Bachelor Thesis

HSDPA CQI Mapping Optimization

Based on Real Network Layouts
Supervisor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Markus Rupp
Assistant: Dipl.-Ing. Martin Wrulich
by

Mara Elsa Feliz Fern

andez
Institute of Communications and Radio-Frequency Engineering

November 2007 - October 2008

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those people who have somehow supported me during my work in this Bachelor Thesis and also during all my career in Madrid
and Vienna. First I want to express my gratitude to Professor Markus Rupp
for his supervision and warm wellcome, and also to all the staff of the Institute who did my time in the university more comfortable.
I am specially grateful to my assistant Martin Wrulich for his constant support, guidance and patience in the development of this thesis, for the interest
he expressed since the first day and the general support in my abroad experience.
I am deeply grateful to my parents, who have always expressed their love,
support and interest and have given me the opportunity to study abroad,
and also for visiting Vienna with me. I want specially thank to my brother
for helping me everytime he could, and all my friends in Madrid and Leon.
I want to thank also the friends that I met in Vienna who did my life there
during six months really special and happy and showed their interest in my
work, specially Corinna, Alberto, Cristina and the turkish girls. I thank their
lovely frienship and support.
I want to dedicate a special mention to Borja, for coming with me to the
adventure of having an Erasmus experience in Vienna, for his constant support and love during this years, for his care and patience and for giving me
courage in the difficults moments since we started our careers. Without his
support and help this project would have never been possible.

Abstract
In this bachelor thesis, the SISO HSDPA simulator developed for Mobilkom
Austria AG shall be extended in order to handle real network layout data.
The Mobilkom Austria AG will provide measured path-loss matrices of a
HSDPA cluster. This data has to be converted in a suitable form to be
analyzable in the simulator. Furthermore, a memory efficient loading of the
data has to be implemented. Based on this real network data, an optimization
of the CQI mapping of HSDPA mobiles shall be performed in order to find the
mapping which maximizes the overall cell throughput. This mapping can be
used to implement a suitable CQI re-mapping at the Node-B, granting an
optimum HSDPA network performance. The source-code has to be developed
in MATLAB to ensure simple debugging and feature extendability.

ii

Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Third Generation Services
1.2 Technology . . . . . . . .
1.3 Work environment . . . .
1.4 Objectives . . . . . . . . .
1.5 Structure of the thesis . .

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2 HSDPA Principles
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 HSDPA Standardization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 HSDPA vs Release 4 DCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1 Radio resource management architecture . . .
2.4 HSDPA operation principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5 HSDPA channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5.1 HSDPA new channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5.2 High-speed dedicated physical control channel

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3 HSDPA Simulator
3.1 Introduction . . . . . .
3.2 System model . . . . .
3.3 Simulation process . .
3.3.1 Load settings .
3.3.2 Precalculations
3.3.3 Simulation loop
3.3.4 Results . . . . .

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4 Real Network Layouts

36
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2 Files structure and information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.3 Network setting based on real layout data . . . . . . . . . . . 39

iii

5 CQI Mapping Optimizations

5.1 CQI Basis in HSDPA . . . . . . . .
5.2 CQI mapping proposal . . . . . . .
5.2.1 CQI Table . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 CQI optimizations in the Simulator
5.3.1 Source Code Enhancements
5.3.2 Consequences . . . . . . . .
5.3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Miscellaneous
6.1 New scenarios . . . . . . . . . .
6.2 More efficient implementation of
pathloss generation . . . . . . .
6.3 Further enhancements . . . . .
6.3.1 Outage users . . . . . .
6.3.2 Throughput figures . . .

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7 Conclusions
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7.1 Simulator enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.3 Future enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

iv

List of Figures
1.1

View coverage map about HSDPA deployment in the world, [1].

2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9

Estimated cell throughput per sector, [2]. . . . . . . . .

Downlink data rates, [2]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fundamental properties of the DCH and HS-DSCH, [2].
RRM architecture, [2]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HSDPA Node B scheduling principle, [2]. . . . . . . . .
HSDPA operation channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HS-DSCH channel coding chain, [3]. . . . . . . . . . . .
16QAM and 4QAM constellations, [2]. . . . . . . . . .
Relative timing between HS-SCCH and HS-DSCH, [2].

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3.1

Three main steps in the simulator: load settings, precalculations (i.e Node-B and users positions in order to prepare the
network) and simulation loop to obtain the HSDPA data rate.
Network layout with 7 and 19 base stations. . . . . . . . . . .
Example of the grid positions generation in the serving cell. .
Example of the users position in the serving cell. . . . . . . . .
Overview of the basic steps in the simulator. . . . . . . . . . .
Average data rates with RNC power control of the HS-DSCH.

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3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
5.1

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Information extracted from the header of the files. . . . . . .

Read pathloss from data files given by Mobilkom AG. . . . .
Node-Bs positions and respective prediction files. . . . . . .
Provisional grid, main BS and sector shape. . . . . . . . . .
Last step: user positions located randomly and uniformly
within the limits of the generated sector (green points). . . .
Diagram of the overall handling real layouts data process. . .

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High-Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel that carries

the uplink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

5.2

HS-DSCH link adaptation principle: (1) the UE reports lowquality channel information and the Node B allocates a low
bit rate; (2) the UE reports high-quality channel information
and the Node B allocates a high bit rate, [2]. . . . . . . . . .
5.3 Block diagram showing the received signal at the HSDPA user
and report of the CQI to the serving HS-DSCH cell, [4]. . . .
5.4 CQI mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5 Coarse view of the simulation including slope and shift. . . .
5.6 Different values of the slope for the CQI mapping. . . . . . .
5.7 Different values of the shift for the CQI mapping. . . . . . .
5.8 Throughput as function of the slope value with shift = 0. . .
5.9 Throughput as function of the shift value with slope = 1. . .
5.10 Throughput as function of the slope and shift. . . . . . . . .
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8

6.9

Four possible user positions configuration. . . . . . . . . . .

Snapshot and exhaustive snapshot scenarios. . . . . . . . . .
Fixed angle and fixed distance scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . .
Network with 19 base stations and 3 sectors model. . . . . .
Variation of the user pathloss with the distance. . . . . . . .
Variation of the user pathloss with the angle. . . . . . . . . .
HSDPA outage users as function of the power. . . . . . . . .
Throughput as a function of the angle with two fixed BS - user
positions distances (50 meters in the figure of the left and 250
meters in the right). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Throughput as a function of the distances with two fixed angles between the users and the BS (80o in the figure of the left
and 40o in the right). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vi

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Abbreviations
16QAM - 16-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
3G - Third Generation
3GPP - Third Generation Partnership Project
AMC - Adaptive Modulation and Coding
ARP - Allocation and Retention Priority
ARQ - Automatic Repeat Request
AWGN - Additive White Gaussian Noise
BLER - Block Error Rate
BS - Base Station
BTS - Base Transceiver Station
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access
CmCH-PI - Common Transport Channel Priority Indicator
CPICH - Common Pilot Channel
CQI - Channel Quality Indicator
CSI - Channel State Information
DEM - Digital Elevation Models
FCS - Fast Cell Selection
FCSS - Fast Cell Site Selection
FP - Frame Protocol
GGSN - Gateway GPRS Support Node
GSM - Global System for Mobile Communications
HARQ - Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
HSDPA - High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
HS-DPCCH - Dedicated High-Speed Physical Control Channel
HS-DSCH - High-Speed Dedicated Shared Channel
HSPA - High-Speed Packet Access
HS-PDSCH - High-Speed Physical Downlink Shared Channel
HS-SSCH - High-Speed Shared Control Channels
HSUPA - High-Speed Uplink Packet Access
IR - Incremental Redundancy
ITU - International Telecommunication Union
vii

Max C/I - Maximum Carrier to Interference

MCS - Modulation and Coding Scheme
MIMO - Multiple Input Multiple Output
MS - Mobile Station
PDP - Power Delay Profile
PDU - Protocol Data Unit
PF - Proportional Fair
QoS - Quality of Service
RLC - Radio Link Control
RNC - Radio Network Control
RR - Round Robin
RRM - Radio Resource Management
SAW - Stop And Wait
SF - Spreading Factor
SGSN - Serving GPRS Support Node
SINR - Signal to Noise and Interference Ratio
SISO - Single Input Single Output
SNR - Signal to Noise Ratio
SPI - Scheduling Priority Indicator
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol
TBS - Transport Block Size
TTI - Transmit Time Interval
UE - User Equipment
UMTS - Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
UTRAN - UMTS Terrestrial Radios Access Network
WCDMA - Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WSS - Widesense Stationary

viii

Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1

Third Generation Services

During the last decades, the mobile communication market evolution has led
to demands for higher data rates and larger system capacity. To successfully
satisfy these requirements, Third Generation systems must increase their
spectral efficiency and support high user data rates, especially on the downlink direction of the communication path due to its heavier load. For this
purpose, the 3GPP has standardized in Release 5 a new technology called
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) that represents an evolution
of the WCDMA radio interface. These technological enhancements can allow
operators to enable new high data rate services, improve the QoS of already
existing services, and achieve a lower cost per delivered data bit.
Consumers are expected to acquire mobile data services if their contents
add value to the consumers life by satisfying a concrete necessity or requirement. From the end users interest, the value provided by the service contents
contribute to his cost-effectiveness, time-efficiency, or simple entertainment;
for instance, rich content services like video telephony, audio/video clips, and
map based information, or fast Internet access for business users.

1.2

Technology

High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or also known as HSDPA, is a mobile

telephone protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family of third
generation (3G) technologies designed to reduce the latency of the link and
increase data transfer rates and the capacity of such networks through the
transfer of data using a cellular phone. HSDPA is associated with the vari1

ous Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) networks. Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4
Mbps. The first phase of HSDPA has been specified in the 3rd Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 5. The second phase of HSDPA is specified in the 3GPP Release 7 and has been named HSPA Evolved or also
HSPA+; it can achieve data rates of up to 25 Mbps, [1].
As a difference with other WCDMA channels, the High-Speed Downlink
Shared Channel (HS-DSCH) lacks two basic features - fast power control
and variable spreading factor. Instead, it presents an improved downlink
performance by using adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), fast packet
scheduling and fast retransmissions at the base station, known as hybrid automatic repeat-request (HARQ), together with a shorter 2-ms Transmission
Time Interval (TTI). Figure 1.1 shows the coverage map of deployed HSDPA
technology around the world.

