzed in the radio link. The analysis indicates packet drops up to
51% in the radio link through the study of received power, packet loss, retransmissions, BLER
and SINR for different MCS index. The major performance issues depicted by the analysis
are packet loss up to 51% and retransmission of packets up to 128 times for lower SINR and
high clock errors. Also, clock errors produce CFO up to 1.25 ppm which results in bad
synchronization between UE and eNodeB.
Keywords: 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), Narrow Band-Internet of Things (NB-
IoT), Clock Error, Block Error Rate (BLER), Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS), Carrier
Frequency Offset (CFO), Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR).

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Preface

This thesis was conducted in Department of Communications and Networking (COMNET),

Aalto University. The thesis topic was interesting and I am grateful to work on it. I would like
to thank to Viktor Nässi, resource manager at COMNET laboratory who provided all necessary
equipments and support needed for the experiment. I would also like to thank Yihenew Beyene
for helping and guiding me during the initial stage of the experiment.

Most of all, I would like to thank Kalle Ruttik for providing me this thesis topic, supervising
my thesis, giving valuable feedbacks and comments and advising me throughout the thesis
work.

Finally, I am grateful for the continuous support I received from my family and friends.

Espoo, 25.01.2018

Suraj Gachhadar

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Contents
Table of Contents
Preface ...................................................................................................iii
Contents ................................................................................................. iv
Symbols and Abbreviations .................................................................. vi
Symbols ...............................................................................................viii
Tables and Figures................................................................................. ix
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Objectives .................................................................................................. 2
1.2 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................... 2
2. Background ..................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Narrow Band - Internet of Things (NB-IoT) ............................................. 3
2.2 Narrow Band Downlink and Uplink Physical Channels ........................... 4
2.3 Performance issues on NB-IoT.................................................................. 5
2.4 OFDMA and SCFDMA Modulation in LTE and NB-IoT ........................ 8
2.5 Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) ................................................. 10
2.6 Clock synchronization ............................................................................. 11
2.7 Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO).............................................................. 14
2.8 Carrier Synchronization Error ................................................................. 15
2.9 Phase Locked Loop (PLL) CFO Compensation Techniques .................. 18
2.10 Sampling Clock offset (SCO) ................................................................ 20
2.11 Software Defined Radio (SDR) ............................................................. 22
3. Measurement System Description ................................................................ 26
3.1 Measurement Setup ................................................................................. 26
3.2 Measurement Configuration .................................................................... 31
3.3 Measurement Data Processing................................................................. 31
3.4 Issues during the measurement ................................................................ 32
4. Measurement Analysis .................................................................................. 33
4.1 Change in Clock error to the change in Carrier Frequency Offset
(CFO). ............................................................................................................ 33
4.2 Analysis of Measurement Data................................................................ 34
4.3 Analysis of Measurement Results ........................................................... 41

iv
5. Discussions of Results .................................................................................. 48
6. Conclusion..................................................................................................... 50
References ......................................................................................................... 52
A Appendix: Modulation TBS index for PDSCH & PUSCH .................... 55
B Appendix: Specifications of N2x0, Internal GPSDO and Rhode and
Schwartz Signal Generator................................................................................ 57
C Appendix: Brief Introduction of the devices used for thesis work
measurement ..................................................................................................... 60
D Appendix: IP addresses of the USRPs and devices used in the
measurement setup ............................................................................................ 60
E Appendix: Picture of the overall Measurement Setup ............................ 61

v
Symbols and Abbreviations
Abbreviations
3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project
ADC Analog to Digital Converter
AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise
BLER Block Error Rate
BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying
CAPEX CAPital EXenditure
CDS Channel Dependent Scheduling
CFO Carrier Frequency Offset
CIR Channel Impulse Response
CP Cyclic Prefix
CQI Channel Quality Indicator
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
D2D Device to Device
DAC Digital to Analog Converter
DFT Discrete Fourier Transform
DL Download Link
eDRX enhanced Discontinuous Reception
eMTC enhanced Machine Type Communication
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System
GPS Global Positioning System
GPSDO GPS disciplined oscillator
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
ICI Inter Carrier Interference
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IoT Internet of Things
LLC Logical Link Control
LPWAN Low Power Wide Area Network
LTE Long Term Evolution
LTE MBMS LTE- Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service
LTE-A LTE-Advanced
LTE-A eICIC LTE-A enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination
LTE-A MBSFN LTE-A Multicast-Broadcast single-frequency network
LTE-FDD LTE- Frequency Division Duplex
LTE-TDD LTE- Time Division Duplex
M2M Machine to Machine
MAC Medium Access Control
MCL Maximum Coupling Loss
MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

vi
MIB Master Information Block
MIMO/COMP Multi Input Multiple Output/ Coordinated Multipoint
ML Maximum Likelihood
MTC Machine Type communication
NB-IoT Narrow Band-Internet of Things
NBPBC Narrowband Physical Broadcasting Channel
NCO Numerically Controlled Oscillator
NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel
NPDSCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared Channel
NPRACH Narrowband Physical Random Access Channel
NPSS Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal
NPUSCH Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel
NRS Narrowband Reference Signal
NSSS Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal
OCXO Oscillator Controlled Crystal Oscillator
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
OPEX OPerational EXpenditure
PAPR Peak to Average Power ratio
PLL Phase Locked Loop
PPM Parts Per Million
PPS Pulse per Second
PRB physical resource blocks
PTP Precision Time Protocol
QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QoS Quality of Service
QPSK Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
RAN Random Access Network
RAR Random Access Response
Rf Radio frequency
RLC Radio Link Control
SC Sub Carrier
SCFDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SCO Sampling Clock Offset
SDR Software Defined Radio
SINR Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio
SNDCP Sub Network Dependent Convergence Protocol
TBCC Tail-Biting Convolutional Code
TBS Transport Block Size
TCXO Temperature-Compensated Crystal Oscillator
UE User Equipment
UL Upload Link
UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
USRP Universal Software Radio Peripheral
WCDMA Wide Band Code Division Multiple Access

vii
Symbols

𝑓1 Carrier frequency of transmitted signal

𝑓2 Carrier frequency of the received signal

𝛿𝑓/∆𝑓 Carrier frequency offset

∈𝐼 Integral component

∈𝑓 Fractional component

𝑓𝑠 Sub Carrier Spacing

𝜃 Phase shift

𝑇 Symbol length, time between two consecutive OFDM symbols

𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 FFT time; effective part of the OFDM symbol

𝑘 Index of transmitted and received symbol

𝑖 Index on Subcarrier

𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 Maximum excess delay of the channel

n(t) Additive White Gaussian Nosie (AWGN)

𝑇𝑠 ideal sampling time

N window interval

𝑁𝑔 window with guard interval

δ sampling clock offset

viii
Tables and Figures
List of Table
Table 1. NB-IoT link budget for in-band deployment [6]...................................... 6
Table 2. Latency Evaluation [8] ............................................................................. 7

Table 3. 4 bit CQI table [10] ................................................................................ 11

Table 4: Frequency and phase synchronization requirement for various cellular

technologies, need of compliance and impact of non-compliance [10]. .............. 13

Table 5. Clock errors and corresponding CFO for 640 MHz, 963 MHz and 1800
MHz. ..................................................................................................................... 33
Table 6. Statistics showing average retransmissions (R), number of packets
decoded and SINR for different clock error and MCS index............................... 35

Table 7. Statistics showing BLER and SINR for different clock error and MCS
index. .................................................................................................................... 38
Table 8. CFO, MCS and R (Avg.) at SINR ~ -5 dB ............................................ 41

Table 9. CFO, MCS and BLER at SINR ~ -5 dB ................................................ 45

Table 10. Modulation index and TBS index for PDSCH [10] ............................. 55
Table 11. Modulation, TBS index and redundancy version for PUSCH [10] ..... 56
Table 12. Specifications of USRP N2x0 from Ettus Research [28] .................... 57

Table 13. Specifications of internal GPSDO kit from Ettus Research [29] ......... 58

Table 14. Specifications of Signal Generator from Rhode and Schwartz [30] .... 59

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List of Figures

Figure 1. NB-IoT stand-alone deployment and LTE in-band and guard band
deployment. ............................................................................................................ 3

Figure 2. Time multiplexing between NB-IoT downlink physical channels and

signals. .................................................................................................................... 4

Figure 3. OFDM signals (a) single carrier (b) Multiple carrier ............................. 8

Figure 4. Frame structure of OFDM signal. ........................................................... 9

Figure 5.SC-FDMA localized subcarrier mode and distributed mode [9] ........... 10

Figure 6. OFDM signal with frequency offset 𝛿𝑓 causing ICI. The amplitude of
the desired sub-carrier is reduced (“+”) and ICI arises from the adjacent sub-
carrier (“O”). ......................................................................................................... 15
Figure 7. OFDM baseband receiver architecture for CFO compensation using
Phase locked loop (PLL) [15]............................................................................... 19

Figure 8. OFDM baseband receiver design using a frequency-domain

interpolator to compensate the CFO [15]. ............................................................ 19

Figure 9. (a) Sampling error due to sampling of transmitted signal 𝑥(𝑡) and
received signal 𝑧(𝑡) at different clock rates. (b) Received signal 𝑧(𝑡) is expanded
due to Doppler effect, resulting in sampling error even without clock rate
mismatch. .............................................................................................................. 20

Figure 10. Internal Architecture of USRP Device [16]. ....................................... 22

Figure 11. Time synchronous signal master-slave setup [21] .............................. 27

Figure 12. Digital oscilloscope Signals of master and slave at 10 MHz (scale:
200ns) ................................................................................................................... 28

Figure 13. Spectrum analyzer showing master signal center frequency at 10 MHz
.............................................................................................................................. 28

x
Figure 14. Overall setup for the measurement ..................................................... 30

Figure 15. Box plot showing distribution of R over SINR(γ) for clock error of 1
Hz. ......................................................................................................................... 36

Figure 16. Box plot showing distribution of R over SINR(γ) for clock error of 12
Hz. ......................................................................................................................... 36
Figure 17. (a) Plot showing SINR(γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for clock
error of 1 Hz. (b) Plot showing SINR(γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for clock
error of 12 Hz. ...................................................................................................... 37

Figure 18. Plot showing SINR(γ) vs BLER for clock error of 1 Hz. ................... 39
Figure 19. Plot showing SINR(γ) vs BLER for clock error of 12 Hz. ................. 39
Figure 20. BLER ranging for 0 to 1. (a) SINR(γ) vs BLER plot for clock error of
1 Hz. ...................................................................................................................... 40

(b) SINR(γ) vs BLER plot for clock error of 12 Hz............................................. 40

Figure 21. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 0. .. 42
Figure 22. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 3. .. 43

Figure 23. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 6. .. 44
Figure 24. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 0. ..................................... 45

Figure 25. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 3. ..................................... 46
Figure 26. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 6. ..................................... 47

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1. Introduction

The evolution of cellular technologies has made possible to connect everyone and everything
around the world. The concept of connecting things is being implemented in large scale through
the revolutionary concept known as Internet of things (IoT). The IoT aims to provide a platform
for connecting massive number of devices and people together. There are billions of devices
connected currently and Ericsson predicts that the connected devices will grow up to 28 billion by
2021 [2]. The enabling technologies for IoT that targets for reliable and massive connectivity such
as Device to Device (D2D) communications and Machine Type communication (MTC) are already
in the phase of research and implementation. There are several studies going on to combine cellular
networks with IoT technologies to support massive connection of devices and people with more
secure and reliable connection.

3GPP is collaborative group of telecommunication associations which is responsible to address

the development and maintenance of cellular technologies. 3GPP proposes the upgrades and
enhancements of technology through its release. There are several releases from 3GPP (Phase1,
Phase2, … Release 13) that proposes and plans for enhancements and developments of cellular
networks and technologies. 3GPP introduced first IoT specific User Equipment (UE) in Release
12 (Rel-12) known as LTE-Cat0 or LTE-M, after which it has continued to enhance IoT enabling
technologies from its upcoming releases. Recently, 3GPP Release 13 (Rel-13) addressed
advancements in Random Access Network (RAN) and introduced new technologies such as
enhanced MTC and NB-IoT (Narrow Band-Internet of Things) to support Cellular IoT. NB-IoT
focuses on Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) and its specifications are mainly addressed
to target low cost of devices, low power consumption, long range and ease of deployment which
makes it suitable candidate for IoT deployment. Besides NB-IoT, which is based on mobile
network compatible to GSM and 4G, there are some other technologies such as LoRa and SIGFOX
based on sub-GHZ spectrum that targets MTC and LPWAN. LoRa and SIGFOX uses unlicensed
spectrum. The key difference between licensed and unlicensed spectrum based technologies is the
quality of service (QoS) and interference related issues, that can be easily controlled in former case
but it is difficult to manage in later case.