Figure 1.1: View coverage map about HSDPA deployment in the world, [1].

1.3

Work environment

Due to the importance of the HSDPA technology, a SISO-HSDPA System

level simulator was developed in a collaboration of the Institute of Communications and Radio Frequency Engineering and Mobilkom Austria AG.
2

The source-code is based on MATLAB and it simulates a mixed network in

which both UMTS and HSDPA traffics are present. MATLAB is a high-level
technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis, and numeric computation. It is
an extended engineering tool and has enhanced the tradicional languages. It
allows solving technical computing problems and a wide range of applications
like signal and image processing, communications, easy matrix manipulation,
plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user
interfaces, and interfacing with programs in other languages. The extension
of the initial simulator is also developed in MATLAB, to ensure extendability
and simple debugging.

1.4

Objectives

Let me briefly sketch the motivation of this bachelor thesis. The first goal
of the simulator was to evaluate the HSDPA throughput performance in
the mixed traffic network; and based on this groundwork this thesis should
develop two enhancements, namely:
Extend the SISO HSDPA Simulator in order to handle real
network layout data: this is the main functionality on which the
work has been focused; the Mobilkom Austria AG provided measured
path-loss matrices of a HSDPA cluster, including parameters like antenna gain patterns, the height of the antennas and the Nodes-B positions. This data has to be converted in a suitable form to be analyzable
in the simulator.
CQI mapping optimizations: an optimization of the CQI mapping
of HSDPA mobiles shall be performed in order to find the mapping
which maximizes the overall cell throughput. This optimization can
result in a new mapping at the Node-B that grant an optimum HSDPA
network performance.

1.5

Structure of the thesis

This thesis report is organized as follows:

Chapter 1: a short introduction about the technology and work environment, objectives and outline of the thesis is described.
Chapter 2: provides a general overview of the HSDPA technology,
like basis and key features.
3

 Chapter 3: this chapter describes the initial SISO-HSDPA Simulator,

including the system model and simulation process.
Chapter 4: the conversions of the real data matrices into useful information for the simulator, the overall process and necessary new functionalities and modifications in the initial source-code for handling the
new real data layout are explained in this section.
Chapter 5: this chapter outlines the CQI basis in HSDPA, the current
CQI mapping and the mapping optimizations investigated in the thesis,
as well as the new functions including in the original simulator for this
purpose.
Chapter 6: includes a description of some investigations and new
functionalities for the enhancement of the simulator that do not fit
into the previous chapters.
Chapter 7: summarises the main conclusions of the bachelor thesis.

Chapter 2
HSDPA Principles
This chapter covers high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) principles
for wide-band code division multiple access (WCDMA) - the new key feature included in Release 5 specifications and enhanced further in Release 6
specifications. HSDPA has been designed to increase downlink packet data
throughput, compared to the rates provided by the Release 4 (also called
Release 99) WCDMA specifications by means of fast physical layer (L1)
retransmission and transmission combining as well as fast link adaptation
controlled by the Node B.

2.1

Introduction

HSDPA, also called 3.5G, is the evolution of the third generation (3G) and
is considered the previous step before the fourth generation (4G), the future
High-Speed Mobile Network. HSDPA and High-Speed Uplink Packet Access
(HSUPA) are the components of the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family. HSPA is an upgrade of the network infrastructure and it is part of the
WCDMA 3G network. As an enhancement of UMTS, HSDPA was designed
to improve the quality of service, increase the peak data rates (currently
speeds supported by HSDPA are 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbps). Also compared to UMTS, the spectral efficiency is significantly increased, and this
allows more users being able to use high data rates on a single carrier. The
fundamental techniques used in HSDPA to achieve this improvements are
Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), extensive multi-code operation
and a fast and spectrally efficient retransmission strategy. The assignment of
the HS-DSCH (High-Speed Downlink Shared Channel) among the users on
5

a TTI basis (1 TTI = 2 ms) is coordinated by a fast scheduler. Higher cell

capacity and higher spectral efficiency are required to provide these higher
data rates and new services with the current base station sites. Figure 2.1
illustrates the estimated cell capacity per sector per 5MHz with WCDMA,
with basic HSPA and with enhanced HSPA in the macro-cell environment.

Figure 2.1: Estimated cell throughput per sector, [2].

HSDPA is able to satisfy the most demanding multimedia applications such

as email attachments, Power Point presentations or web pages. An HSDPA
3.6 Mbps network can provide a 3MB music file in 8.3 seconds and a 5 MB
video clip in 13.9 seconds. Speeds achieved by HSDPA reach 14.4 Mbps but
currently most network operators provide speeds up to 3.6 Mbps, with the
rollout of 7.2 Mbps quickly growing. It is important to note that the total available downlink speed within one sector is split among all the active
users. Also, HSDPA can coexist with Release 4 in the same frequency band
of 5 MHz. In Austria four HSDPA operators are giving service, Mobilkom
Austria, Hutchison 3 Austria and ONE Austria serving HSDPA data rates
of 7.2 Mbps, and Mobilkom Austria serving HSUPA (with a data rate of 1.4
Mbps). Currently only Telstra (in Australia) is serving HSDPA data rates
of 14.4 Mbps. There are 185 commercial HSDPA networks in 92 different
countries; the current deployment of HSPA networks in the world and the
6

HSDPA data rates supported are shown in Table 2.1.

Data rate
0-3.6 Mbps
3.6-7.2 Mpbs
7.2-14.4 Mpbs

Networks
56
91
38

Table 2.1: Current HSDPA commercial networks and data rates, [1].

2.2

HSDPA Standardization

High-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) was standardized as part of

3GPP Release 5 with the first specification version in March 2002. Highspeed uplink packet access (HSUPA) was part of 3GPP Release 6 with the
first specification version in December 2004. HSDPA and HSUPA together
are called high-speed packet access(HSPA). The first commercial HSDPA
networks were available at the end of 2005, as we can see in Figure 2.2, and
many improvements have been introduced in the Release 6, 7, and 8.

Figure 2.2: Downlink data rates, [2].

7

HSPA is deployed on top of the WCDMA network. Both of them can share
all the network elements in the core network and in the radio network including base stations, Radio Network Controller (RNC), Serving GPRS Support
Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN). WCDMA and
HSPA are also sharing the base station sites, antennas and antenna lines.
3GPP creates the technical content of the specifications, based around work
items, though small changes can be introduced directly as change requests
against specification, but it is the organizational partners that actually publish the work. In addition to the organizational partners, there are also
market representation partners, such as the UMTS Forum, part of 3GPP.
With bigger items a feasibility study is done usually before rushing in to
making actual changes to the specifications, [2].
A feasibility study for HSDPA was started in March 2000 in line with 3GPP
principles, having at least four supporting companies. Motorola and Nokia
supporting the start of the work from the vendor side and BT/Cellnet, TMobile and NTT DoCoMo from the operator side. The study was finalized
for the TSG RAN plenary for March 2001 and there were issues studied to
improve the downlink packet data transmission over Release 4 specifications.
Physical layer retransmissions and BTS-based scheduling were studied as well
as adaptive coding and modulation. The study also included some investigations for multi-antenna transmission and reception technology, titled MIMO
(Multiple Input Multiple Output), and also Fast Cell Selection (FCS), [2].

2.3

HSDPA vs Release 4 DCH

In Release 4 specifications basically exist three different methods for downlink packet data operation: dedicated channel (DCH), forward access channel
(FACH) and downlink shared channel (DSCH). The most interesting comparison is between Release 4 and HSDPA dedicated channel; the FACH is
used either for small data volumes or when setting up the connection and
during state transfers. In connection with HSDPA, the FACH is used to
carry the signalling when the terminal has moved. However the DSCH has
been replaced with the high-speed DSCH of HSDPA.
The Release 4 based DCH is the key part of the system, and Release 5
8

HSDPA is always operated with the DCH running in parallel. If the service
is only for packet data, then at least the signalling radio bearer (SRB) is
carried on the DCH.
In case the service is circuit-switched, then the service always runs on the
DCH. In Release 5, uplink user data always go on the DCH (when HSDPA is
active), whereas in Release 6 an alternative is provided by the Enhanced DCH
(E-DCH) with the introduction of high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA).
In the case of multiple services, the reserved capacity is the sum of the peak
data rate of the services. The main functionality for the DCH is the fast
power control in addition to encoding the data packet provided by the RNC.
Furthermore, soft handover is supported for the DCH. As a difference with
Release 4, HSDPA introduces some methods for improving downlink packet
data in terms of capacity and bit rates. The key differences between the
HS-DSCH (HSDPA dedicated channel) and the Release 4 DCH-based packet
data operation are as follows:
Lack of fast power control. Instead, link adaptation selects the suitable
combination of codes, coding rates and modulation to be used.
Support of higher order modulation than the DCH. With 16-Quadrature
Amplitude Modulation (16QAM) the number of bits carried per symbol
is doubled in favourable conditions compared to the quadrature phase
shift keying (4QAM) in Release 4.
User allocation with base station based scheduling every 2ms, including
fast physical layer signalling. With DCH the higher layer signalling
from the RNC allocates semi-permanent code (and a spreading factor)
to be used. The transmission time interval (TTI) is also longer with
the DCH, allowing values such as 10, 20, 40 or 80 ms. (The longest is
limited in the specific case of small data rates that have a spreading
factor of 512).
Use of physical layer retransmissions and retransmission combining,
while with the DCH - if retransmissions are used - they are based on
RLC level retransmissions.
Lack of soft handover. Data are sent from one serving HS-DSCH cell
only.
Lack of physical layer control information on the HS-PDSCH. This is
carried instead on the HS-SCCH for HSDPA use and on the associated
DCH (uplink power control, etc).
9

 Multicode operation with a fixed spreading factor. Only spreading

factor 16 is used, while with the DCH the spreading factor could be a
static parameter between 4 and 512.
The DCH may use both turbo-coding or convolutional coding, while in
HSDPA only turbo-coding is used. This was motivated by the fact that
turbo codes make it possible to increase data rate without increasing
the power of a transmission, or they can be used to decrease the amount
of power used to transmit at a certain data rate.
No discontinuous transmission (DTX) on the slot level. The HS-PDSCH
is either fully transmitted or not transmitted at all during the 2-ms TTI.
The main differences are summarised in Figure 2.3:

Figure 2.3: Fundamental properties of the DCH and HS-DSCH, [2].

2.3.1

Radio resource management architecture

The radio resource management (RRM) functionality with HSDPA and HSUPA
is significantly changed compared to Release 4. In Release 4 the scheduling
control was purely based in the radio network controller (RNC) while in the
base station (BTS or Node B in 3GPP terminology) mainly a power control related functionality (fast closed loop power control) was located. In
Release 4 if there were two RNCs involved in the connection, the scheduling was distributed. The serving RNC (SRNC) - the one being connected
to the core network for that connection - would handle the scheduling for
10

dedicated channels (DCHs) and the one actually being connected to the base
transceiver station (BTS) would handle the common channels.
Due to the BTS based scheduling, the overall RRM architecture changed.
The SRNC will still retain control of handovers and is the one which will
decide the suitable mapping for quality of service (QoS) parameters. With
HSDPA the situation is simplified because, as there are no soft handovers for
HSDPA data, the utilization of the Iur interface can be avoided by performing SRNC relocation, when the serving high-speed downlink shared channel
(HS-DSCH) cell is under a different controlling RNC (CRNC). Thus, just a
single RNC could be enough for the typical HSDPA scenario, [2]. Figure 2.4
shows the new RRM architecture.

Figure 2.4: RRM architecture, [2].

2.4

HSDPA operation principle

HSDPA is based on a fast Node B scheduling where the Node B estimates

the channel quality of each active HSDPA user on the basis of the physical
11

layer feedback received in the uplink. Scheduling and link adaptation are
then conducted on a fast pace depending on the scheduling algorithm and
the user prioritization scheme. The general HSDPA operation principle is
shown in Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5: HSDPA Node B scheduling principle, [2].

The other new key technology is physical layer retransmission. In Release

4 when the data has not been received correctly, is necessary to retransmit it again from the RNC. In Release 4 there is no difference in physical
layer operation, regardless if the packet is a retransmission or a new packet.
With HSDPA the packet is first received in the buffer in the BTS. The BTS
keeps the packet in the buffer even if has sent it to the user and, in case
of packet decoding failure, retransmission automatically takes places from
the base station without RNC involvement. So, the terminal can combine
the transmissions, capturing the energy of both. Using a radio link control
(RLC)-acknowledged mode of operation, RLC layer acknowledgement is provided in the RLC layer as would be done for Release 4 based operation.

12

2.5
2.5.1

HSDPA channels
HSDPA new channels

Several new channels have been introduced for HSDPA operation. For user
data there is the high-speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH) and the
corresponding physical channel. For the associated signalling needs there are
two channels: high-speed dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH)
in the uplink direction and high-speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH)
in the downlink. In addition to the basic HSDPA channel covered in Release 5 specifications, there is now a new channel in Release 6 specifications the fractional dedicated physical channel (F-DPCH) - to cover for operation
when all downlink traffic is carried on the HS-DSCH. The channels needed
for HSDPA operation are shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6: HSDPA operation channels.

High-speed downlink shared channel

The HS-DSCH is the transport channel that carries the actual user data.
In the physical layer the HS-DSCH is mapped onto the high-speed physical
13

downlink shared channel (HS-PDSCH).

An important property of the HS-DSCH is that it can dynamically allocate
the resource. When the Node-B decides which user is going to be served,
the data is sent continuously during the 2-ms TTI, so there is no discontinuous transmission (DTX) on the slot level like with the DCH. With DTX the
downlink interference generated is reduced, but it keeps the code resource occupied according to the highest data rate possible on the DCH, because the
code resource reservation is not changed when moving to a lower data rate;
(the only way to reduce resource consumption is to reconfigure the radio link,
but this takes time in reconfiguring the data rate to a new smaller value, and
then a new reconfiguration to upgrade the data rate again). As a difference
to DTX, with HS-DSCH, once there are no more data to be transmitted for
that user, there is no transmission on the HS-DSCH again for the same user,
but the resources in the according 2-ms are allocated to another user. Lets
see the important technical apects:
Adaptative Modulation and Coding:
To cope with the dynamic range of the signal-to-noise ratio (Es/No)
at the UE, HSDPA adapts the modulation, the coding rate and number of channelization codes to the instantaneous radio conditions. The
combination of the first two mechanisms is denominated Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC).
The channel coding is simpler than the corresponding DCH one, because in the HS-DSCH there is no need to deal with DTX or compressed
mode, and there is only one transport channel active at a time because
fewer steps in multiplexing/de-multiplexing are needed. The HS-DSCH
channel coding chain is illustrated in Figure 2.7.
16QAM :
While the DCH only uses 4QAM modulation, the HS-DSCH may
additionally use the higher order modulation 16QAM. HS-DSCH
incorporates this modulation to increase the peak data rates for
users served under favourable radio conditions. Support of 4QAM
is mandatory for the mobile, despite the support of 16QAM is optional for the network and the UE. The inclusion of this high
order modulation introduces some complexity challenges for the
receiver terminal, which needs to estimate the relative amplitude
of the received symbols, whereas it only requires the detection of
14

Figure 2.7: HS-DSCH channel coding chain, [3].

the signal phase in the 4QAM case. The turbo encoder is in charge
of the data protection. The 16QAM constellation rearrangement
depends on the transmission number, because the symbols in the
constellation do not have the same error probability. The 16QAM
and 4QAM constellations are shown in Figure 2.8.

Figure 2.8: 16QAM and 4QAM constellations, [2].

15

QAM is a digital modulation that transports data by changing

the amplitude of two carrier signals. These two waves, generally
sinusoidal, are in the same frecuency but with a phase difference
of ninety degrees; both signal paths - I and Q - carry information.
It is used for the data transmission with a high speed by channels
with restricted bandwidth. By having more constellation points 16 instead of 4 - now 4 bits can be carried per symbol instead of
2 bits per symbol with 4QAM.
In reception the use of higher order modulation like 16QAM introduces additional decision boundaries, as shown in Figure 2.8.
Signal quality needs to be better when using 16QAM instead of
4QAM. Because of this, with 16QAM it is not sufficient to figure
out the phase correctly but also the amplitude needs to be estimated for more accurate phase estimate.
The channel coefficients can be estimated from the common pilot channel (CPICH), which directly gives phase information. The
offset of the HS-DSCH data channel to the CPICH however has to
be signalled in order to estimate the amplitude information. This
suggests that at the base station - during the 2-ms transmission power changes should be avoided.
In the system there can be other traffic that is consuming code
space as well - such as circuit switched speech or video calls - which
cannot be mapped on HSDPA. Thus, radio resource management
will then determine the available code space for the scheduler at
the BTS, [2].
Bit scrambling:
The bit scrambling functionality was introduced to avoid long
sequences repeating the same symbol, as long sequences of 0s
or 1s. These could occur with some type of content, and especially when not using ciphering at higher layers. In such a case
the terminal would have difficulties with HS-DSCH power level
estimation and, thus, physical layer scrambling operation was introduced. Operation is the same for all users and is purely for
ensuring good signal properties for demodulation, [2].

16

 HS-DSCH Link Adaptation

HSDPA utilizes link adaptation techniques to substitute power
control and variable spreading factor. The HS-DSCH link-adaptation
algorithm at the Node-B is very dynamic, and adjusts the transmit
bit rate on the HS-DSCH every 2-ms TTI. It is based on the physical layer CQI being provided by the terminal. Various sources
contribute to the time-variant SINR at the user even though the
HS-DSCH transmit power is assumed to be constant. The total
transmit power from the serving HS-DSCH cell is time variant due
to the transmission of the power controlled DCHs; the downlink
radio channel is time variant if the user equipment is somehow
moving; and finally, the experienced inter-cell interference at the
user position is also time variant. For the purpose of HS-DSCH
link adaptation, the user therefore periodically sends a CQI to the
serving HS-DSCH cell on the uplink high-speed dedicated physical
control channel (HS-DPCCH), [4].
Using link adaptation, the network will also gain from the limitation of power control dynamics in the downlink. As signals
in the downlink cannot use a too large dynamic range to avoid
the near-far problem between signals from the same source, the
downlink power control dynamics is also limited. While in the uplink a 71-dB or more dynamic range is used, in the downlink only
around 10 to 15 dBs can be utilized. The exact number depends
on the implementation, channel environment and spreading factors applied. This means that for users close to the base station
the power level transmitted is higher than necessary for reliable
signal detection. Using link adaptation, there is a difference of a
few decibels in the signal strength, just by changing from 4QAM
to 16QAM; and by playing with the coding rates and the number
of codes the total dynamic range can reach 30 dB.
Hybrid ARQ :
HSDPA incorporates a physical layer retransmission functionality that
adds robustness against link adaptation errors and improves the performance significantly.
The Hybrid ARQ functionality consists of a two stage matching functionality which allows tuning two different retransmission types. These
17