The deployment of new technologies is challenging and several complex or unexpected issues
need to be addressed, analyzed and solved before commercializing it in large scale. Although,
recently released NB-IoT has many useful and promising features such as 20dB enhanced link
budget, low deployment cost and compatibility with legacy networks (4G and GSM) [1][2], it is
vulnerable to issues such as network synchronizations and clock offsets. NB-IoT targets to achieve
low cost of devices up to 5€ which hints the use of cheap oscillators that are poor in performance.
The quality of clock oscillators found in the devices greatly affect the synchronization issue in the
network. The mismatch of clock signal generated by the oscillators in UE and base stations
introduce clock error. The clock error gives rise to Carrier Frequency offset (CFO) and sampling
errors in the network and performance of radio link is greatly affected.

1
1.1 Objectives

The objective of this thesis is to measure the effect of clock error in the radio equipments (UE
and eNodeB) of NB-IoT and analyze performance of the radio link due to clock error. The similar
observation has been performed earlier in [8] using internal clock oscillator of USRPs (Universal
Software Radio Peripheral). The motivation for this work is to find out the sensitivity of the NB-
IoT system performance towards clock errors. For this purpose, external clock signal is fed to the
URSP devices. The clock errors are introduced in the system in a controlled manner to see the
impact of clock errors.

The thesis work measures and analyzes uplink signal informations, where UE and eNodeB are fed
with external clock signal. The NB-IoT system, that is implemented on Software Defined Radio
(SDR) based C-RAN testbed [8] is fed with external clock signal and measurements are collected
for analysis at various SINR and clock errors. The uplink transmission of packets is configured in
the system. The impact of clock error on performance of radio link has been measured for which
data analysis is performed for important parameters such as received power (Pr), Signal to
Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR), retransmissions (R), and Block Error Rate (BLER) for three
different Modulation and Coding scheme (MCS) Index. The parameters above reflect quality and
strength of a signal. Therefore, their analysis provides critical information about the radio link
performance. The performance impact is illustrated in chapter 4, which shows effect of clock error
in the system. Further, the clock error in the system leads to carrier frequency offset (CFO). The
change in clock error to the change in CFO is also studied in this thesis.

1.2 Structure of the Thesis

The thesis work is split into 6 chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the background materials related
to the NB-IoT and its performance issues, modulation schemes, MCS index, clock synchronization
and CFO. Chapter 3 describes setup and implementation of the measurement system. Similarly,
chapter 4 focuses on evaluation and analysis of measured data. Chapter 5 discusses the result of
this thesis work and Chapter 6 summarizes the thesis work and talks about further research towards
analysis of clock error impact.

2
2. Background

2.1 Narrow Band - Internet of Things (NB-IoT)

NB-IoT is a new technology introduced by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in its
Release 13 which is also known as LTE Advanced Pro. LTE Advanced pro also introduces other
new technology called eMTC (enhanced Machine Type Communication, often referred as LTE-
M). These technologies are introduced mainly to support IoT in future. NB-IoT aims to address
the requirements of IoT such as lower device cost (up to 5€ [1][2][3]), long battery life (up to
10 years [1][2][3]), extended coverage (link budget enhancement by 15-20 dB [1]), lower
deployment cost (minimum CAPEX and OPEX through software upgrade [1]) and massive
number of device support (up to 50,000 connections per cell [3]). Further, it aims to work with
both cellular (licensed spectrum) and non-cellular (unlicensed spectrum) IoT.

NB-IoT is specifically developed technology to support massive IoT deployment. It is simple

and has minimum features to reduce complexity. Several advance and even basics features of
LTE-A such as carrier aggregation, lack of handover in UEs in the connected state, dual
connectivity, or device to device services are not supported in NB-IoT. Moreover, cell
reselection is restricted in it. Therefore, NB-IoT technology is an approach to support services
and applications that are non-delay sensitive, can work with higher latency and requires
minimum Quality of Service (QOS) [4].

NB-IoT is typically developed to work in lower spectrum (less than 1 GHz) to achieve maximum
coverage and it occupies a bandwidth of only 180 KHz, which provides it a deployment
flexibility. NB-IoT carrier can possibly be deployed as standalone carrier in GSM band, in-band
and guard band carrier in LTE band. The standalone carrier deployment utilizes the new
bandwidth of 200KHz available in GSM band, guard-band carrier uses the reserved guard band
bandwidth of LTE band, whereas, in-band carrier uses or shares the same resource block of LTE
carrier [3].

Figure 1. NB-IoT stand-alone deployment and LTE in-band and guard band deployment.

3
The features of this new technology other than discussed above are use of FDD half-duplex
type-B duplex mode, increased UE transmit power of 23 dBm, data rate (instantaneous peak
rates) of up to 170 Kbps for downlink and 250 Kbps for uplink and 20 dB additional link budget
[1].

2.2 Narrow Band Downlink and Uplink Physical Channels

NB-IoT defines downlink channels and signals in following manner.

 Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal (NPSS) - It is used for performing cell
search which includes time and frequency synchronization and cell identity detection. It
is transmitted in sub frame #5 in every 10ms frame using the last 11 OFDM carriers in
the sub frame [5].
 Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal (NSSS) - It has similar function as
NPSS such as cell identity group detection and it is transmitted in sub frame #9 also
using the last 11 OFDM symbol in the sub frame and it has 20ms periodicity [5].
 Narrowband Physical Broadcasting Channel (NBPBC) - It carries the master information
block (MIB) and is transmitted in sub frame #0 in every 10ms frame [5].
 Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel (NPDCCH) - It carries scheduling
information for both uplink and downlink data channels. It also carries the HARQ
acknowledgement information for the uplink data channels as well as paging indication
and random access response (RAR) scheduling information [5].
 Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared Channel (NPDSCH) - It carries data from higher
layers and paging message, system information, and the RAR message. The maximum
transport block size of NPDSCH is 680 bits. NPDSCH and NPDCCH are allocated
various sub frames to carry information [5].
 Narrowband Reference Signal (NRS) - It is used to provide reference for the
demodulation of the downlink channels [5].
All the downlink channels use the LTE tail-biting convolutional code (TBCC) to reduce the
complexity of UE.

Figure 2. Time multiplexing between NB-IoT downlink physical channels and signals.

4
The uplink channels are defined as follows:
 Narrowband Physical Random Access Channel (NPRACH) - It has been newly designed
for NB-IoT as legacy LTE uses bandwidth of 1.08 MHz which is higher than total
bandwidth of NB-IoT i.e. 180 KHz. The preamble of NPRACH consists of 4 symbol
groups, each symbol group having one CP and 5 symbols. The CP length varies
according to format 0 and format 1 which corresponds to 66.67us for 10km of cell radius
and 266.7us for cell radius up to 40km. The waveform of NPRACH is referred to as
frequency hopping and to support coverage extension, the preamble can be repeated 128
times.
 Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel (NPUSCH) - It has two formats: Format
1 and Format 2. The former is used for carrying uplink data and maximum TBS is 1K
bits. It supports multi-tone transmission as legacy LTE and can allocate 12, 6, or 3 tones.
The latter is used for signaling HARQ acknowledgement for NPDSCH and uses a
repetition code for error correction. NPUSCH supports single-tone transmission based
on 15 KHz and 3.75 KHz carrier spacing, which uses 𝛱/2-BPSK or 𝛱/4-QPSK with
phase continuity between symbols to reduce PAPR [5][6][7].

2.3 Performance issues on NB-IoT

NB-IoT targets to support low cost device, long battery life of devices, extended coverage
and low deployment cost of the network and delay tolerant services and applications. The targets
can be achieved through several extensions and modifications added to LTE in Release 13 (Rel.
13) by 3GPP. There have been several studies on performance analysis of NB-IoT assuming
various parameters and system deployments. The overview of such analysis is described in brief
in this chapter.

A. Long Battery Life

The battery life of devices is aimed up to 10 years and more at Maximum coverage level with
Maximum Coupling Loss (MCL) of 164 and battery capacity of 5 watts. The studies have shown
that the long battery life is possible because of the long eDRX (enhanced Discontinuous
Reception) and power saving mode (PSM) [6]. eDRX allows UE to sleep up to 1000 seconds
while waking up periodically to check for paging while in PSM the UE is in power off or sleep
mode, registered to but not reachable by the network. Further, the studies show that estimated
battery life of 10.5 years and 16.8 years can be achieved if 200 bytes and 50 bytes is exchanged
daily between UE and eNodeB [6].

B. Extended coverage

NB-IoT goal is to achieve MCL of 164 dB by enhancing sensitivity by 20 dB, thus improving
the cell coverage. The link budget for NB-IoT in stand-alone and in-band mode from several
studies shows that MCL of 164 dB is achievable for the channels considered using Rel. 13
features. In in-band deployment, 46 dBm power is available at eNodeB in download for LTE

5
and NB-IoT, out of which 35 dBm is used for NB-IoT (corresponding to 6 dB power boosting
of baseline). The downlink and uplink data rate in application layer is 0.40 kbps and 0.27 kbps.
The link budget for in-band deployment is shown below [6].

Table 1. NB-IoT link budget for in-band deployment [6]

Channel NPBCH NPDCCH NPDSCH NPRACH NPUSCH

Transport block size (bits 256 696 696
Number of resource units 10 10 10
Transmission time (ms) 640 2560 2560
Subcarrier spacing (KHz) 15 15 15 3.75 15 3.75
No of subcarrier 12 12 12 1 1 1
Max Tx power (dBm) 46 46 46 23 23 23
Actual Tx power (dBm) 35 35 35 23 23 23
Thermal noise density -174 -174 -174 -174 -174 -174
(dBm/Hz)
Receiver noise figure (dB) 5 5 5 3 3 3
Interference margin (dB) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Occupied channel BW 180,000 180,000 180,000 3,750 15,000 3,750
(Hz)
Effective noise power -116.4 -116.4 -116.4 -135.3 -129.2 -135.3
(dBm)
Required SINR (dB) -12.6 -13.0 -12.8 -5.8 -11.9 -5.5
Receiver sensitivity -129.0 -129.4 -130.1 -141.1 -141.1 -140.8
(dBm)
MCL (dB) 164.0 164.4 164.3 164.1 164.1 163.8

C. Low device cost

The main factor for cost of devices is complexity of the network. The complexity of the systems
increases as their performance is optimized. 3GPP recent releases, Rel. 12 and Rel.13 have
introduced a lower complexity and simpler device categories to support IoT and M2M. The
lower data rates of 170 kbps (DL) and 250 kbps (UL), half duplex mode, bandwidth of 180 KHz,
1 antenna UE features in NB-IoT has greatly reduced the complexity and cost of the devices and
it is possible to produce devices less than 5€. Further, the lower power device of 20/23 dBm
allows integration of power amplifiers in a single chip and mass production of it highly reduces
the device cost [1].

D. Capacity

The NB-IoT aims to connect massive number of devices and the target is to support nearly 52000
devices within a cell-site. The studies show that a cell-site sector per NB-IoT carrier can support

6
250,000 devices and additional devices can supported through multiple carrier. The studies are
based on traditional macro system simulation with 19-site, 57-cell system setup with wrap
around interference allocation [6][7].

E. Latency

The target of NB-IoT is to support services that are non-delay sensitive and can tolerate latency
of up to 10 seconds. The analysis from studies shows that latency of 9.9 seconds can be achieved
with 99.9% confidence. The latency report is assumed to consist 20 bytes application report, 65
bytes upper layer protocol header and 15 bytes of SNDCP/LLC/RLC/MAC/CRC overhead [8].
The below table shows the time used in calculating the latency which includes synchronization,
master information block acquisition, random access (including wait time), uplink scheduling
grant and data transmission targeting 99% confidence level [6].

Table 2. Latency Evaluation [8]

Activity Stand-alone In-band

Synchronization 520 1110
MIB acquisition 640 1920
PRACH 1440 1440
Wait 572 1440
DCI + RAR 72 288
Msg3 349 349
DCI + Msg4 83 299
DCI (UL grant) 45 153
UL Data Tx (99% confidence) 2883 2883
Total Latency 6604 9882

F. Low deployment cost

The reuse of existing network (LTE and GSM) can greatly reduce the deployment cost of NB-
IoT network. Further, the simple software upgradation on the existing LTE network without the
need of reinstalling hardware will reduce the deployment cost of NB-IoT network with higher
coverage than existing LTE network [1]. The LTE network and NB-IoT can use the same
hardware and share spectrum without running into coexistence problems because of is different
deployment modes (in-band, guard-band and stand-alone) [1].

7
2.4 OFDMA and SCFDMA Modulation in LTE and NB-IoT

The physical layer for NB-IoT inherits features from legacy LTE OFDMA download with
subcarrier spacing of 15 KHz. There are 12 subcarriers for a bandwidth of 180 KHz in case of
NB-IoT which is equal to one Physical Resource Block (PRB) of LTE. This makes NB-IoT
compatible with LTE OFDMA symbol structures and both technologies can coexist together.
Further, frame, sub frame and slot duration of 10ms, 1ms and 0.5ms is identical to legacy LTE.
Slot format in terms of cyclic prefix (CP) and number of OFDMA symbols per slot is also
identical to LTE.

The uplink transmission supports SCFDMA with subcarrier spacing of 15 KHz and 3.75 KHz
with single-tone and multi-tone transmission. The single-tone supports both 15 KHz and 3.75
KHz. 15 KHz transmission being inherited from LTE with same slot and sub frame time of
0.5ms and 1 ms while 3.75 KHz uses 2ms slot duration. The multi-tone uses only 15 KHz
subcarrier spacing having same block format as LTE. The orthogonality between subcarrier is
maintained in 15 KHz subcarrier spacing which makes NB-IoT best for coexistence with LTE.
In 3.75 KHz subcarrier spacing, the orthogonality is bit difficult to achieve. The bandwidth of
the channel is 180 KHz, which is same as downlink and the number of subcarriers for 15 KHz
and 3.75 KHz spacing is 12 and 48.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation, which

divides the available bandwidth into many subcarriers and transmits the data in each of the
subcarrier. The subcarriers maintain orthogonality between each other thus eliminating inter-
carrier interference (ICI). The data is transmitted over each subcarrier in parallel stream with
each subcarrier being modulated separately using various level of modulation (i.e. QPSK, QAM,
64QAM) depending on signal quality. Therefore, each OFDM symbol is the linear combination
of instantaneous signal on each of the subcarrier in the channel.

(a) (b)
Figure 3. OFDM signals (a) single carrier (b) Multiple carrier

8
The OFDM symbols consists of two major components, cyclic prefix (CP) and data where CP
is used to eliminate inter symbol interference (ISI). Further, OFDM subcarriers are closely
spaced to make efficient use of available bandwidth which increases the spectral efficiency of
the system.

The multiple access technique used in downlink in legacy LTE and NB-IoT is OFDMA. The
users are allocated a specific number of subcarriers (PRB) for a predetermined amount of time.
PRB has both time and frequency dimensions and allocation of PRB is determined by base
station (eNodeB) of LTE. Each resource block has a bandwidth of 180 KHz and there are 12
subcarriers with spacing of 15 KHz. The number of available PRB’s varies according to the
bandwidth of the LTE spectrum. The generic frame structure of LTE has a period of 10ms. The
frame consists of sub-frames with duration of 1ms and each sub-frame is divided into two slots
of 0.5ms. Slots consist of either 6 or 7 OFDM symbols depending on whether normal or
extended CP is applied. A PRB consists of 12 consecutive subcarriers for one slot (0.5ms) and
it is the smallest unit assigned by the base station.

Figure 4. Frame structure of OFDM signal.

There are several advantages of OFDM over single carrier modulation such as high spectral
efficiency, robust against ISI and fading channels. This makes OFDMA a good access technique
for LTE. However, OFDM suffers from high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) and it is
susceptible to carrier frequency errors due to local oscillators and Doppler effects.

OFDMA is widely used in downlink of LTE because of its advantages. The high PAPR of
OFDM makes it however a bad choice for uplink since the requirements of uplink varies in
several ways from downlink. The power consumption is one of the main issue for UE terminals

9
and with high PAPR and loss of efficiency, OFDM is replaced by an alternative access technique
called SC-FDMA.

SC-FDMA is widely adopted for LTE and E-UTRA for the uplink transmission because of low
PAPR and reduced cost of power amplifier. SC-FDMA transmission is similar to that of
OFDMA, where data is transmitted over the air interface in many subcarriers. The orthogonality
of the subcarriers is maintained by the addition of the cyclic prefix. In SC-FDMA, the
information of each bits is spread over all the subcarrier with the use of an additional DFT block
before the subcarrier mapping. The subcarriers are thus set of non-overlapping Fourier
coefficients. This leads to a single-carrier transmit signal that distinguishes SC-FDMA from
OFDMA, which is a multi-carrier transmission scheme. The subcarriers are not modulated
individually in SC-FDMA, which results in low PAPR than OFDMA.

SC-FDMA has similar generic frame structure as OFDMA with frame, sub-frame and slot
duration of 10ms, 1ms and 0.5ms with CP preceded in the SC-FDMA symbols. The SC-FDMA
subcarrier mapping can be classified in two ways, localized mode and distributed mode. In
localized mode, the assigned discrete subcarriers are mapped consecutively confined to fraction
of total bandwidth whereas in distributed mode, the subcarriers are mapped non-consecutively
over the entire bandwidth. The localized mode is preferred over distributed mode in LTE uplink
transmission because of its higher performance and possibility to exploit frequency selective
gain via channel dependent scheduling (CDS) [9].

Figure 5.SC-FDMA localized subcarrier mode and distributed mode [9]

2.5 Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS)

MCS index value describes modulation types and coding rate that is applied in a channel.
The MCS is a combination of number of spatial streams + modulation type + coding rate. The
spatial streams can range from 1 to 4, resulting higher throughput for larger value. The
modulation type can be QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM as defined in the MCS index value. The
coding rate can be ½, ¾, ⅚ corresponding to that one redundancy bit is inserted for every single,
third and fifth bits of data. The higher MCS value indicates higher data rate and more bits per
symbol. The MCS index are standardized by the IEEE and 3GPP for various technologies during
their release. The Table 3 below shows 4-bit Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) from the 3GPP
release 8. The modulation and TBS index table for PDSCH and PUSCH can be found in
appendix A.

10
 Table 3. 4 bit CQI table [10]

CQI index modulation code rate * 1024 efficiency

0 out of range
1 QPSK 78 0.1523
2 QPSK 120 0.2344
3 QPSK 193 0.3770
4 QPSK 308 0.6019
5 QPSK 449 0.8770
6 QPSK 602 1.1758
7 16QAM 378 1.4766
8 16QAM 490 1.9141
9 16QAM 616 2.4063
10 64QAM 466 2.7305
11 64QAM 567 3.3223
12 64QAM 666 3.9023
13 64QAM 772 4.5234
14 64QAM 873 5.1152
15 64QAM 948 5.5547

2.6 Clock synchronization

All devices in a network (wired or wireless) needs to be clock synchronized for better
functioning of the network. Every device in a network has their own clock oscillator and each
clock has its own offset and drift. It is important in a network to implement a proper channel
and protocol to keep all device synchronized in time. The devices should have proper
communication between each other and with the central station (base station) to keep themselves
aware of the clock offset and maintain it accordingly to maintain synchronization.
Synchronization in telecommunications networks is the process of aligning the time scales of
transmission and switching equipment so equipment operations occur at the correct time and in
the correct order. Synchronization requires the receiver clock to acquire and track the periodic
timing information in a transmitted signal.

Poor synchronization in digital networks can lead to problems such as:

 Block retransmission
 Deletion or repetition of data
 Loss of voice or data transmission
 High Energy consumption of UE as it tries to synchronize with eNodeB
 Partial or complete traffic stoppage

11
Synchronization of signal can be performed with respect to frequency, phase and time.
Frequency synchronization is achieved easily as there are many systems and devices to produce
nearly identical frequencies. Phase and time synchronization requires high accuracy and stability
which makes them difficult to achieve and makes system complicated. The synchronization
techniques are briefly explained below.

Frequency synchronization

It is a process where two clock signal pulse are aligned in terms of repeating interval in
frequency but not in terms of phase or time.

In NB-IoT testbed used in this thesis, clock signals synchronization is achieved by two
sinusoidal signal having same frequency.

Phase synchronization

Two clock signals are aligned in terms of repeating interval in frequency and phase (one second
interval) but without a common time of origin.

Time synchronization

The clock signals have common time origin and they are frequency and phase synchronized.

Time synchronization can partly be related to frame synchronization of two OFDM signals in
our system (NB-IoT testbed). OFDM frames are aligned from the same starting moment
common time origin).

The synchronized signal becomes more precise and accurate when it is synchronized in
frequency, phase and time.

Depending on various technologies and applications, the synchronization precision varies. The
below table shows the synchronization requirement for various technologies, why
synchronization is needed and the effect of not meeting the synchronization.

12
 Table 4: Frequency and phase synchronization requirement for various cellular technologies,
need of compliance and impact of non-compliance [10].

Technologies Frequency Phase Need for compliance Impact or effect

Network/ Air of non-
interface compliance

GSM, UMTS, WCDMA 16 ppb/ 50 ppb --- ----- ----

CDMA2000 16 ppb/ 50 ppb ±3.5us to ±10us ------ -----

LTE-FDD 16 ppb / 50 ppb ---- Call initiation Call inter-

ference and
dropped calls

LTE-TDD 16 ppb / 50 ppb ±1.5us (<3km Time slot alignment Packet loss /co-
cell radius) ±5us llisions and
(>3kmcellradius) spectral
inefficiency

LTE MBMS 16 ppb / 50 ppb +-10us (inter- ---- -----

(LTE-FDD and LTE- cell time
TDD) difference)
LTE-Advanced(LTE-A) 16 ppb / 50 ppb +-1.5us to +-5us ---- ----

LTE-A MBSFN 16 ppb / 50 ppb +-1.5us to +-5us Proper time Video broad-
alignment of video cast interrupt
signal decoding from
multiple BTSs

LTE-A MIMO/COMP 16 ppb / 50 ppb +-1.5us to +-5us Coordination of Poor signal

signals to/from quality at edge
multiple BS of cells, LBS
accuracy

LTE-A eICIC 16 ppb / 50 ppb +-1.5us to +-5us Interference Spectral

coordination inefficiency and
service
degradation

It is understood from above table that synchronization is needed for more reliable and efficient
network and services. The unsynchronized networks and devices can lead to various undesirable
effects such as packet drops, call interference, spectral inefficiencies and poor signal quality.
The new cellular technologies are getting more advanced and so does it network complexity

13
with the need of highly synchronized network signal to fulfill the demands of end user customers
with new applications and services.

The mobile cellular technologies such as 2G, 3G and LTE-FDD requires only frequency
synchronization with accuracy within 50 ppb at the radio interface [10]. The latest and advanced
cellular technologies such as LTE-TDD and LTE-A has added phase and time synchronization
requirement as well, which is difficult to acquire. There are several synchronization methods to
achieve nearly perfect synchronization in the mobile networks such as GNSS everywhere, PTP
with boundary clock and PTP profile with full on/path support. These topics are not discussed
in detail as they are out of scope of this thesis. The network synchronization in a mobile system
is a huge topic itself and requires a thorough learning and understanding while this thesis only
tries to get the basics of clock synchronization in a small network.

2.7 Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO)

Carrier Frequency offset (CFO) is the difference between transmitter and receiver local
oscillator frequency. The transmitters and receivers have their own local oscillators and they
never oscillate at identical frequency. This results in two peak carrier frequencies, one of which
is not the original signal transmitted. This can lead to inter carrier interference (ICI) in OFDM
system and destroy the orthogonality of carrier signals and also degrade the bit error rate (BER).
Further, CFO is also produced when transmitter or receiver is moving which is known as
Doppler Effect. Generally, the effect of oscillator mismatch in CFO is higher than the Doppler
Effect.

The complex baseband equivalent model of the transmitted signal is 𝑥𝑡 (𝑡) = 𝑥(𝑡)𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝑓1 𝑡 , where
x(t) is time variant, multipath fading channel and 𝑓1 is the carrier frequency of transmitted signal.
At receiver, the received signal can have different carrier frequency 𝑓2 due to mismatch of the
local oscillator frequency of transmitter and receiver. The mathematical expression of the
received signal is 𝑟𝑡 (𝑡) = 𝑟(𝑡)𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝑓2 𝑡 , where 𝑟(𝑡) is time invariant multipath fading channel
and 𝑓2 is the carrier frequency of received signal. The carrier frequency offset 𝛿𝑓 is therefore
the difference between carrier frequency of transmitted and received signal, [𝛿𝑓 = 𝑓2 − 𝑓1 ].