two Hybrid ARQ strategies are: (1) identical retransmissions (also

called soft combining) or (2) non-identical retransmissions (or so-called
incremental redundancy). The Hybrid ARQ technique is fundamentally different from the WCDMA retransmissions because the UE decoder combines the soft information of multiple transmissions of a
transport block at bit level. Let us go a little bit more into detail:
Soft combining : as proposed in [5] every retransmission is simply a
replica of the coded first transmission. The same bits after rate matching operation are sent, for every retransmission of the same packet.
The decoder at the receiver combines these multiple replicas of the
transmitted packet weighted by the received SNR prior to decoding
(so called soft combining). This technique requires some memory on
the mobile terminal, which must store the soft information of unsuccessfully decoded transmissions. The delay in the retransmissions and
memory required shell be as small as possible.
Incremental Redundancy (IR): it requires even more memory in the
receiver user equipment capabilities. The retransmissions include additional redundant information that is incrementally transmitted if the
decoding fails on the first attempt. That causes the effective coding rate
to be increased with the number of retransmissions. Incremental Redundancy can be further classified in Partial IR and Full IR. Partial IR
includes the systematic bits in every coded word, which implies that
every retransmission is self-decodable, whereas Full IR only includes
parity bits, and therefore its retransmissions are not self-decodable.
If due to a signalling error that could fill the buffer with undesired
data, due to a low coverage, or due to a change of the serving HSDSCH cell, the number of physical layer retransmissions exceeds the
maximum or the retransmissions fail, the radio link layer will handle
further retransmissions.
High-speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH)
The HSDPA concept includes a Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH) to signal the users when they are going to be served as well as the necessary
information for the decoding process. Compared with the HS-DSCH, the
HS-SCCH has two slots offset, as shown if Figure 2.9. This enables the HSSCCH to carry time-critical signalling information which allows the terminal
to demodulate the correct codes. A spreading factor of 128 allows 40 bits
18

per slot to be carried (with 4QAM modulation). The phase reference does
not change when using HS-DSCH due to the lack of pilots or power control
bits on the HS-SCCH.

Figure 2.9: Relative timing between HS-SCCH and HS-DSCH, [2].

The HS-SCCH carries the following information, [6]:

UE Id Mask: to identify the user to be served in the next TTI.
Transport Format Related Information: specifies the set of channelization codes, and the modulation. The actual coding rate is derived from
the transport block size and other transport format parameters [2].
Hybrid ARQ Related Information: such as if the next transmission
is new or related to an earlier transmitted packet, and if it should
be combined, the associated ARQ process, and information about the
redundancy version, [7].
This control information solely applies to the UE to be served in the next
TTI, which permits this signalling channel to be a shared one. The RNC
can specify the recommended power of the HS-SCCH (offset relative to the
pilots bits of the associated DPCH), [8].
The timing between the HS-SCCH and the HS-DSCH allows the terminal
to have one slot time to receive the information which codes have to despread and with which to modulate. For the remaining parameters, a slot
processing time is needed before a new 2-ms TTI starts.

19

When HSDPA is operated using the time multiplexing principle, then only
one HS- SCCH can be configured. In this case only one user receives data at
a time. When there is code multiplexing, then more than one HS-SCCH is
needed. A single terminal may consider at most four HS-SCCHs; the system
itself could configure even more. The use of code multi-plexing is not necessarily needed either when the carrier is shared with DCH traffic, or when
there is a desire to have HSDPA data users operating with reasonable data
rates -in the order of 384 kbps or more. In general, the data rate available
for each user in different cases will depend on power allocation, the environment and the type of terminal being used. The channel coding is one-third
convolutional coding (as turbo-coding does not make sense with such a small
amount of information). In the second part there is a cyclic redundancy
check (CRC) to make sure that there is no corruption of the information. A
signalling error with, say, an HARQ process number would cause problems
as it would cause buffer corruption; thus, a 16-bit CRC is used to ensure
sufficient reliability, [2].

2.5.2

High-speed dedicated physical control channel

An uplink High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel (HS-DPCCH)

carries the necessary control information in the uplink, namely, the ARQ
acknowledgements, and the Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) reports. The
CQI reports are deeply described in Section 5. To aid the power control operation of the HS-DPCCH an associated Dedicated Physical Channel (DPCH)
is run for every user. This information from the terminal to the base station
allows for the link adaptation and physical layer retransmissions.
According to [8], the RNC may set the maximum transmission power on
all the codes of the HS-DSCH and HS-SCCH channels in the cell. Likewise,
the RNC determines the maximum number of channelization codes to be
used by the HS-DSCH channel.
By keeping the existing uplink DPCCH and DPDCH unchanged the active set can also accommodate Release 4 based base stations. The initial
uplink DPCCH transmit power is set by higher layers. Subsequently the uplink transmit power control procedure simultaneously controls the power of a
DPCCH and its corresponding DPDCHs (if present). The relative transmit
power offset between DPCCH and DPDCHs is determined by the network.
Any change in the uplink DPCCH transmit power shall take place immediately before the start of the pilot field on the DPCCH. The change in DPCCH
20

power with respect to its previous value is derived by the UE. The previous
value of DPCCH power shall be that used in the previous slot, except in the
event of an interruption in transmission due to the use of compressed mode,
when the previous value shall be that used in the last slot before the transmission gap. During the operation of the uplink power control procedure the
UE transmit power shall not exceed a maximum allowed value which is the
lower out of the maximum output power of the terminal power class and a
value which may be set by higher layer signalling. Uplink power control shall
be performed while the UE transmit power is below the maximum allowed
output power, [9].
As already mentioned, the uplink feedback information is carried on the HSDPCCH. The HARQ feedback informs the base station whether the packet
was decoded correctly or not. The CQI, respectively, tells the base station
scheduler the data rate the terminal expects to be able to receive at a given
point in time.
Fractional DPCCH
For Release 6, further optimization took place for the situation where only
packet services are active in the downlink other than the signalling radio
bearer (SRB). In such a case, especially with lower data rates, the downlink
DCH introduces too much overhead and can also consume too much code
space if looking for a large number of users using a low data rate service (like
VoIP). The solution was to use an F-DPCH, which is basically a strippeddown version of DPCH that handles the power control.
The code resource is time-shared, thus several users can share the same code
space for power control information. Each user sees only the channel which
has one symbol per slot for transmission power control (TPC) information
and assumes there is no transmission in the rest of the symbols. With several
users, the network configures each user having the same code but different
frame timing and, thus, users can be transmitted on the single code source.
Up to ten users can share one SF 256 code, thus reducing code space utilization for the associated DCH for users with all services mapped to the
HS-DSCH,[2].

21

Chapter 3
HSDPA Simulator
In this chapter the initial simulator on which this bachelor thesis is based
and all the work that was developed is explained. It contains the information
about the initial simulator created by M.Wrulich, et al., in which I had to
implement some new functionalities for the enhancement of the simulator.
The chapter is organized as follows: Section 3.1 briefly sketchs the purpose
and context of the simulator; a short description of the system-level model
for the investigation is included in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3 explains the
structure of the simulator.

3.1

Introduction

Let me briefly introduce the work environment and goals of the initial SISO
HSDPA Simulator. In the program, written in MATLAB, a mixed UMTS
and HSDPA network is simulated. As described in Chapter 2, one of the
advantages in a WCDMA network is that HSDPA can coexist within an
existing 5MHz band of Release 4, allowing for sharing the power amplifier
and spreading codes at the Node-B between the HS-DSCH and the Release4 dedicated channels. Even if HSDPA is widely installed, a mixed carrier
operation is more cost-efficient for cells that are not fully loaded, [10]. One
of the goals of the initial simulator was to deduce the optimum Node-B
power split within the mixed scenario, by means of snapshot based network
simulations, in order to maximize the overall cell throughput. The obtained
results can be used for the cell operation planning by the network operators.

22

3.2

System model

According to [10], the HSDPA performance is done with a system-level simulator in which the following aspects are modelled:
Channel modeling: the channel coefficient used for the simulation
allows us to model the radio propagation and it considers the macroscale pathloss, that depends on the the distance between the base station and the user equipment, the shadow fading and the fast fading
with multiple paths and no time correlation.
HSDPA modeling: this modeling represents the HSDPA transmission performance in an accurate way by using a simplified system level
description in which they have modelled the channel quality observed
by the user equipment and the bit error/decoding performance. The
models are the so-called link-measurement model and link-performance
model respectively. In the link-measurement model, the signal-to-noiseand-interference ration (SINR) is evaluated after Rake-combining and
despreading for each user equipment in the cell. The link-performance
model aims at an analytical approximation of the block error ratio
(BLER), where it is assumed that the scheduler in the Node B decides
to serve a specific user with an MCS as specified by the CQI mapping
table [11]. Furthermore, it is assumed that the desired HSDPA user
always gets the full available transmission power and there is enough
data to transmit (full buffer assumption).
Release 4 modeling: the Release 4 traffic is only coarsly modelled,
since the main goal of the simulator was the prediction of the achievable
user data rates with HSDPA within the existing Release 4 network. In
[10] further information and the estimation of the number of DCH users
that can be served can be found.
Power split: the total intra-cell transmission power depends on the
transmission power of the DCH and the HSDPA traffic, and in each
cell, the total available transmit power is shared between DCH and
HSDPA users. The power of HSDPA can be allocated in the Base
station downlink power budget by means of two possibilities:
By sending Node-B application part (NBAP) messages to the base
station, the RNC can dynamically allocate the HSDPA power.
This is kept at a fixed level by the base station, and the DCH
power varies accordingly to the fast closed loop power control.
23

 The base station is allowed to allocate all unused power for HSDPA, instead of sending NBAP messages.
The total intra-cell transmission power is calculated as folows:

Pintra = PDCH + PHSDSCH + Pother

(3.1)

Pother incorporates the power from the common pilot channel and other
needed common channels. This explains the fact that the total intracell power depends on the DCH and HSDPA transmission power.

3.3

Simulation process

After explaining briefly the system model of the simulator, now the initial
SISO HSDPA Simulator itself is going to be treated in detail. Figure 3.1
illustrates the three main steps:
Load settings: before starting the process, the function load settings
is called. This settings file allows for the specification of the simulation,
i.e. the kind of network, channel and user equipment.
Precalculations: after the settings are loaded and before the simulation starts, there are some precalculations which allow us creating some
necessary elements like user and Node-B positions, all the pathlosses
for every users and PDP for serving links.
Simulation loop: the last step is the simulation loop, which calculates different average data rates by means of multiple independent
snapshots.

3.3.1

Load settings

The settings are divided in: network, channel, user equipment and simulator,
and by changing the parameters we can specify the kind of simulation.
Network settings: the mixed traffic network is modelled according
to the parameters:

24

Figure 3.1: Three main steps in the simulator: load settings, precalculations (i.e Node-B and users positions in order to prepare the network) and
simulation loop to obtain the HSDPA data rate.
R99: contains the needed parameteres for Release 99, like the
bandwith (5 MHz), the chiprate, the UMTS load in percent and
the UMTS required Eb/No for the requested UMTS DCH bearer.
Node-B: here, some variables like the distance between Node-Bs,
the power level of each Node-B (the maximum power, the CPICH
power and the common power), and the power distribution of the
Node-B are specified.
Power distribution: determines the power distribution among
the neighboring Node-Bs, thus specifying the intercell-interference
structure.
HSDPA: in this part the HSDPA network is specified, thus the
number of HSDPA users, the spreading factor of HSDPA transmissions (fixed at 16), the number of codes, the absolute HSDPA
25

power and the TTI value (usually 2 ms) are assigned.

MAC-hs: this is used in an enhanced version of the simulator for
scheduling variables.
Other: variables like the grid density, which determines the number of grid points for user positioning within the cell, the G factor
of the network or the other cells interferences are chosen here.
Network structure: the number of base stations (7 or 19), the
number of sectors for each base station (1 or 3) and the antenna
gain pattern are specified.
Channel settings: the channel modeling is done through three different fadings that can attenuate the signals in the communications
between the base station and the users.
Deterministic fading: first the model (COST231, Berger, fixed,
exponent, tr25848 or none) is selected, and accordinglyly the necessary variables like frequency or antenna height are assigned.
Shadow fading: there are two possibilities for the shadow fading: the lognormal model or the lognormal moving model, and
accordinglyly different parameters can be selected.
Fast fading: it can be modeled with a Rayleigh model or it can
be omitted.
Power Delay Profile: the oversampling factor, the model (pedestrian A or B, vehicular A or B, or none) and the chiprate are
selected here.
User Equipment settings: the parameters needed to model the user
equipment are defined here.
General: the user category class and different noise powers seen
in the receiver, like the receiver noise figure or the thermal noise
density are defined.
Movement: contains the setting for speed of the user.
Receiver: the reciver type is specified, and in case of a Rake
receiver the number of fingers is also determined.
Traffic: will be used in further developements of the simulator.
Simulator settings: now, some parameters of the simulator are defined, although they do not belong to the communication scheme itself.
26

 Simulation type: the kind of simulation can be chosen here. It

is possible to simulate all the possible users positions (also called
grid positions) uniformly, or it can be done by means of multiple
simulations based on multiple snapshot, in which we simulate as
many positions as number of users we have set.
Link performance model: the COST290 model, where a simple
link performance model based on cost 290 or no model can be used,
but a model is needed to performance the link and simulate a real
situation with a BLER value different to zero.
R99 datarate model: a simple data rate model described in
[10].
Power distribution: settings for the step-size of the power loop
in the simulator.
Display/save results: backup options.

3.3.2

Precalculations

As already said, when the parameters which determine the kind of simulation
and the variables are loaded, some precalculations have to be done to prepare
the network before the simulation loop starts. The Node-B positions, user
positions, PDP for links in serving site, and the pathlosses for every users are
created here. Some of these calculations have been enhanced in the improved
version of the simulator developed in this thesis.
1. Node-B positions: the network consists of one central hexagonal
cell and six or eighteen hexagons more around it, depending on the
desired number of interfering Node-Bs. The base stations are situated
in the center of each hexagon, and the serving Node-B is in the central
hexagon, so it is in the middle of the network. This configuration is
described as cellular layout 2 in [12]. Both configurations are shown in
Figure 3.2.
2. Users positions: the simulator determines the users postions by using
a grid of points inside the main sector (it is considered the first sector
in the serving node), as we can see in Figure 3.3. We can observe in
this figure that some part in the bottom of the sector is missing. It
corresponds to a 10 square meters area around the base station which
is considered as a limit where no users are positioned.
The users are positioned randomly in the grid positions. The number of
grid points and users is detetermined in the HSDPA traffic simulation
settings. This is shown in Figure 3.4.
27

Figure 3.2: Network layout with 7 and 19 base stations.

Figure 3.3: Example of the grid positions generation in the serving cell.
3. Power Delay Profile (PDP): gives the intensity of a signal received
through a multipath channel as a function of time delay. The time
delay is the difference in travel time between multipath arrivals. In
this part, the PDP profile of a given ITU model and for all links in the
serving site is generated.
28

Figure 3.4: Example of the users position in the serving cell.

4. Users pathloss: in this part, the pathlosses from all Node-Bs in the
simulated network structure to the given users are generated. As briefly
explained in the channel modeling and channel settings, the radio propagation model used in the simulator considers three different elements:
macro-scale pathloss, shadow fading, and small-scale fading with multiple paths and no correlation in time, since this initial simulator is
snapshot based with no correlations in between, [10]. The channel coefficient which models the radio propragation between the base station
and the user equipment can thus be written as:

h( ) = d s

L
X

pl fl ( l )

(3.2)

t=1

where d denotes the deterministic pathloss, s the shadow fading, pl

and l are the relative power and delay of the multipath components,
fl represents L independent Rayleigh fading processes at fixed time
slots and denotes the Dirac function.
The macro-scale pathloss depends on the distance between the BS and
the UE, which is modelled accordingly to the COST231 model [13],
and it depends also on the antenna gain pattern if a sectorized model
is used. The shadow fading is modelled by a lognormal random variable
with zero mean and s = 8 dB, with no correlation in time. [10]
29

5. Noise power: settings needed to evaluate the noise power level.

3.3.3

Simulation loop

After the settings are loaded and the precalculations are done, the system
is prepared to start the simulation of multiple independent snapshots. A
configuration with three sectors model has been used, and the simulations
are done in the first sector of the serving Node-B, the so-called target sector.
The results are getting after the average of all individual calculations.
Figure 3.5 illustrates an overview of the HSDPA calculations explained below, where we can observe that the SINR evaluation is the first step, then
the CQI is mapped as function of the SINR, and using both, the block error
rate (BLER) and the transport block size (TBS), the HSDPA and Release 4
data rate are estimated.

Figure 3.5: Overview of the basic steps in the simulator.

HSDPA System Level Modelling:
Let us now go a little bit into detail onto the HSDPA system-level
modeling.
30

1. SINR:
The Signal-to-noise-interference ratio (SINR) is used to evaluate
the channel quality as observed by the receiver, where a standard
single antenna Rake is used because it is the most common in
the SISO HSDPA terminals. The SINR is calculated after Rakecombining and despreading for every users in the sector, according
to the expression:

SIN Ru =

NF
X
i=1

PHSDSCH
|hi |2

Pintra,residual + Pinter + Pnoise

SF

(3.3)

where u is ther user, SF represents the spreading factor, PHSDSCH

denotes the power used for the HS-DSCH, Pintra,residual is the
residual intracell interference in the downlink, Pinter denotes the
transmitted interfering power from the neighbouring base stations,
Pnoise is the noise power seen at the receiver, and represents the
number of assigned spreading codes. The residual intracell interference arriving at the receiver fromPthe serving base station is
given by [14], Pintra,residual = Pintra Ll=1 |hl |2 , where L is the total number of taps of the current realisation, denoted by hl , and
Pintra denotes the total power transmitted in the serving cell, [10].
The structure of the Rake reciver is implicitly shown in Equation
3.3, since in the numerator the useful signal power is added up,
which is cancelled out from the interference power in the denominator for all the NF available fingers consecutively. The receiver
weights and the location of the fingers can be chosen perfectly
since perfect channel state information (CSI) is assumed at the
receiver. Accordingly, only the squared absolute values of the
channel coefficients (for each tap), |hi |2 occur in the equation. It
is also assumed that the transmission power of the HS-DSCH is
divided equally among all HS-PDSCH.

31

2. SINR to CQI:
The next step in the simulator is to calculate the CQI value for a
given SINR. This is done via a linear mapping, i.e.

SIN R 3.5
0,
CQI = SIN R[dB] + 3.5, 3.5 < SIN R < 26.5

30,
SIN R 26.5

(3.4)

The CQI values (ranging from 0 to 30) are used by the link adaptation algorithm at the Node-B. Each value represents a specific
combination of the transport block size (TBS), the number of
codes and the modulation type. Thus, each value indicates the
maximum TBS that can be correctly received with 90% probability.

3. CQI to TBS:
The bit-error/decoding performance, also called link-performance
model, can be described once the channel quality is known. The
simulator uses the link performance modelling for the transport
formats of each mobile category class, given by the range of possible CQI values. The tables for each category, used to determine
the number of codes as a function of the CQI and the Transport
Block Size (TBS) can be found in [11]. In the simulator we used
the UE categories 1 to 6, and the table is shown in Chapter 5.

4. BLER:
The Block Error Ratio (BLER) is calculated according to an analytical model specified in [15]. Due to the snapshot based simulation approach, no HARQ retransmissions gains are modelled.
The BLER is considered directly in the evaluation of the throughput. According to [16], the BLER under AWGN conditions and
utilizing a standard Rake receiver together with turbo coding, can
analitically be well approximated by:
32

R1.03CQI+5.26
2 SIN

BLER = [10

3log10 (CQI)

+ 1] 0.7

(3.5)

5. HSDPA data rate:

After all the steps done in the simulation, the HSDPA user data
rate can be calculated. It is important to note that the TBS denotes the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted via
the network in one TTI of 2 ms to the UE without exceeding a
BLER of 0.1 in average, and accordingly the HSDPA user data
rate is calculated with Equation 3.6,
Ru = T BS

1
(1 BLER)
2ms

(3.6)

which is consecutively averaged over fading realizations and over

all the individual snapshot simulations to get the average HSDPA
cell and user data rate.
Release 4:
As explained before, the investigations conducted so far were focused
on the prediction of the achievable HSDPA user data rates in dependence of a given Release 4 DCH load in the cell, and because of that
the Release 4 traffic is modelled only coarsly. This prevents an exact
evaluation, and the possibility of predicting the R4 cell throughput at
the actual power level is very limited. The simulator just roughly estimates the total DCH cell throughput in order to be able to predict the
overall cell throughput as function of the power distribution. Further
information can be found in [10].