In a standard-compliant communication system, such as IEEE 802.11 the oscillators have

tolerance values of around ±20ppm to produce as much identical frequency as possible. The
CFO produced can be -40ppm to 40ppm. For example, if a transmitter oscillator is oscillating at
20ppm above nominal frequency and receiver oscillator is oscillating at 20ppm below, then the
CFO is 40ppm. With 2.4 GHz, the CFO is ±96KHz. It is often preferred to denote high frequency
errors in parts per million (ppb) or parts per billion (ppb) rather than in Hz. Error in Hz can be
(𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦) ∗ 106 )
converted to ppm .
(𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦)

14
2.8 Carrier Synchronization Error

OFDM signal suffers from frequency offset which is typically introduced by frequency
mismatch in the local oscillator of transmitter and receiver. The offset is also produced by the
Doppler Effect when the transmitter or receiver is moving. The offset caused by the carrier
synchronization error gives rise to Inter Carrier Interference in OFDM.

The impact of a frequency error can be seen as an error in the frequency instances, where the
received signal is sampled during the demodulation by the FFT. Figure 6 depicts this two fold
effect. The amplitude of the desired SC is reduced (“+”), and ICI arises from the adjacent SCs
(“O”).

Figure 6. OFDM signal with frequency offset 𝛿𝑓 causing ICI. The amplitude of the desired
sub-carrier is reduced (“+”) and ICI arises from the adjacent sub-carrier (“O”).

A received signal with frequency shift 𝛿𝑓and a phase offset θ can be mathematically represented
by

𝑟 ′ (𝑡) = 𝑟(𝑡)𝑒 𝑗(2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑡+𝜃) (1)

Where 𝑟(𝑡) is a time-variant, multipath fading channel expressed as

𝜏
𝑟(𝑡) = ℎ(𝜏, 𝑡) ∗ 𝑠(𝑡) + 𝑛(𝑡) = ∫0 𝑚𝑎𝑥 ℎ(𝜏, 𝑡)𝑠(𝑡 − 𝜏)𝑑𝜏 + 𝑛(𝑡) , (2)

15
ℎ(𝜏, 𝑡) is the channel impulse response (CIR), 𝑠(𝑡) is the complex envelope of the OFDM
transmitted signal which is expressed as

𝑠(𝑡) = ∑∞
𝑘=−∞ 𝑆𝑘 (𝑡 − 𝑘𝑇) , (3)

and 𝑛(𝑡) is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN).

The “*” denoted convolution and the range of integration in the above equation (2) has been
limited to [0,𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 ] as CIR is zero elsewhere. 𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum excess delay of the channel.

The received signal constellation denoted by 𝑦𝑖,𝑘 thus can be expressed as

𝑘𝑇+𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑗2𝜋𝑖(𝑡−𝑘𝑇)
1 −
𝑦𝑖,𝑘 = ∫ 𝑟(𝑡) 𝑒 𝑗(2𝜋𝛿𝑓+𝜃) 𝑒 𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑑𝑡
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑡=𝑘𝑇
𝑘𝑇+𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥
𝑗(2𝜋𝜃)
1
= 𝑒 ∫ [ ∫ ℎ(𝜏, 𝑡) 𝑠(𝑡 − 𝜏) 𝑑𝜏
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑡=𝑘𝑇 0
𝑗2𝜋𝑖(𝑡−𝑘𝑇)
−
+ 𝑛(𝑡)] 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑡 𝑒 𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑑𝑡
(4)

The symbols above are described below:

𝑇 Symbol length, time between two consecutive OFDM symbols,

𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 FFT time; effective part of the OFDM symbol;
𝑘 Index of transmitted and received symbol;
𝑖 Index on Subcarrier;
𝑦𝑖,𝑘 Received Signal constellation point, complex symbol modulated on the ith subcarrier
of the kth OFDM symbol.

Further, taking into account the transmitted signal constellation 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 and channel
coefficients ℎ𝑖′,𝑘 ,

𝑁
−1
2
1 𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑖−𝑖 ′
𝑗(𝜃+2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑘𝑇) −𝑗2𝜋( −𝛿𝑓)𝑢
𝑦𝑖,𝑘 = 𝑒 ∑ 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 ℎ𝑖,𝑘 ∫ 𝑒 𝑇 𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑑𝑢 + 𝑛𝑖,𝑘
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑢=0
𝑁
𝑖=
2
(5)

16
The integer in the equation (5) is not equal to zero for 𝑖 ≠ 𝑖′; nor for ideal case 𝑖 = 𝑖′, due to
frequency error, which implies that the subcarriers have partly lost their orthogonality. The
evaluation of above expression yields two terms. The first (𝑖 = 𝑖′) term accounts for equal phase
rotation and attenuation of all subcarriers while the second term (𝑖 ≠ 𝑖′) describes ICI.

𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
𝑗(𝜃+2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑘𝑇)
1
𝑦𝑖,𝑘 = 𝑒 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 ℎ𝑖,𝑘 ∫ 𝑒 −𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑢 𝑑𝑢
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑢=0
𝑁
−1
2
1 𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑖−𝑖 ′
−𝑗2𝜋( −𝛿𝑓)𝑢
+ 𝑒 𝑗(𝜃+2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑘𝑇) ∑ 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 ℎ𝑖,𝑘 ∫ 𝑒 𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑑𝑢
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑢=0
𝑁
𝑖=
2
+ 𝑛𝑖,𝑘
(6)

The above expressions are valid for a frequency offset of 𝛿𝑓 < 0.5 sub-carrier. For larger
offsets, the transmitted symbol 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 gets shifted by one or more positions in the frequency
direction, which implies that the ith transmitted data would be seen at (𝑖 + 𝛿𝑓𝑖 )-th subcarrier of
𝛿𝑓
receiver, where 𝛿𝑓𝑖 = ⌊ 𝐹 ⌋ is the integer part of the frequency error in subcarriers.

Further evaluating the equation (6), we get,

𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
𝑦𝑖,𝑘 = 𝑥𝑖,𝑘 ℎ𝑖,𝑘 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐(𝛿𝑓𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 ) exp {𝑗 [𝜃 + 2𝜋𝛿𝑓 (𝑘𝑇 + )]} + 𝑛′𝑖,𝑘
2
(7)

using

𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
1 1
∫ 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑡 𝑑𝑡 = [𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 − 1]
𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑡=0 𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
sin 𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
= 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋𝛿𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇 = 𝑒 𝑗𝜋𝛿𝑓𝐹𝐹𝑇 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐 𝛿𝑓𝐹𝐹𝑇
𝜋𝛿𝑓𝑇𝐹𝐹𝑇
(8)

The noise term 𝑛′𝑖,𝑘 in (7) includes the additional due to ICI [27].

17
2.9 Phase Locked Loop (PLL) CFO Compensation Techniques
As discussed above, synchronization errors such as CFO leads to Inter Carrier Interference
(ICI) and to suppress it, CFO compensation is mandatory in the receiver synchronization system.
The compensation/estimation of synchronization errors can either be done in time domain or in
frequency domain. It is necessary to consider transmissions types, system resources, latency,
compensation/estimation accuracy and other factors before using compensation techniques.

In OFDM receivers, the CFO estimation/compensation blocks are phase locked loops. The
Time-Domain Derotator and Frequency-Domain Interpolator are two compensation techniques
used in OFDM baseband receiver systems which are discussed in detail below. To add in brief,
the integer CFO estimation can be done with various algorithms such as time domain correlation,
frequency-domain auto-correlation, frequency-domain cross-correlation and frequency-domain
PN correlator. The residual CFO can be estimated using Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator
which is popular in MIMO-OFDM systems.

The received continuous time signal is rotated by constant frequency and is in the form,

𝑍𝑖,𝑛 = 𝑍(𝑡) 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋∆𝑓𝑡 |𝑡=𝑖(𝑁+𝑁𝑔 )𝑇𝑠 +𝑁𝑔 𝑇𝑠 +𝑛𝑇𝑠

where, ∆𝑓 is the carrier frequency offset. The CFO can be first normalized with respect to sub
carrier spacing (𝑓𝑠 = 1/ (𝑁𝑇𝑠 )) and then decomposed into integral component (∈𝐼 ) and
fractional component (∈𝑓 ), that is, ∆𝑓 = (∈𝐼 +∈𝑓 ) 𝑓𝑠 and -0.5 < 𝑓𝑠 < 0.5.

In equation 6, ICI arises due to fractional CFO, ∈𝑓 . In AWGN channel when the number of
subcarrier is large, the SNR degradation due to fractional CFO, 𝐷𝑆𝑁𝑅 , is given by

10 𝐸𝑠
𝐷𝑆𝑁𝑅 ≈ (𝜋 ∈𝑓 )2 (dB).
3 ln 10 𝑁0

To suppress the ICI and thereby reduce SNR degradation, the residual CFO must be sufficiently
small. For example, when using 64 QAM constellation, it is better to keep residual CFO below
0.01 𝑓𝑠 to ensure that 𝐷𝑆𝑁𝑅 < 0.3 dB for moderate SNR. On the other hand, when QPSK is used,
residual CFO can be up to 0.03 𝑓𝑠 [15].

A Time-Domain Derotator is commonly used to compensate CFO and to limit residual CFO.
The derotator is simply a complex multiplier, which rotates the complex-valued input by a phase
shift. The phase derotation is controlled by numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) and is fed
to the multiplier as sine or cosine values of the phase. To remove CFO completely, NCO should
run at a frequency negative to CFO contained in the received signal but this is not possible as
CFO is varying and hidden in the signal with noise and interference. Normally, PLL is adopted
in the receiver for estimating and compensating the CFO. Through the feedback loop, the
residual error can be maintained at certain limit and the receiver is synchronized with the carrier.

18
 Figure 7. OFDM baseband receiver architecture for CFO compensation using Phase locked
loop (PLL) [15].

Figure 7 above shows one baseband receiver for CFO compensation. The CFO estimator in the
design is a frequency domain CFO estimator which estimates CFO continuously mixed with
noise and interference. The loop filter is used to remove unwanted components and the filtered
signal is sent to the NCO, which outputs the digital sinusoidal signal to the complex multiplier.

Another CFO compensation receiver design uses Frequency-Domain Interpolator, which avoids
long delays produced by the DFT and bit reversal blocks in the CFO time-domain compensation.
The phase rotator used in time- domain is insufficient to be used for frequency-domain receiver
signal, since the signal could be corrupted with severe ICI. Therefore, the interpolator is used,
which interpolates among the received frequency-domain signals to get signals at the exact
frequencies and thereby mitigating ICI. Figure 8 below shows such a receiver design [15].

Figure 8. OFDM baseband receiver design using a frequency-domain interpolator to

compensate the CFO [15].

19
2.10 Sampling Clock offset (SCO)

SCO occurs when there is mismatch in oscillator frequency and Doppler Effect. The SCO is
similar to CFO as they both originate from the same (oscillator mismatch and Doppler Effect).
SCO arises when mismatched frequencies from oscillators are used to drive the sampling clocks
of digital to analog convertor (DAC) in transmitter and analog to digital converter (ADC) in
receiver. Sometimes, even without sample clock mismatch, the sampled waveform still suffers
from error in sampling time because of the movement of transmitter or receiver. The movement
of transmitter or receiver causes the waveform to contract or expand in time. This results in
Doppler Effect. Figure 9 below shows the sampling error due to frequency mismatch and
Doppler Effect.

(a) (b)

Figure 9. (a) Sampling error due to sampling of transmitted signal 𝑥(𝑡) and received signal 𝑧(𝑡)
at different clock rates. (b) Received signal 𝑧(𝑡) is expanded due to Doppler effect, resulting in
sampling error even without clock rate mismatch.

Figure 9 (a) depicts the sampling error due to different clock rates of transmitted and received
signal, which causes the received signal to be sampled at time instances that are progressively
skewing. Figure 9 (b) shows sampling error due to Doppler Effect as motion between transmitter
and receiver causes the signal waveform to expand or contract in time.

Mathematically, if the received is sampled at interval of (1+δ) 𝑇𝑠 instead of ideal 𝑇𝑠 , then the nth
received sample of the ith symbol can be written as

𝑍𝑖,𝑛 = 𝑍(𝑡)|𝑡=𝑖(𝑁+𝑁𝑔 )(1+𝛿)𝑇𝑠 +𝑁𝑔 (1+𝛿)𝑇𝑠+𝑛(1+𝛿)𝑇𝑠 ′ for n= −𝑁𝑔 , … … . . , 𝑁 − 1. (1)

where,
𝑇𝑠 = ideal sampling time,
N = window interval,

20
 𝑁𝑔 = window with guard interval,
δ = sampling clock offset.

Assuming that there is no ISI contamination in DFT window, the 𝑘𝑡ℎ frequency-domain
received signal of the 𝑖𝑡ℎ symbol is given by,
sin(𝜋𝛿𝑘) 𝑖(𝑁+𝑁𝑔 )+𝑁𝑔 𝑁−1
𝑍𝑖,𝑘 = 𝑋𝑖,𝑘 𝐻𝑘 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋 𝑁
𝛿𝑘
𝑒 𝑗𝜋 𝑁 𝛿𝑘
𝜋𝛿𝑘
𝑁𝑠𝑖𝑛 (
𝑁 )
𝑁
−1
2 sin(𝜋((1 + 𝛿)𝑙 − 𝑘) 𝑖(𝑁+𝑁𝑔 )+𝑁𝑔 𝑁−1
𝑋𝑖,𝑙 𝐻𝑙 𝑒 𝑗2𝜋 𝑁
𝛿𝑙
𝑒𝑗 𝜋 𝑁
[(1+𝛿)𝑙−𝑘]
+ ∑ 𝜋((1 + 𝛿)𝑙 − 𝑘)
𝑁 𝑁𝑠𝑖𝑛( 𝑁
𝑙=− ,𝑙≠𝑘
2
+ 𝑛𝑖,𝑘
(2)

where,
𝑋𝑖,𝑘 = kth complex-valued frequency-domain signal of the ith symbol,
𝐻𝑘 = channel frequency response,
𝑛𝑖,𝑘 = channel noise component in the 𝑘𝑡ℎ subcarrier of the 𝑖𝑡ℎ symbol.

The first term in the received signals (equation 2) clearly shows that the sampling offset, δ,
causes phase shift and magnitude attenuation in the transmitted signal. The above equation also
depicts that phase shift has constant increment proportional to k and δ as symbol index i
increases. Moreover, ICI is also introduced in the above equation (2), which is represented by
the second term [15].

21
2.11 Software Defined Radio (SDR)

Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system that replaces partially or

fully traditionally implemented hardwares (e.g. mixers, amplifiers, modulator/demodulator,
detectors) by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system. SDR can model
and control complicated analog RF tasks, such as modulation and demodulation, simply by
using software and programming environments.

USRP N200 series is a high performance USRP device designed and produced by Ettus research
that provides high bandwidth and high dynamic range. It operates from DC to 6 GHz. Data
streaming and programming of device can be done through gigabit Ethernet port. It provides
sampling rate up to 50 MS/s to and from host applications.

USRP hardware

Figure 10. Internal Architecture of USRP Device [16].

22
The main hardware inside a USRP unit mainly consists of a Field-Programmable Gate
Array (FPGA) with Digital Signal Processing (DSP) functionality. Furthermore, the hardware
includes multiple high-speed ADCs for sampling a received signal and high-speed DACs for
generating a signal for transmission. The FPGA configures a local oscillator to the desired
carrier frequency and processes the samples to and from the DACs and ADCs from the incoming
or outgoing data on the Ethernet link. Some of the USRP modules include a high-precision clock
as the clock reference. The USRP module has two options for clock reference: internal GPS
disciplined oscillator (GPSDO) or external reference clock signal. In general, the USRP main
hardware supports any carrier frequency between DC and 6 GHz usually, only limited by the
actual RF frontend.

The USRP N200-KIT module used within this document has following specifications:

 ADCs: 100 MS/s 14-bit

 DACs: 400 MS/s 16-bit
 Mixer: programmable decimation- and interpolation factors
 Max. BW: 50 MHz
 PC connection: Gigabit Ethernet connectivity
 RF range: DC – 5.9 GHz, defined through RF daughterboard

The architecture of the software radio in Fig.10, common reference and system clock drives
both daughter board (Tx/Rx clk) and ADC/DAC (ADC/DAC clk) hardware section of USRP
unit. The ADC/DAC unit is responsible for sampling incoming and outgoing signals and
daughter board transmits and receives radio signal at desired carrier frequencies. Thus, same
reference clock signal affects carrier frequency as well as sampling frequency in USRP unit.
Therefore, when feeding external clock with errors to the USRP units, the CFO and sampling
errors occurs in the signal generated. The CFO and sampling errors correlate each other since
they have common reference clock signal and thus compensation of these errors is difficult.

USRP Clock Precision

USRP needs a reference clock source that distributes the clock signals to the functional
components such as ADC, DAC, FPGA, motherboard and daughterboard. The standard
reference clock source frequency is 10 MHz. It is important that the reference clock source is
precise and accurate so that the devices and components works with exact same frequency and
time.

The USRP used in this thesis work is N2x0 which is manufactured by Ettus Research. Ettus
research specializes in Software Defined Radios (SDR) systems. Ettus produces broad range of
USRPs some of which are USRP X series (USRP X300, USRP X310), USRP Networked series
(N200, N210) and USRP E series (310, 312, 313). Each of the USRPs have key features and
specifications and they can be selected that fulfills the research requirements. This thesis work
uses USRP Networked series (N200, N210) because of its features such as RF range up to 6

23
GHz, bandwidth of 40 MHz, gigabit Ethernet interface, MIMO capability and external clock
reference. The USRP platform addresses a wide range of RF applications from DC to 6 GHz.

The key features of N2x0 in terms of reference clock source are as follows:
 it has ability to lock to external 5 or 10 MHz clock reference,
 it has temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) frequency reference which
provides accuracy of 2.5 ppm.
 It also has an optional internal GPS locked reference oscillator (GPSDO) which provides
accuracy of 0.01 ppm.

The reference and system clock generation block of USRP architecture takes the reference clock
source from one of the source (external, TCXO and GPSDO) and distributes the clock signals
to FPGA block, ADC/DAC block and daughter board. The clock signal is essential to these
blocks as processing and sampling is done in every pulse or edge of the clock signal. The signal
processing, sampling and trans receiving of signals are all driven by reference clock signals.
Therefore, precise clock signal source is required for best performance of the USRP.

The external reference clock signal can be connected to USPR through SMA Ext Ref. Pulse Per
Second (PPS) signal can also be provided to USRP through SMA 1 PPS. The reference clock
requires power level of 0 to 15 dB for N2x0 and if PPS signal is used then amplitude required
is 3.3 to 5Vpp. In this thesis work, external reference clock signal is used which is generated
from signal generators. The standard 10 MHz clock signal is generated from signal generators
and it is fed as external clock signal to USRP. The precision of signal produced by signal
generators is 0.01 ppm (1 ∗ 10−8 ) since they use oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) as
internal clock oscillator [30].

Similarly, USRP internal oscillator TCXO can also be used as a clock signal reference which
provides precision of up to 2.5 ppm [28]. The standard 10 MHz clock signal is generated by
TCXO and distributed throughout the USRP blocks. The fact that internal oscillator is not used
in this thesis is because the clock signal frequencies cannot be varied for two USRPs to produce
clock errors between them.

USRPs also have an option to use GPSDO to provide clock signals to USRP blocks. This option
is available in newer and advanced USRPs and N2x0 also has this option. GPSDO provides
accuracy of up to 0.01 ppm [29]. The GPSDO has a combination of GPS receiver and high stable
oscillator such as quartz or rubidium oscillator. The output is controlled to agree with signal
broadcast by GPS or GNSS satellites.

A GPS antenna is required to be attached to USRP to receive GPS signals if GPSDO is used as
reference clock. By default, if GPSDO is detected at startup, the USRP is configured to use it as
a frequency and time reference. The internal oscillator of USRP is phased locked to the 10 MHz
GPSDO reference. GPSDO acts as a source of timing and it is accurate because the satellite
signals must be accurate in order to provide position accuracy for GPS navigation. These signals
are accurate to nanoseconds and provide good reference for timing applications.

24
The specifications of N2x0 and internal GPSDO and Rhode & Schwartz signal generators can
be found in appendix B.

25
3. Measurement System Description

3.1 Measurement Setup

The main purpose of this thesis work is to study the impact of clock error in the radio link
performance of NB-IoT system. The methodology used for this work is to insert clock error in
the system, measure and collect uplink data and signal information shared between UE and
eNodeB. The analysis of signal information would show the effect of clock error in the system
and behavior of the radio link between UE and eNodeB when clock error is introduced.

The system used here is a NB-IoT, which has been implemented in the LTE stack on flexible
software radios based C-RAN testbed [8]. The radio signal is transmitted over the wire between
UE and eNodeB instead of over the air to protect the link from interference and unintended
attenuation. The frequency band used in the system for uplink is 635 MHz and for downlink 640
MHz. The UE and eNodeB connects with each other through information exchange and
physical channels interaction. The physical channels in the NB-IoT system are briefly described
in the chapter 2.2.

UE initiates random-access procedure whenever it wants to transmit data in the network. The
random-access procedure consists of four steps: (1) UE transmits a random-access preamble;
(2) the network transmits a random-access response that contains timing advance command and
scheduling of uplink resources for the UE; (3) the UE transmits its identity to the network using
the scheduled resources and (4) the network transmits a contention-resolution message to
resolve any contention due to multiple UEs transmitting the same random access preamble in
the first step. The random access achieves uplink synchronization which is important for uplink
orthogonality in NB-IoT [5].

In the measurement, the eNodeB schedules one UE in each uplink transmission opportunity.
The maximum number of repetition is R = 128. In each window, the BS allocates 2 resource
units for NB-PUSCH. The repetition pattern of NB-PUSCH follows a cyclic sub frame level
repetition where in each cycle, each of the scheduled sub frames is repeated Z = min (4, R) = 4
times. To save power, the eNodeB attempts to decode NB-PUSCH data after every fourth
repetitions. In case of early decoding, the remaining uplink repetitions are discarded. The
number of repetitions that are required to successfully decode the uplink data depends on the
received SNR and the channel coherence time [8].

USRP A (eNodeB) and USRP B (UE) are fed with standard 10 MHz external clock signals
coming out from signal generators. The connection is presented in the Fig. 11. The Analog to
Digital converter (ADC) or Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) of USRP A and USRP B are
when fed with different frequency clock signals, the clock offset is introduced in the system.

26
The carrier offset and sampling offset are introduced as well in the system. The offsets are
described briefly in the chapter 2.

The standard 10 MHz external clock signals are generated using Rhode & Schwartz signal
generators in a master- slave configuration.

Figure 11. Time synchronous signal master-slave setup [21]

The connection of the set-up is carried out from equipment’s manual [21]. The cabling of signal
generators is important to produce synchronous signals. The CLK OUT of master is connected
to CLK IN of slave and the REF OUT of master is connected to REF IN of slave. The clock is
set as internal in master and external in slave. The frequency of the distributed clock signal is
50 MHz. The reference oscillator source is set as internal in master and external in slave. The
reference oscillator frequency is 10 MHz and is distributed among slave by the master. The
master-slave setup produces 10 MHZ synchronized signals. It is possible to create offset in the
synchronized signal simply by changing frequency of the slave. Digital oscilloscope and
spectrum analyzer were used to check that the signals are synchronous and 10 MHz in
frequency.

27
 Figure 12. Digital oscilloscope Signals of master and slave at 10 MHz (scale: 200ns)

Figure 13. Spectrum analyzer showing master signal center frequency at 10 MHz

During the measurement, the master signal is fed as clock signal to USRP A and slave signal is
fed as clock signal to USRP B. The clock signal drives the local clock present in the USRP’s.

28
The clock frequency of slave is gradually increased by 1 Hz by changing the frequency in the
slave signal generator. This created offset in the clock signal fed to USRPs which is known as
clock offset. The clock offset of up to 12 Hz is generated between eNodeB and UE. At this
range, the UE and eNodeB shows good synchronization with each other. Most of the data
packets are received by eNodeB that is sent by UE (i.e. 90% of the data packets). When the
clock offset exceeds 12Hz, the UE and eNodeB has difficulty to synchronize and there is
connection breach sometimes. The packet drop is high above 60% to 70%. After 15Hz, UE and
eNodeB do not synchronize at all and all packets are dropped by the eNodeB.

Every time the clock offset is introduced in the system, the carrier frequency offset (CFO) is
introduced as well. Every 1 Hz of clock offset, introduces 100's of Hz of CFO in the system. At
12 Hz, CFO is already 805 Hz for carrier frequency band of 640 MHz [chapter 4.2], which is
high. Therefore, after certain clock offset, the UE and eNodeB are not able to synchronize at all.
The change in CFO to the change in clock offset is presented in the chapter 4.2.