3.3.4

Results

A short description of the simulation results concludes the inicial simulator

explanation. The investigation identifies the optimun power setting in order
to maximize the total cell throughput.
33

Figure 3.6 shows the achievable average cell throughput on DCH and HSDPA, and the total cell throughput (the sum of the throughput on DCH and
HSDPA) versus the amount of power that is allocated for HSDPA traffic.
The simulation parameters are as follows: Release 4 load of 20%, Node-B
distance of 0.5 km, Pedestrian A model, 10 codes used for HS-DSCH and the
user category 6. The HSDPA cell throughput increases when more power
is allocated to HSDPA, while the DCH throughput decreases as there will
be less power for the transmission of these channels. It is observed that the
HSDPA power allocation that maximizes the total cell throughput is around
4 W, which results in the total cell throughput of 735 kbps, with around
600 kbps being carried on HSDPA with PHSDSCH = 6.078 W. Note that
the HSDPA user data rate starts softly decreasing when the power reaches 6
W because an increase in power results also in an increment of the intercell
interference. The R99 cell data rate is always decreasing, due to the continuous increasing interference seen by the transmissions.

Figure 3.6: Average data rates with RNC power control of the HS-DSCH.

34

In practice, the optimal HSDPA power setting also depends on the offered
traffic in the cell and the mixture of DCH- and HSDPA-capable UEs. The
gain in the cell throughput from introducing HSDPA mainly comes from a
higher spectral efficiency for the HS-DSCH over the DCH by using Hybrid
ARQ and adaptive modulation and coding, multiuser diversity gain from
using fast PF scheduling, and better utilization of the available cell transmission power. Further information about the optimizations can be found in
[10].

35

Chapter 4
Real Network Layouts
One of the main goals of the work was to extend the SISO HSDPA Simulator
in order to handle real network layout data that the Mobilkom Austria AG
provided by means of measured pathloss matrices of a HSDPA cluster, and
parameters like the height of the antennas and the Nodes-B positions. It
was necessary to convert this data in a useful form to be analyzable in the
simulator. Furthermore, the source-code was enabled to use the data files
after the necessary modifications. The conversion of the real data matrices
into suitable information for the simulator, the overall process and necessary
new functionalities and modifications in the initial source-code for handling
the new real data layout are described in this chapter.

4.1

Introduction

This chapter leads with the use of geographical information in mobile radio communications from a propagation perspective. Some interest in the
COST231 project has focused on the types, resolution and accuracy of digital terrain databases required for propagation modelling. Despite it is not
possible in this thesis to list the contents of the files (the accurate location,
tilt and azimuth values of the antennas) since this is confidential information, a brief description from [17] about acquisition of geographical data is
depicted below.
Traditionally, geographical information has been obtained from paper maps.
In the last decade increasing use has been made of high resolution remote
sensing (aerial and satellite) for acquisition and of digital sto-rage and distribution methods. The generation of Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and
the efficient and accurate extraction of radial data from them is reviewed in
36

[18].
Indoor propagation modelling possess the heaviest reliance on high resolution geographical information. For urban propagation, it is essential to have
accurate information at least about the average height of individual buildings, when modelling larger cells or performing interference calculations and
when terminals are operating close to roof-top height. The incorporation
of information about clutter, particularly vegetation, is very important since
propagation characteristics are quite sensitive to scatterers around terminals.
Aerial stereo photography provides a means of obtaining quite accurate data
on the heights and outlines (resolution of the order 1m) of building and terrain features, the location of vegetation, etc. The wealth of data can, in
principle, be extracted from these sources. However, the extraction of data
is a quite intensive labour.
Information about the building cladding, windows, etc. is more difficult
to obtain. It appears that accurate geographical information of this nature
must be obtained using video cameras to capture data, for example. Wall
properties are particularly important for estimating building penetration.
For outdoor propagation, in practice we may only need this level of detail
around potential BTS sites.
Considering the influence of database information on prediction accuracy
it is noted in [19] that prediction errors can be attributed to database inaccuracies arising from the omission of vegetation data and the poor resolution
of terrain height data. Probably one of the most important causes of the
effect of database errors in field estimations is the effect of database inaccuracies on model evaluation. Complex models which visually correspond to
the measured data often display a large error standard-deviation with respect to empirical models because of spatial offsets. These offsets can arise
if there are small database or measurement location errors. The existence
of these offsets between predictions and measurements is not necessarily an
indication of a poor model. This problem is typically addressed by separately comparing the locally averaged model prediction and the statistics of
the faster variations separately with the measured data.

37

4.2

Files structure and information

The package provided by Mobilkom AG consists on twelve prediction files;

each one corresponding to a specific Base Station situated in the city center
of Vienna. All of them represent a map of a central area of the city, with the
respective Node-B situated in the center, and the generated pathloss around
it for different distances.
The files are divided in header and pathlosses values. Each value of the
pathloss that is read in the file corresponds to a pixel in the map. Establishing this correspondence is possible by using the information in the header of
the files, since Mobilkom AG also provided the necessary information to manage it, such as the lenght in bytes of all the interesting parameters. Figure
4.1 shows the useful information that we can extract from the header.

Figure 4.1: Information extracted from the header of the files.

By using this information we are able to include the real pathloss in the
simulator as well as the Node-B position, grid position and users positions accordingly to the extracted parameters. Besides the mentioned files, there are
two files more including information about the base stations identifier and
streets where are situated, and the antennas identification (class, tilt, azimuth and power). These files are not used so far in the simulation, although
38

it is possible to read them and extract information by means of specific functions that can be enabled in the load settings.
Once we have read all the information, we are able to represent the real
pathloss extracted from the files. Figure 4.2 shows the read pathloss values
from one of the prediction files. This figure gives an idea about the kind of
information attached in the files. By using the new implemented functions,
we are able to convert ASCII data into suitable information that we can plot.
The figure represents the variation of the pathloss with the distance in the
city of Vienna, with the Base Station located in the center of the map. As
observed with the different colors in the figure, in the surroundings of the
Base Station the pathloss is low and increasing with the distance.

Figure 4.2: Read pathloss from data files given by Mobilkom AG.

4.3

Network setting based on real layout data

The overall simulation process for setting a suitable network in the case that
the real data is used is explained below. To achieve a global source code
39

which involves both functionalities (handling real data layout or theorical

pathloss calculation), the structure of the initial MATLAB code has been
kept. Besides some necessary new functions, the functionalities already existing but adapted for the new purpose have been integrated in the original
source code. Thus, the simulation mode can easily be chosen just by setting
the according variable at the beginning. Let us now list the main steps of
the initial procedures of the simulator:
1. Reading data: as mentioned before, the option for reading the data
files can be enabled in the load settings function. In such case, the
function xf read out data works on the prediction files and extracts the
header of the files, with the information before explained, and the information about the pathloss. In the case that reading also the two left
files is desirable, this function calls also read bts csv and read site csv
in order to extract their respective information.
For the overall process, each parameter is stored in a structure after calling these functions in order to be used next by the necessary,
pertinent functions during all the simulation.
2. Node-B positions: following the same process than the initial simulator, the function which locates the Node-Bs is called first. In this
function, the base stations are situated accordingly to the stored information extracted from the pedestrian files, or it can be done in the
original way (hexagonal layout). Figure 4.3 shows the positions of the
twelve Node-Bs belong to the twelve prediction files. Notice that some
coordenates are taken by two stations; this is because the position is
the same but not the height.
3. Provisional grid positions: the next step is to generate the grid
positions where the users will be situated. As occured with the NodeBs, the new grid is calculated in the original function accordingly to the
active option. If the real data are being used, we generate a provisional
grid around the center of the global map, where the strongest Node-B
(which is the one providing the lowest pathloss possible) is situated.
This is explained graphically in next steps.
4. Pathloss: in the initial simulator, the pathloss was theorically calculated distinguishing between deterministic pathloss as function of the
UE-NodeB distance and as function of the antenna gain pattern (calculated accordingly to the COST 231 Hata model [13]), and stochastic
pathloss, based on shadow and fast fading.
40

Figure 4.3: Node-Bs positions and respective prediction files.

In this step of the simulation, only the deterministic pathloss as function of the antenna gain is calculated since the rest of the contributions
are included in the prediction files. It is generated for each one of the
three sectors as in the first version of the simulator.
If the pathloss is set to be read-in from the prediction files, we extract it from the prediction files by using a function which extracts
the information according to the structure of the files. This function
reads and stores the pathloss for every pixels in each one of the twelve
virtual maps. Next, we extract the pathlosses corresponding to the
provisional grid created before, and it is summed up to the antenna
gain (in dB) calculated in order to obtain a final pathloss in all the
grid positions. Finally a 3D-matrix with the final pathloss for every
grid position, sector, and Node-B is generated.
5. Find main BS and sector: once we have the pathloss matrix, the
next step is to find the main sector and Node-B, which means the NodeB and sector where the lowest pathloss occured (within the region of
41

interest), and that way we can set a Node-B and pathloss information
for the simulation process.
For this purpose, there is a function which reads the value of every
position in the 3D-matrix, and extracts for every pixel which one of
the twelve files (Nodes-B) and sector generates the minimum pathloss.
This information is kept in a new matrix and then we read every position of it and we count which Node-B and sector is repeated more
times in that matrix (these will be the main BS and sector for the
simulation).
6. Generate final grid positions: this step fixes the grid positions that
can be generated. The new grid consists of those positions of the provisional grid, where the lowest pathloss was generated by the main BS
(target sector) simultaneously.
Figure 4.4 shows the situation so far, where the provisional grid in
blue, the main Node-B and sector and finally the definitive grid in
green (which defines the sector shape) are illustrated.

Figure 4.4: Provisional grid, main BS and sector shape.

7. Generate users positions: this is the last step in the new simulation
process. The final goal of the process is setting up a complete network
42

suitable for simulation. Once the grid positions are defined, users are
located randomly (uniformly) using the same functions as utilized in
the initial version. An example in which a zoom of the previous figure
after the users are generated (plotted in black) is shown in Figure 4.5.

Figure 4.5: Last step: user positions located randomly and uniformly within
the limits of the generated sector (green points).
For a better visualization, Figure 4.6 shows a general overview of the network
setting process when the real data layouts are handled, summarizing the steps
before explained in a diagram.

43

Figure 4.6: Diagram of the overall handling real layouts data process.

44

Chapter 5
CQI Mapping Optimizations
This chapter explains more deeply the CQI mapping in HSDPA performance.
Section 5.1 includes an introduction and the CQI basis. In Section 5.2 the
mapping proposal by the 3GPP specifications is explained, and Section 5.3
describes the enhancements in the SISO HSDPA Simulator, where the object
of this part of the work and the achieved results are explained.

5.1

CQI Basis in HSDPA

The Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) is the key indicator for HSDPA downlink channel quality. The CQI value that the terminal reports is a function
of: multipath environment, terminal receiver type, ratio of the interference
of the own base station compared with others and expected BTS HSDPA
power availability. Thus, the value reported does not just correspond to the
signal to interference ratio (SIR) that the terminal is experiencing.
When a UE reports a particular CQI, it is reporting that under the current radio conditions (including the current power settings), the UE is able
to receive the reported CQI and lower CQIs, at single-transmission BLER
no greater than 0.1. User equipments report CQI and HARQ-ACK feedback information to the Node-B through the uplink HS-DPCCH. The clear
benefit of the approach is that the solution defined will automatically accommodate the various possible receiver implementations and environment
variations and, thus, gives an indication of the best data rates needed by the
terminal to cope with the environment in question. This removes the need
from the network end to have to consider the delay profile characteristics
of the cell/sector, [2]. Possible implementatios of the CQI evolution can be
found in [20].
45

The HS-DPCCH carries uplink feedback signalling related to the downlink

HS-DSCH transmission. This signalling consists of HARQ-ACK and CQI as
shown in Figure 5.1. Each 2-ms subframe, like those of the downlink physical channels, consists of three slots, each with 2560 chips. The HARQ-ACK
is carried in the first slot of the HS-DPCCH subframe and the CQI in the
second and third slots. A system parameter k controls the CQI transmission
frequency, and also control repetition for both slots is controlled by a separate parameter. Repetition over multiple 2-ms periods is needed in some
cases, like cell edge operation when the available power would not ensure
sufficient quality for feedback reception, [2].

Figure 5.1: High-Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel that carries the
uplink.

Furthermore, we can explain some cases in which the CQI is used for the
performance of HSDPA, say:
Link adaptation: as already said, the CQI is used for the dynamic
HS-DSCH link adaptation, in addition to the scheduling decision. The
user equipment sends every 2-ms TTI a CQI to the serving HS-DSCH
cell on the uplink HS-DPCCH. By means of the CQI, the maximum
46

TBS that can be received correctly with at least 90% probability is

indicated. The range of CQI values is 0-30, and each step corresponds
appoximately to a 1-dB step in HS-DSCH SINR, [9]. The HS-DSCH
link adaptation algorithm at the Node B adjusts the transmit bit rate
on the HS-DSCH every TTI when a user is scheduled for transmission.
Ideally, the HS-DSCH transmit bit rate should be adjusted as a function
of the per-TTI HS-DSCH signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR)
experienced at the user end. Figure 5.2 illustrates the general principle
HS-DSCH link adaptation, [2].

Figure 5.2: HS-DSCH link adaptation principle: (1) the UE reports lowquality channel information and the Node B allocates a low bit rate; (2) the
UE reports high-quality channel information and the Node B allocates a high
bit rate, [2].
As shown in Figure 5.3, several factors contribute to variance of HSDSCH SINR although the HS-DSCH transmit power is supossed constant. Due to the transmission of power controlled DCHs, the total
transmit power from the serving HS-DSCH cell is time variant, like
the downlink radio channel in case than the user is moving, and the
other cell interference experienced at the user end is also time variant.
The signaling delay on the uplink is used for the case that the SINR
at the user has changed from the time when the CQI was estimated
until the actual transmission on the HS-DSCH. In such a case, the use
of the recommended transmission format by the CQI report for the
47

HS-DSCH transmission does not necessarily guarantee that the BLEP

is lower than 0.1, [4].

Figure 5.3: Block diagram showing the received signal at the HSDPA user
and report of the CQI to the serving HS-DSCH cell, [4].
A simple link adaptation algorithm would directly follow the CQI values
reported by the UE, but there may be a need to adjust the UE-reported
CQI by adding an offset because the HS-DSCH transmit power from
the Node B to the user might be different from the assumed HS-DSCH
transmit power by the UE at the time it derived the CQI report; besides, the UE assumes a received HS-PDSCH power level PHSP DSCH
derived from the observed P/S-CPICH power level PCP ICH according
to PHSP DSCH = PCP ICH + G, where G is a power offset parameter
signalled to the UE via RRC signalling from the RNC. The effect of
feedback delays on link adaptation performance has previously been addressed in [21], [22]. In order to further adjust the CQI index received
from a user before applying it for adjustment of the HS-DSCH transmission format, these studies indicate a need for an outer loop HS-DSCH
link adaptation algorithm, which can be based on ACKs/NACKs from
past transmissions. The algorithm adjusts the offset values to ascertain the average targetted retransmission probability. If too many retransmissions occur, an unnecessary delay is added, whereas too few
48

retransmissions indicate that the transport block sizes used are not
large enough, unnecessarily lowering throughput, [2].
HS-SCCH power control: sufficient power should be allocated to transmission of the HS-SCCH to ensure reliable reception quality of the HSSCCH, which is important since the transport block on the HS-DSCH
can only be decoded if the HS-SCCH has been correctly received. Furthermore, reduce HS-SCCH transmission power is also desirable, in
order to decrease the interference levels in the network. Hence, it is
generally recommended to control the HS-SCCH power every TTI. The
3GPP specifications do not explicitly specify any power control mechanism for the HS-SCCH. The HS-SCCH transmit power can be adjusted
relative to the transmit power of the associated downlink DPCCH, or
as a function of the CQI report received from the user. This is possible
if there is an internal table at the Node B expressing a power offset between each CQI index and the required HS-SCCH power. In both cases
it is possible to implement a pseudo closed loop power control scheme
for the HS-SCCH, relying on either feedback information from the user
about the reception quality of the associated DPCH or the HS-DSCH
(CQI). Common to both approaches is the Node B need for a priori
knowledge of a power offset parameter before it can adjust HS-SCCH
transmit power as a function of either DPCCH power or CQI.

5.2

CQI mapping proposal

The CQI from the user expresses the recommended transmission format,
signaling via a CQI index n  [0-30], where the CQI integer index number n
can be regarded as a pointer to a vector, i.e.,
fCQI (n) = [An , Mn , Xn , 4n ] n  [0 30]

(5.1)

where An is the recommended number of bits in a TTI, (TBS), Mn denotes

the recommended number of HS-PDSCH codes, Xn  [4QAM, 16QAM] specifies if the user recommends the Node-B to use 4QAM or 16QAM modulation,
and 4n is a recommended power offset for the nth CQI index. Notice that
the CQI mapping tables for function fCQI (n) specified by 3GPP in [23], are
organized, so that An An+1 . The CQI index estimated by the user satisfies
n = arg max {An |BLEP < 0.1}
n

(5.2)

in the 2-ms interval that ends one slot before the CQI is sent, where BLEP is
the per-TTI block error probability. Note that the CQI index in (5.2) depends
49

on the experienced HS-DSCH user SINR since the BLEP for different values
of An depends on the SINR. The received CQI index n is adjusted by the
scaling factor A, so CQI index n
is used instead. The latter one is possible by
assuming that the Node-B has a table with a priori knowledge of the relative
HS-DSCH SINR difference in decibels between the entries in the CQI table,
which is denoted by fSIN R (n). Note that the CQI tables have the following
approximate property: fSIN R (n) ' 1n dB n  [030], i.e., the resolution of
the CQI mapping table is approximately 1 dB. Given this a priori knowledge
and scaling factor A, the used CQI index for HS-DSCH link adaptation is
obtained as follows, [4]
n
= arg min {fSIN R (
n) (fSIN R (n) An )}
n

5.2.1

(5.3)

CQI Table

The CQI is based on the 5-bit CQI mapping table shown in Table 5.1. For
each CQI, the table lists an associated turbo-encoder information word size
expressed as Transport Block Size (TBS), modulation type and number of
HS-PDSCH. These parameters describe the reference, single-transmission
modulation and coding scheme associated with each CQI value. It is assumed that the reference turbo-codeword comprises all of the systematic
bits, plus the parity bits identified by assuming that the number of soft metric locations in the UE is at least equal to the number of unpunctured coded
bits before rate matching. The CQI table has been designed to uniformly
and linearly quantize the UE SNR observation space, and offers Node-B and
UE manufacturers flexibility in respectively implementing the Scheduler and
the UE signal processing required to generate the CQI report, [24].