The system is implemented with 3 different MCS index [0, 3 and 6]. For each parameter [0, 3,
6], 12 samples were taken at different clock offsets (1 Hz to 12 Hz). The UE transmits data
packets in Uplink with given MCS indexes [0, 3, 6] to eNodeB. The aim here is to observe the
performance of the radio link at various modulation techniques and coding rates. MCS index
has been described in brief in chapter 2.5.

For each MCS index, the measurements are taken at various signal strengths typically ranging
from -110 dB to -86 dB. The received signal strength of -110 dB is weak but acceptable for data
transmission and reception. The received signal of -86 dB is a strong signal. This range of signal
strength provides good understanding of radio link performance which is under study. With this
range of received signal level, the SINR typically ranges from -12 dB to 12 dB. The number of
repetitions that are required to successfully decode the uplink data by eNodeB is stored for each
signal level.

After collecting measurement data’s, the work is to find out the clock error impact on the radio
link performance of NB-IoT test bed. The data collected from the measurement are processed
in the Matlab for the analysis. The analysis includes the change in the received power, number
of retransmissions, BLER and SINR to the change in signal strength and clock error for various
MCS values. The graphs are plotted and thorough analysis is done to understand the system
behavior and performance for the effect of clock offset introduced in the system.

Measurements require few important devices and proper connection within themselves and with
the server. The devices used for the measurement are as follows as seen in the Fig. 14. A brief
introduction of the devices is provided in appendix C.

29
1. Two USRP N200 (one is used as eNodeB and other as User Equipment (UE))
2. Step Attenuator
3. Two signal generators
4. Real time spectrum analyzer
5. Digital Oscilloscope and
6. A server (Desktop)

The overall configuration of the setup is show below via diagram.

Figure 14. Overall setup for the measurement

The server is connected to two USRP’s and step attenuator via Ethernet port with connection
names etho 0, etho 1 and etho 4. The ip addresses of USRPs and step attenuator can be found in
appendix D.

There is a radio signal connection between USRP A, USRP B and step attenuator. The Tx of
USRP A is connected to Rx of USRP B. The Rx of USRP A and the Tx of USRP B is connected
to node A and B of step attenuator. Sometimes, there can be a loose connection of wires to and
from transmitter and receiver of USRP’s. The wires are impedance matched and loose wire may
have effect in receiving and transmitting power of the signal which may affect the analysis and
result of the measurement. Therefore, the wires are tightened properly and leakage of power is
prevented.

30
3.2 Measurement Configuration

The NB-IoT test bed used in this thesis work is implemented on a flexibles SDR based C-
RAN. This C-RAN technology runs in the host server. The executable files initiates SDR to run
as eNodeB and UE with in the network. The eNodeB runs with three different MCS indexes [0,
3, 6]. UE communicates consecutively with eNodeB having MCS index [0, 3 and 6]. The script
has been written to control the overall setup and measurement. The step attenuator is remotely
controlled as well for various signal strength ranging from -110 dB to -86 dB. Data are stored
in several text files which are then processed and analyzed using Matlab script. The Matlab
script processes the sample data, removes undesired information’s, calculates BLER and SINR
and finally produces plot to see the impact of clock error in the radio link performance.

The measurement was taken for 12 times with clock error ranging from 1 Hz to 12 Hz. Each
time, the frequency of slave signal generator was increased by 1 Hz and the script was run to
collect data’s. Altogether, 12 sample data files were collected.

3.3 Measurement Data Processing

The information is stored in a text file which includes timestamp of the signal, flag showing
successful decoding of the received signal, number of retransmissions or decoding attempts (R),
RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) value and SINR of the signal. All these values are
extracted, processed and stored in Matlab for analysis.

UE stores the necessary information about transmission and timestamp of the transmitted
packet. eNodeB stores the timestamp, flag, rep (R), RSSI, SINR and error for warning. The
timestamp of data packet sent by UE must equal to timestamp of data packet received by
eNodeB to be a valid data packet. The timestamp of sample data from both UE and eNodeB is
compared. If timestamp is matched, the data is considered as valid and if it does not match, the
data is considered as invalid and not taken into consideration for analysis.

The UE transmits data packets several times to eNodeB. The number of retransmissions or
decoding attempts (R) ranges from 1 to 128. The retransmission of packets is done in multiple
of 4. eNodeB decodes the received packets and number of decoding attempts are stored for each
data packet.

The RSSI value shows the relative signal power strength of the received signal which ranges
from -100 to 0 in arbitrary unit. The eNodeB calculates RSSI value from preamble stage of
receiving a data frame and is stored in text file. RSSI is an indication of received power level
after antenna and possible cable loss. Thus, higher the RSSI number, the stronger the signal.
With the help of RSSI value, the noise floor (N) and received power (Pr) is calculated and stored
using Matlab script. The SINR (γ) value shows the signal to interference plus noise ratio of the
signal. SINR (γ) is calculated using received power and noise floor (i.e. γ= Pr - N).

31
The UE transmits around 3750 packets for each received power level after the connection has
been established between UE and eNodeB. For each MCS index and 25 different received power
level, total of 93,750 packets are transmitted by UE to eNodeB. Nearly 10% packets are dropped
during analysis when clock error is 1 Hz because of timestamp mismatch and non-decoded
packets at eNodeB.

3.4 Issues during the measurement

One of the issue during the measurement was to generate synchronized clock signal of 10
MHz that is fed as external clock signal to USRPs. The external clock signal serves to keep the
local oscillator phased lock to 10 MHz signal. For this purpose, signals generators were used
and the setup was done as per guideline provided by the manufacturer (Rohde and Schwarz
SMBV100a signal generators were used in the measurement). The setup is explained in chapter
3.1. The baseband signal modulation for time synchronous signals as per guidelines from
manufacturer includes the modulation of radio frequency signal. The modulated signal contains
multiple peak frequencies. Such a modulated signal when used as clock signal to drive the local
clock of USRP would create conflict on which one of the multiple peak frequencies to use to
drive the clock. So, simple synchronized signals are used as external clock frequency signal to
feed URSP’s local clock.

The second issue in the measurement was to find out the range of clock error that is fed to the
USRPs. The range was specified from 1 Hz to 12 Hz after number of tests. The external clock
signal fed to USRPs was varied each time by 1 Hz, and the synchronization status of UE and
eNodeB was checked. UE and eNodeB remained synchronized up to 12 Hz of clock error. Clock
error greater than 12 Hz resulted in interrupted and discontinuous synchronization between UE
and eNodeB and above 15 Hz, the UE and eNodeB did not synchronize at all.

32
4. Measurement Analysis

4.1 Change in Clock error to the change in Carrier Frequency Offset

(CFO).

The external clock signal fed to USRP devices drives the local clock to be phase locked with
its frequency. If there is frequency mismatch between clock signals fed to USRPs, then the
received signal is shifted in frequency than the actual transmitted signal which is known as CFO.
Even small frequency error leads to CFO of several Hz as presented in Table 5. The detailed
explanation about CFO is present in chapter 2.7. The table below summarizes the change in
CFO corresponding to clock error. The system did not synchronize at all when the clock
error/offset was higher than 14 Hz.

Table 5. Clock errors and corresponding CFO for 640 MHz, 963 MHz and 1800 MHz.

Clock error in Hz CFO for 640 MHz CFO for 963 MHz in CFO for 1800 MHz
(Clock frequency- in Hz / ppm Hz / ppm in Hz / ppm
10MHz)

0 33 / 0.051 65 / 0.067 130 / 0.072

1 95 / 0.148 165 / 0.171 310 / 0.172

2 159 / 0.248 255 / 0.264 490 / 0.272

3 223 / 0.348 355 / 0.368 670 / 0.372

4 289 / 0.451 455 / 0.472 852 / 0.473

5 353 / 0.551 546 / 0.566 1032 / 0.573

6 415 / 0.648 646 / 0.670 1212 / 0.673

7 480 / 0.750 736 / 0.764 1373 / 0.762

8 534 / 0.834 836 / 0.868 1573 / 0.873

9 613 / 0.957 936 / 0.971 1754 / 0.974

10 677 / 1.057 1027 / 1.066 1914 / 1.063

11 741 / 1.157 1127 / 1.170 2094 / 1.163

12 805 / 1.257 1227 / 1.274 2295 / 1.275

33
The measurements in the above Table 5 are taken for frequencies of 640 MHz, 963 MHz and
1800 MHz. The above frequencies are interesting because the testbed used for measurements
use 640 MHz as downlink frequency and other frequencies (963 MHz and 1800 MHz) are used
for cellular networks (GSM, UMTS and LTE bands). Since, NB-IoT is going to be deployed in
GSM and LTE networks, it is interesting to see how much CFO is produced by clock errors in
those frequency bands (963 and 1800 MHz).

It is seen in Table 5 that there is small CFO (33 Hz for 640 MHz) with no clock error. As error
is increased, the CFO increased significantly. The CFO increases from 33 Hz to 805 Hz as offset
rise from 1 Hz to 12 Hz for 640 MHz. Increase in clock error of 1 Hz nearly increased CFO by
65Hz for 640 MHz. Similarly, for 963 and 1800 MHz, the increase in CFO was nearly 100 Hz
and 200 Hz. It can be observed from above table that higher the carrier frequency, higher is the
CFO with small clock error.

The effect of higher clock frequency error resulted in higher CFO that generated problems such
as difficulty in synchronization between eNodeB and UE, higher packet loss and higher
retransmissions of data between UE and eNodeB.

Clock error was introduced in the measurement ranging from 1 Hz to 12 Hz. The clock
frequency of 10 MHz was fed to USRPs. It is often preferred to denote clock errors in parts per
million (ppb) or parts per billion (ppb) rather than in Hz. Error in Hz can be converted to ppm
(𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦) ∗ 106 )
.
(𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦)
For example, error frequency = 1 Hz, clock frequency = 10 ∗ 106 Hz, so 1 Hz error is equal to
(1 ∗ 106 )
[(10 = 0.1 𝑝𝑝𝑚. Similarly, 10 Hz error is equal to 1 ppm and 12 Hz error is equal to 1.2
∗ 106 )
ppm.

In the above Table 5, CFO errors are denoted in Hz and ppm. For clock error of 1 Hz at 640
MHz, CFO is 95 Hz which is equal to ~0.15 ppm. Similarly, for 12 Hz clock error, CFO is 805
Hz which is equal to 1.25 ppm.

4.2 Analysis of Measurement Data

From the measurement data, important and interesting parameters are computed such as SINR,
R, Pr and BLER. The brief introduction of parameters is presented in chapter 3.3.

As discussed in chapter 4.1, the clock error increases CFO of the system which generates
difficulty in synchronization between eNodeB and UE because received signal is shifted in
frequency (due to offset) than the original transmitted signal. Also, the clock error produces the
sampling offset which is discussed briefly in chapter 2.10. The offsets and synchronization issue
leads to data packets loss. Therefore, this thesis work selects the parameters mentioned above
to observe the impact of clock error in the radio link of the NB-IoT system. Moreover, NB-IoT

34
achieves coverage extension through retransmissions of packets which generates more interest
for the parameter R for analysis.

The analysis shows that for nearly 89% of the packets are correctly decoded by the eNodeB
when the clock error is 1 Hz whereas only 49% of the packets are decoded when the clock error
rises to 12 Hz for MCS index 0. Another interesting data observed is that, in average 99.4
retransmission of packets is required out of 128 at SINR of -11.7 dB for clock error 1 Hz whereas
128 or more retransmissions of packets is required when the clock error is 12 Hz. The minimum
retransmissions of packets are 4 which generally occurs when the received signal is strong and
SINR of the signal is high. For example, as seen in the Fig.15 for clock error of 1 Hz, the average
value of R is 4 when the SINR is around 5dB. The above values are true for MCS index 0. It is
observed in Fig.16 that when MCS index is 3 or 6, the minimum retransmissions (i.e R=4) is
never reached as the higher MCS index has weak protection against packet loss. Below Table 6
shows some statistics from processed data which are briefly discusses in the paragraph.

Table 6. Statistics showing average retransmissions (R), number of packets decoded and SINR
for different clock error and MCS index.

Clock MCS Index Average number of Min. SINR

error Retransmissions packets and
(R) decoded Max. SINR
correctly
1 Hz 0 99.34 200 -11.7
4 3748 12.3
3 128 or failed* 3747 -11.69
4 3748 12.31
6 128 or failed* 3747 -11.69
4 3748 12.3
12 Hz 0 128 or failed* 2086 -11.9
4 2089 12.1
3 128 or failed* 2064 -11.6
6.45 1969 12.05
6 128 or failed* 1996 -11.87
12.23 1663 12.12

*failed – implies none of the packets were decoded successfully.

35
The boxplot below shows distribution of R over SINR values for MCS indexes. The first quartile
and third quartile are the 25th and 75th percentile of the sample data respectively with confidence
interval of 50%.

Figure 15. Box plot showing distribution of R over SINR(γ) for clock error of 1 Hz.

Figure 16. Box plot showing distribution of R over SINR(γ) for clock error of 12 Hz.

36
The plot below (Fig.17 (a) and (b)) shows similar behavior as discussed above but with
logarithmic scale for R. The curves show that retransmissions of packets are low for MCS index
0 than MCS index 3 and 6 for same SINR value. For example, when SINR is -5 dB,
retransmissions R ≈20 for MCS index 0 while R ≈40 and R ≈60 for MCS index 3 and 6. The
above-mentioned values are true for clock error of 1 Hz. Also, it is observed that the minimum
retransmissions R for MCS=3 and MCS=6 increases abruptly as the clock error increases. Figure
17 (b) shows that retransmissions R ≈50 for MCS index 0 while R ≈100 and R≈115 for MCS
index 3 and 6 for clock error of 12 Hz. The high retransmissions is due to the fact that increased
clock error produces CFO and synchronization issue which leads to higher packet loss.

(a) (b)

Figure 17. (a) Plot showing SINR(γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for clock error of 1 Hz.
(b) Plot showing SINR(γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for clock error of 12 Hz.

BLER is another important parameter to analyze to observe packet drops due to clock error.
Table 7 below shows the BLER statistics at clock error of 1 Hz and 12 Hz. The BLER increases
significantly as clock error rises. There is around 18% increase in error packets as clock error
rises from 1 Hz to 12 Hz for MCS index 6 at strongest signal of SINR 12 dB. When clock error
is 12Hz and MCS index is 6, BLER is 1 for SINR -11.7 dB to -5.7 dB and even during the
strongest signal (i.e. SINR 12.3 dB) BLER is above 0 (0.1792). If that is to be compared with
clock error of 1 Hz, even for MCS 6, BLER is 0 for SINR -4.7 dB and above. This implies that
as clock error rises and MCS index is high, the data packets are more vulnerable to errors even
though the signal strength is strong. The error is mainly because of synchronization problem
between UE and eNodeB at high clock error.

37
 Table 7. Statistics showing BLER and SINR for different clock error and MCS index.

Clock error MCS Index BLER Min. SINR

and
Max. SINR at which BLER > 0
1 Hz 0 0.9466 -11.7
0.0264 -5.5
3 1 -11.69
0.0035 -5.5
6 1 -11.69
0.0029 -6.5
12 Hz 0 1 -11.6
0.0062 -7.5
3 1 -11.6
0.0015 2.1
6 1 -11.87
0.1792 12.3

The graphs below depict the relation of BLER with SINR. The plot in Fig.18 shows that for
clock error of 1 Hz and MCS index 0, BLER drops by around 50% every time SINR is increased
by 1 dB up to certain SINR value (-5.7 dB). After that BLER drops to 0 as SINR increases.
Figure 19 depicts clock error at 12 Hz where BLER is undesirably high mainly for MCS index
3 and 6. The clock error rise affects the radio link and its performance leading to packet drops.
The packets are more vulnerable to error in case of MCS index 3 and 6.

38
Figure 18. Plot showing SINR(γ) vs BLER for clock error of 1 Hz.

Figure 19. Plot showing SINR(γ) vs BLER for clock error of 12 Hz.

39
In Fig. 20 (a) and (b) below, BLER ranges from 0 to 1, distinctly showing BLER drop at SINR
values for MCS index [0, 3 and 6].

(a) (b)

Figure 20. BLER ranging for 0 to 1. (a) SINR(γ) vs BLER plot for clock error of 1 Hz.
(b) SINR(γ) vs BLER plot for clock error of 12 Hz.

40
4.3 Analysis of Measurement Results

In chapter 4.2, the analysis shows that rise in clock errors impacts the overall radio link
performance of the system. The analysis in this chapter focuses on relation between CFO and
parameters such as retransmissions (R), SINR and BLER for different MCS Indexes. The
retransmissions (R) is computed over 93,750 packets sent over radio link from UE to eNodeB
for each MCS index [0, 3, 6]. Each packet is decoded successfully by eNodeB for certain number
of retransmissions. The minimum retransmissions are 4 and maximum is 128. The average
retransmissions (R) for MCS 0, 3 and 6 at various CFO is presented in Table 8.

Table 8. CFO, MCS and R (Avg.) at SINR ~ -5 dB

CFO MCS Index Average

retransmissions
(R)
95 Hz 0 15.41
3 34.64
6 55.89
480 Hz 0 30.29
3 68.78
6 93.87
805 Hz 0 48.33
3 96.67
6 113.62

In the above Table 8, Clock error of 1 Hz, 4 Hz, 7 Hz, 10 Hz and 12 Hz corresponds to CFO of
95 Hz, 289 Hz, 480 Hz, 677 Hz and 805 Hz. The clock error and corresponding CFO can be
found out at Table 5. R is doubled when CFO is increased from 95 Hz to 480 Hz and tripled at
805 Hz for MCS index 0. The rise in R indicates compromised performance of radio link due to
rise in clock error and CFO. The performance of the link gets worst for MCS index 6 as R rises
to 114 out of 128 at CFO of 805 Hz. The values above are chosen for SINR of -5 dB as the range
of SINR for measurement is -12 dB to 12 dB and -5 dB is a strong enough signal to receive
packets correctly by eNodeB.

The plot (Fig. 21) is plotted for different clock errors that produces carrier frequency offset
(CFO). The curved lines in the plot indicates Clock error of 1 Hz, 4 Hz, 7 Hz, 10 Hz and 12 Hz
which corresponds to CFO of 95 Hz, 289 Hz, 480 Hz, 677 Hz and 805 Hz as seen in legend text.
The clock error and corresponding CFO can be found out at Table 7. The interesting observation
from the Figure is that after SINR of 5 dB, R is minimum and constant (i.e. 4 in the plot). This
indicates that the signal is very strong at SINR of 5 dB and above. There is no loss of packets
and the effects of CFO is minimum.

41
 Figure 21. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 0.

The curves for higher CFO (677 Hz and 805 Hz) in Fig.22 do not reach minimum
retransmissions (R = 4) even when the signal is strong (SINR of 5 dB and above). This could be
mainly because higher MCS value has weaker protection of symbols against inter symbol
interference (ISI). The curves at MCS 3 shows higher retransmissions compare to MCS 0 at a
particular SINR values. At SINR of -5 dB, the curves with CFO 95 Hz, 480 Hz and 805 Hz has
average retransmissions (R) of 34.64, 68.78 and 96.67 for MCS 3. The R is nearly doubled
compared to MCS 0 (R = 15.41, 30.29, 48.33). The average retransmissions (R) is below 10 for
all curves at around SINR of 5 dB for MCS 3 while R is below 10 at around SINR of 0 dB for
MCS 0 for all curves. As compared to MCS index 0, SINR requirement is around 5 dB higher
for MCS index 3 to reduce R below 10 for all curves.

42
 Figure 22. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 3.

The curves show even more average retransmissions (R) as the MCS Index is increased to 6
(Fig.23) for CFO of 677 Hz and 805 Hz. The R is quite high (i.e. ~10 for 677 Hz and ~ 15 for
805 Hz) at SINR of 10 dB while other curves has value of minimum retransmissions (R = 4). At
SINR of -5 dB, the curves with CFO 95 Hz, 480 Hz and 805 Hz has average retransmissions
(R) of 55.89, 93.87 and 113.62 for MCS 3. The R is nearly tripled if compared to MCS 0 (R =
15.41, 30.29, 48.33). The curves with CFO of 95 Hz, 289 Hz and 480 Hz attains the minimum
retransmissions (R=4) around 8 dB but the curves with CFO of 677 Hz and 805 Hz never attains
the minimum retransmissions. As compared to MCS index 0, SINR requirement is around 8-10
dB higher for MCS index 6 to reduce R below 10 for most of the curves.

43
 Figure 23. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs average retransmissions (R) for MCS 6.

The Table 9 below compares the CFO and BLER at various MCS Index showing interesting
data from the measurement. All data are taken at SINR of -5 dB. There is significant rise in the
value of BLER as CFO increases from 95 Hz to 805 Hz for MCS index of 6. The BLER reaches
to near maximum (0.9842) for MCS index 6 at 805 Hz. However, the increase in BLER is very
low for MCS index 0. This is because lower MCS index has better protection against ISI and
are more robust than higher MCS indexes. The data from the table shows that there is heavy
packet drops as CFO increases gradually. The radio link is hampered by higher CFO and clock
errors resulting in significant drop of data packets in the link.

44
 Table 9. CFO, MCS and BLER at SINR ~ -5 dB

CFO MCS Index BLER

95 Hz 0 0
3 0.00026
6 0.0029
480 Hz 0 0.0020
3 0.1369
6 0.4771
805 Hz 0 0.0434
3 0.5761
6 0.9842

The comparison between BLER and CFO is shown in the plots below. The plots SINR vs BLER
are plotted corresponding to various CFO for MCS index 0 in Fig.24. There is increase in BLER
as CFO rises until the signal level is good with high SINR. The BLER is below 0.1 (almost 0)
for the curves with CFO 95 Hz and 289 Hz while the curves with CFO 480 Hz, 677 Hz and 805
Hz still have BLER value greater than 0.1 (around 0.3, 0.6, 0.7) for SINR of -8 dB. The BLER
is almost 0 even for highest CFO of 805 Hz, when the signal is strong enough and has SINR of
-5 dB. The BLER is 0 for all other curves when SINR rises to -5 dB and above.

Figure 24. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 0.

45
The BLER value has a significant increase when MCS index is 3 and 6 for the same CFO and
SINR value compared to MCS index 0. At SINR of -8 dB, all the curves with CFO of 95 Hz and
above have high BLER value (above 0.6) reaching up to 1 for MCS index 3 as seen in Fig.25.
Moreover, at SINR of -5 dB, curves with CFO 480 Hz, 677 Hz and 805 Hz have BLER of
around 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 which is high as compared to MCS index 0. All the curves reach BLER
value of 0 when the SINR is 0 dB and above for MCS 3. As compared to MCS index 0, SINR
requirement is around 5 dB higher for MCS index 3 to reduce BLER value up to 0 for all curves.

Figure 25. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 3.

The BLER value for MCS index 6 does not reach to 0 for all the curves even at the strongest
signal of SINR 12 dB. The plot (Fig. 26) shows SINR vs BLER for MCS 6. The BLER is 1 for
all the curves at SINR of -8 dB. If it is compared to MCS index 0, the curves with CFO 95 Hz
and 289 Hz already had BLER value below 0.1 at SINR of -8 dB. Similarly, only curves with
CFO of 95 Hz and 289 Hz have BLER value almost 0 at SINR of -5 dB while all other curves
have significantly high BLER. The curve with CFO of 480 Hz attends BLER value lower than
0.1 around SINR of -3 dB while the curve with CFO of 677 Hz attends BLER value of 0.1 at
SINR of 0 dB. The curves with CFO of 480 Hz and 677 Hz reaches to BLER value of almost 0
at SINR of around 1 dB and 4 dB but the curve with maximum CFO of 805 Hz has value above
0.1 dB for all SINR value. The curve with CFO of 805 Hz attains the minimum BLER value of
0.17 at the strongest signal level with SINR of 12 dB. The BLER is much higher for MCS index
6 as compared to MCS 0 for higher CFO because MCS index 6 has weaker protection against
ISI and are more vulnerable to errors than lower MCS indexes.

46
Figure 26. Plot showing SINR (γ) vs BLER for MCS 6.

47
5. Discussions of Results

This thesis work uses NB-IoT testbed to perform measurements to analyze the impact of
clock error on the radio link performance of NB-IoT system. The system (NB-IoT testbed) has
been implemented in the LTE stack on flexible software radios based C-RAN testbed. The
system mostly focuses on implementation of lower layers therefore L1 and part of L2 and L3
protocol stack has been implemented. This implemented SDR can run any RAN technology on
a commercially available personal computer. The test network enables to measure performance
of NB-IoT system.

The measurements were taken for clock errors ranging from 1 Hz to 12 Hz. The analysis of
measurement data showed that about 89% of the packets were successfully decoded by eNodeB
for clock error of 1 Hz while only 49% packets were successfully decoded for clock error of 12
Hz. The above values are true for MCS 0. The general trend showed that MCS 3 and MCS 6
had decreased percentage of successfully decoded packets compared to MCS 0 for various clock
errors.

Similarly, the average retransmissions R was high up to 99.4 out of 128 at SINR of -11.7 dB
(weak signal) while R = 15.41 at SINR of -5 dB (good signal) and R (minimum) = 4 at SINR of
5 dB and above (strong signal) for clock error of 1 Hz. The values are true for MCS 0. The
general trend showed that MCS 3 and MCS 6 had increased R compared to MCS 0 for all clock
errors. The value of R reached up to 128 or more at SINR of -11.7 dB for MCS 3 and MCS 6.

Additionally, BLER showed significant increase as clock error rose from 1 Hz to 12 Hz. The
BLER was high up to 0.9466 out of 1 at SINR of -11.7 dB (weak signal) while BLER = 0.026
at SINR of -5.5 dB (good signal) and BLER was 0 for higher SINR for clock error of 1 Hz and
MCS 0. The general trend showed that MCS 3 and MCS 6 had increased BLER compared to
MCS 0 for all clock errors. The BLER value was 0.17 even for the strongest signal at SINR of
12 dB for MCS 6 for clock error of 12 Hz.

The system (NB-IoT) used in this thesis has already been used for performance measurement.
The measurement consisted of sending NB-PUSCH TB in two different scenarios: 1. static
channel with Doppler shift of 0 Hz, 2. Fast fading channel with Doppler shift of 80 Hz. The
former presents the best-case scenario while later presents the worst-case scenario that UE is
expected to face. The measurement indicated that the coverage is limited by the coverage time
of a fast fading channel. The measurement in static channel depicted that up to 20 dB uplink
coverage gain could be achieved from 128 repetitions which would push the operating SNR
below -20 dB for MCS 0. However, in fast fading channel, the SNR should be at least -12 dB
implying that the coverage gain from repetitions is reduced by more than 10 dB as a result of
short channel coherence time [8].

The NB-IoT system used in this thesis work is a practical system which make use of efficient
and reliable devices. The USRP devices that acts as UE and eNodeB consists of TCXO which

48
produces precise frequencies with frequency accuracy of 2.5 ppm. Similarly, signal generators
that are used to insert reference clock signal of 10 MHz to the USRP’s provides precision of
0.01 ppm. With such precise devices, the error generated is much less. Without any clock error
introduces in the system, the CFO generated was 33 Hz / 0.051 ppm for 640 MHz which is
small. But low-cost devices that NB-IoT intends to use as UE are equipped with low cost crystal
oscillators that can have an initial carrier frequency offset (CFO) of several PPM. With such
large CFO, the primary problem could be synchronization between UE and BS which will
eventually lead to higher packet drops. Moreover, NB-IoT intends to provide extended coverage
for UE deployed in environments in high penetration loss, e.g., under basement of a building.
The extended coverage is possible with higher retransmissions of signal. With such high CFO
and synchronization issues, the retransmissions of signal by UE would rise significantly. In
addition, the overall performance of the system could be compromised.

There are several companies and vendors that are producing commercial chipsets for NB-IoT
technology. Some of the vendors are u-blox, Quectel, Huawei, Digi and AT&T. The chipsets
are mainly designed for NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies (3GPP Release 13) and at different
LTE bands. The vendors are on their way to commercialize them soon. The vendors promise to
provide compact size, longer battery life and reduced-cost of devices (but still higher than the
target of 5€). These low-cost devices will have cheap and poor performance oscillators that
would produce large clock offsets and CFO. Despite of this large CFO, UE (devices) should be
able to perform its operations (synchronization and packet transmissions) at very low SINR.

The chipsets are believed to produce CFO of several PPM as large as up to 20 ppm. The UE has
to compensate for this high CFO during synchronization with BS. Moreover, NB-IoT system
already has a raster offset of up to 7.5 KHz. Therefore, UE has to correct / compensate for both
the offsets (raster and CFO) during synchronization. The same NB-IoT testbed (used in this
thesis work) can be used to find out the performance of chipsets when available. It would be
interesting to observe how the chipsets perform under conditions where the signal level is low
and enhanced coverage is required. Some curious questions in regard to chipsets would be How
much CFO is generated by the chipset and what is its effect on synchronization process? How
many packet retransmissions are required when signal is weak for both DL and UL? What
modifications are needed in the specifications of chipsets to make it work better with NB-IoT
system?

49
6. Conclusion

The thesis work uses NB-IoT testbed implemented on a flexible SDR based C-RAN. The
thesis briefly describes the targets of NB-IoT such as low cost, low power consumption, delay
non-sensitive, massive support for large number of devices and easy deployment. The physical
channels and modulation access techniques (OFDMA and SC-FDMA) associated with the
technology has been discussed in brief. The study of performance issues on NB-IoT such as
long battery life, extended coverage, latency is also summarized in this thesis. Moreover,
background of the problems associated with NB-IoT such as clock synchronization and CFO
are briefly introduced in chapter 2.

The task of this thesis is to study the impact of clock error in the radio link of the NB-IoT testbed.
The measurement setup is designed to capture data from uplink transmissions and analyze them.
The NB-IoT testbed uses uplink and downlink frequency band of 635 MHz and 640 MHz. The
USRP A (eNodeB) and USRP B (UE) are fed with external clock signals to manually input
clock error. The clock signals fed to USRP’s are standard 10 MHz signal. The clock error ranges
from 1 Hz to 12 Hz. The measurements are taken for clock error of 1 Hz to 12 Hz and data are
analyzed to observe the radio link performance at different clock errors. The parameters such as
SINR, R and BLER are considered in this thesis work.

Around 89% of packets are correctly decoded for MCS 0 when clock error is minimum (1 Hz)
whereas only 49% of packets are correctly decoded when clock error rises to 12 Hz. The packet
drops are higher for MCS 3 and MCS 6 at all SINR values as compared to MCS 0. The
retransmissions R has minimum value of 4 when SINR is high but R increases significantly
when SINR is low. The minimum average retransmissions R is found to be 15.41 for MCS 0
when CFO is 95 Hz at SINR of -5 dB. The maximum average retransmissions R is found up to
114 for MCS 6 when CFO is 805 Hz at SINR of -5 dB. Similarly, BLER is 0 (i.e. minimum) for
MCS 0 when CFO is 95 Hz at SINR of -5 dB. The maximum BLER is noted to be 0.9842 for
MCS 6 when CFO is 805 Hz at SINR of -5 dB.

The relation between parameters SINR and R has been observed for clock error range of 1 Hz
to 12 Hz and MCS index (0, 3 and 6). The value of R rises from 4 to 128 at SINR of -12 dB to
12 dB for different MCS index and clock errors. The R is found to be minimum and constant at
SINR of 5 dB and above for MCS 0 indicating that the there is no packet loss and effect of CFO
is minimum. Similarly, the relation between parameters SINR and BLER has been observed for
clock error range of 1 Hz to 12 Hz and MCS index (0, 3 and 6). BLER is almost 0 even for
maximum CFO of 805 Hz for MCS 0, when the signal is strong enough and has SINR value of
-5 dB. BLER is high and reaches up to 1 when SINR is low around -8 dB and less for all CFO
values.

The thesis work and result from the analysis suggests that NB-IoT is vulnerable to
synchronization issues and the radio link performance degrades as clock error increases. The
measurements show that when clock error increases by 1 Hz, CFO of the network increases by
several Hz. When CFO rises to 100’s of Hz, the synchronization between UE and eNodeB

50
becomes difficult and many transmitted data packets are dropped by eNodeB. Since data rate
and latency requirements are relaxed for the NB-IoT, the robustness of the network can be
increased using lower MCS index.

The further study and analysis could include the measurement of downlink transmission of
signal when clock error is introduced in the system. The same measurement setup can be used
to collect data and similar analysis can be performed to figure out the impact of clock error in
the radio link performance. The measurements can be performed over the air instead of cable
connections between USRP’s to understand interference and degradation of signals in the air.
The measurement in this thesis work is conducted for a stationary UE. Therefore, further study
could also include moving or mobile UE and observe the impact of Doppler’s shift in the radio
link performance. Moreover, it could be interesting to investigate fading effects.

51
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54
A Appendix: Modulation TBS index for PDSCH & PUSCH
Table 10. Modulation index and TBS index for PDSCH [10]

MCS Index Modulation Order TBS Index

𝐼𝑀𝐶𝑆 𝑄𝑀 𝐼𝑇𝐵𝑆
0 2 0
1 2 1
2 2 2
3 2 3
4 2 4
5 2 5
6 2 6
7 2 7
8 2 8
9 2 9
10 4 9
11 4 10
12 4 11
13 4 12
14 4 13
15 4 14
16 4 15
17 6 15
18 6 16
19 6 17
20 6 18
21 6 19
22 6 20
23 6 21
24 6 22
25 6 23
26 6 24
27 6 25
28 6 26
29 2
30 4 reserved
31 6

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 Table 11. Modulation, TBS index and redundancy version for PUSCH [10]

MCS Index Modulation Order TBS Index Redundancy version

𝐼𝑀𝐶𝑆 𝑄𝑀 𝐼𝑇𝐵𝑆 𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑥
0 2 0
1 2 1 0
2 2 2 0
3 2 3 0
4 2 4 0
5 2 5 0
6 2 6 0
7 2 7 0
8 2 8 0
9 2 9 0
10 4 10 0
11 4 10 0
12 4 11 0
13 4 12 0
14 4 13 0
15 4 14 0
16 4 15 0
17 6 16 0
18 6 17 0
19 6 18 0
20 6 19 0
21 6 19 0
22 6 20 0
23 6 21 0
24 6 22 0
25 6 23 0
26 6 24 0
27 6 25 0
28 6 26 0
29 2 1
30 4 reserved 2
31 6 3

56
B Appendix: Specifications of N2x0, Internal GPSDO and Rhode
and Schwartz Signal Generator

Table 12. Specifications of USRP N2x0 from Ettus Research [28]

57
Table 13. Specifications of internal GPSDO kit from Ettus Research [29]

58
Table 14. Specifications of Signal Generator from Rhode and Schwartz [30]

59
C Appendix: Brief Introduction of the devices used for thesis work
measurement
A brief introduction about the devices is below.

 USRP N200 series is a software defined radio designed and produced by Ettus research
that provides high performance, high bandwidth and high dynamic range. It operates
from DC to 6 GHz. Data streaming and programming of device can be done through
gigabit Ethernet port. It provides sampling rate up to 50 MS/s to and from host
applications. [16]
 Step attenuator used in the measurement is a switchable and mechanical step attenuator
designed and produced by Rohde and Schwarz. It operates on frequency range from Dc
to 6 GHz. The device provides maximum attenuation of 139 dB and minimum step size
of 0.1 dB and it can be remotely controlled. [17]
 Signal Generators used in the measurement is a Rohde and Schwarz SMBV100A vector
signal generator. It has excellent RF performance and high output level and short setting
time. It generates number of digital standard signals when equipped with an internal
baseband generator such as (LTE, LTE-advanced and IEEE 802). The device frequency
ranges from 9 KHz to 6 GHz and it’s level ranges from -145 dBm to +18 dBm. [18]
 Real Time Signal generator is a high-performance spectrum analyzer and its frequency
range from 9 KHz to 14 GHz. The device provides DPX spectrum processing which
provides intuitive (easy and simple) understanding of Time-varying RF. It has multiple
window spectrum view [DPX, spectrum, spectrogram]. The device has lots of functions
to for analysis of signals. [19]
● Digital Oscilloscope is designed and produced by Tektronix. It has analog bandwidth of
500 MHz and sample rate 2.5 Gs/s. It provides multiple signal input and easy analysis
of signals. The equipment has multiple functions such as spectrum analysis, function
generator and many more. It captures analog, digital and RF signals with one scope. [20]
● The host server (Personal Computer) is a high-performance desktop with multi Ethernet
ports and good processor.

D Appendix: IP addresses of the USRPs and devices used in the

measurement setup

IP Address Device Name at the network

192.168.10.2 USRP A (eNodeB) etho 0

192.168.20.2 USRP B (UE) etho 1

192.168.48.30 Step Attenuator etho 4

60
E Appendix: Picture of the overall Measurement Setup

61