5.3

CQI optimizations in the Simulator

One of the main goals of the work is to optimizate the CQI mapping in order
to maximize the overall cell throughput. In the initial version of the simulator, the CQI mapping was implemented accordingly to Equation 3.4. As
mentioned, for the purpose of HS-DSCH link adaptation, the UE periodically sends a CQI to the serving HS-DSCH cell on the uplink HS-DPCCH.
The CQI indicates the maximum transport block size that can be received
correctly with at least 90% probability. This information is signalled via a
CQI index in the range from 0 to 30, where each step corresponds appoximately to a 1-dB step in HS-DSCH SINR [9]. A simple link adaptation
algorithm would directly follow the CQI values reported by the UE. However, there may be a need to adjust the UE-reported CQI by adding an offset.
50

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

Transport Block Size

N/A
137
173
233
317
377
461
650
792
931
1262
1483
1742
2279
2583
3319
3565
4189
4664
5287
5887
6554
7168
7168
7168
7168
7168
7168
7168
7168
7168

Nr of HS-PDSCH
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5

Modulation
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
4QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM

Table 5.1: CQI mapping table for UE categories 1 to 6, [11].

The CQI mapping is a very important issue for the optimization of the network and HSDPA performace. A poorly implemented CQI algorithm on one
model of UE can have a significant adverse impact on the efficient allocation
51

of network resources, which will affect all other UEs on the network. When
the terminal is close to the base station and assumes high HS-DSCH power
allocation (based on the value given by the network), a high CQI value is
reported. Respectively, when the terminal is closer to the cell edge, then
the reported CQI is much lower, especially if the expected HSDPA Node-B
power allocation is low as well, [2].
The initial formula for the mapping used previously in the Simulator already explained, has been modified. For the purpose of achieving the new
mapping and visualization, we represent the CQI values as function of the
SINR, and the possible modifications in the original formula are:
Slope: by adding a scale factor is possible to change the slope of the
straight line. It is important to find an optimum slope, otherwise the
results could be very negative.
Shift: the shift value is used like an offset, indicating in which value
of the SINR the CQI starts to have values different to cero. As in the
case of the slope, the selection of this offset is also important for the
optimization.
The new formula results as follows:

CQI = (SIN R shif t) slope + 3.5,

(5.4)

where the SINR (in dB), the slope and the shift are inputs of the function and the output is the CQI value. The slope and shift values are chosen
in the loading settings, and also a range of values is possible, in order to
evaluate the different results. Note that the CQI values under 0 and over 30
are mapping like 0 and 30 respectively. Figure 5.4 illustrates an example in
which two possibilities are shown.

5.3.1

Source Code Enhancements

Concerning to the new CQI evaluation, some changes in the initial source
code have been necessary. Thus, the main function in the Simulator and
the function which calculates one SISO HSDPA network snapshot have been
modificated in order to handle the new functionalities. Moreover, the new
necessary functions for the purpose of CQI mapping according to maximize
52

Figure 5.4: CQI mapping.

the overall cell throughput by changing the slope and shift have been implemented.
Figure 5.5 illustrates a coarse view of the simulation process in which the
new functionalities have been included. The first step is to load the simulator settings, where it is possible to fix the range of values for the slope
and shift we want to make the simulation with. These variables are found in
the UE settings. Second, the precalculations are done by means of the main
function. Then the simulation loop starts with a determined value of the
slope and the shift, the function for the SINR to CQI mapping is called and
all the calculations are done, so finally there is a throughput value for those
shift and slope values. The simulation is done once again and it lasts while
the range of values is not finished. At the end of the process the throughput
as function of the slope and shift is achieved and represented in a figure.

5.3.2

Consequences

For the purpose of the optimization of the network and HSDPA performace,
the CQI needs to be mapped in the most efficient way. In the model of the
UE, the implementation of a poorly CQI algorithm can result in an impor-

53

Figure 5.5: Coarse view of the simulation including slope and shift.
tant adverse impact on the efficient allocation of network resources, which
will affect every user equipments on the network. Remember the object of
the CQI reporting, when the terminal is close to the base station and assumes
high HS-DSCH power allocation based on the value given by the network, a
high CQI value is reported and respectively, when the UE is closer to the cell
edge and most of the interference comes from other cells, then the reported
CQI is much lower. Because of this great impact, during the work many
different values for the slope and shift have been used to evaluate the best
option, by using the throughput evaluation. It is important to observe how
the choice of wrong values can lead to significant adverse consequences. With
this object, two examples with different extreme slope and shift values are
shown. Figure 5.6 illustrates the effect of choosing a very low or high value
of the slope. Both of the choices have unfavourable consequences in the CQI
value assignment. In the case that the slope is very high, like showing the
red line, the range fo SINR values for that the CQI is not zero or thirty is
very short; consequently, many users are getting a CQI value of zero, and in
the other side a very high CQI value is assigned for many users with a not
very good SINR. This is not optimum because the users are getting more
CQI than they are able to handle, their SINR is not so high so the BLER
will increase and the throughput decrease. On the other hand, the blue line
shows the effects of a very low slope, this is a more conservative situation,
not many users are getting the highest CQI value although they present a
good SINR value, and the CQI values are more distributed for every users.

54

Figure 5.6: Different values of the slope for the CQI mapping.

Figure 5.7: Different values of the shift for the CQI mapping.

In Figure 5.7 the effect of two extreme shift values is illustrated. As before,
the choice is important for the mapping optimization and the consequences
55

are the same. A too low shift value results in users with a low SINR getting
CQI values different to zero, when it is impossible they receive any throughput because of the low signal quality; and respectively if the shift value is
too high, the users need to have also high SINR values to get a good channel
quality indicator, this leads in the situation that user equipments with good
signal qualities are loosing their capacity to obtain a good service.

5.3.3

Results

Once the source code had been enhanced and adapted for the new CQI mapping, and the necessary functions were implemented, we may start with the
investigations for the optimization of the final throughput. First of all it was
necessary to find the optimum range of values for the slope and shift in which
we can achieve high values of the throughput, and once the two ranges are
found, we have to find the optimum values.
Figures 5.8 and 5.9 illustrate two first evaluations of the effect that different
values for the slope and the shift have in the overall cell throughput achieved
by the SISO HSDPA Simulator. For the evaluations, one of the two parameters have been fixed and the other one has a big range of values to observe the
effect of each single variable. The results show how important is the choice of
these values, as explained in subsection 5.3.2. The throghput values in [bps]
are calculated for different slopes and shifts, and we can observe a bit peak
in the curve in values around 1 for the slope and 0 in case of the shift. When
using very distant values there is a big drop off in the evaluated throughput.

56

Figure 5.8: Throughput as function of the slope value with shift = 0.

Figure 5.9: Throughput as function of the shift value with slope = 1.

Finally, we obtain a 3-dimensional figure in which the throughput as
function of the two parameters is represented. Thus, we can observe the
effect of the two variables changing during the simulation, and we can find
an optimum value for the slope and shift which provide the optimum overall
cell throughput. For this figure, after finding the suitable delimited range of
57

slope and shift values, the investigations have been done by using low steps
from the minimun to the maximum value, so that it is not probable to miss
any optimum couple of values.

Figure 5.10: Throughput as function of the slope and shift.

We concludes the chapter with Figure 5.10, which shows how the throughput is reaching different values and the maximum is achieved for a slope value
of 1 and a shift value of -0.4, according to the results that we observed in the
two previously figures.

58

Chapter 6
Miscellaneous
This chapter includes other changes in the initial simulator and investigations
during this thesis that really do not fit into the previous chapters. Section 6.1
explains new scenarios for the positioning of the users. Section 6.2 includes
some improvements for calculating the macro-scale pathloss by considering
the three antenna radiations of every Nodes-B, and further enhancements
such as the obtention of the outage users and plots of the average throughput
are treated in 6.3.

6.1

New scenarios

In the new version of the simulator, it is possible to choose four different

situations concerning the users positions. By using a new variable in the
load settings function, the type of simulation is chosen, and accordingly the
users positions are established in the function xf User positions.m. Figure
6.1 illustrates the four possibilities.
Figure 6.2 illustrates the first two scenarios in greater detail. Snapshot means
the users are uniformly and randomly situated according to the grid positions, whereas exhaustive snapshot refers the user positions are unformly
situated but fixed at all possible grid positions. It is importat to remember
that the users are situated in the main sector of the serving Node-B.
In Figure 6.3 we can observe an explample with the remaining two possibilities. Fixed angle and fixed distance denote that the angle between the
user and the radiation directions or the distance to the main Node-B, respectively, are fixed in the load settings. In this explamples, the angle is
fixed at 90o , which means that the users are situated in the same direction
59

Figure 6.1: Four possible user positions configuration.

Figure 6.2: Snapshot and exhaustive snapshot scenarios.

than the main radiation, and the distance is changing. In the other scenario,
the distance between the users and the Node-B is 100 meters, but the angle
changes.

60

Figure 6.3: Fixed angle and fixed distance scenarios.

6.2

More efficient implementation of the

pathloss generation

In the initial version of the simulator, the macro-scale pathloss for a given
user was calculated by using the three antennas in the main Node-B and
the most influent antenna of the neighbors nodes (evaluated by geometrical
means). In the new function, based on the initial function xf user pathloss v2,
we calculate the macro-scale pathloss by considering the three antenna radiations of every Nodes-B, including the principal and the neighboring, in
order to sum the overall cell interference for each user. Depending on the
angle between the user and the antenna, the signal can strongly reach the
user equipment or not. For implementing this, it was necessary to create a
function which calculates the antenna gain for each user for every node and
every sector.
Figure 6.4 illustrates the network scheme used in the simulation, although
an scenario with 7 cells is also possible. We can observe the user position in
the target sector, the main base station in the center and the three radiation
directions (90o , 210o and 330o ).
By utilizing the new scenarios it is possible to represent the user pathloss
as function of the distance with fixed angle, and as function of the angle
with fixed distance. Figure 6.5 illustrates how the deterministic pathloss be61

Figure 6.4: Network with 19 base stations and 3 sectors model.

haves when increasing the distance between the user and the Node-B. When
the user is near the BS, there is a low pathloss, and it is increasing with
the distance. In Figure 6.6 the pathloss as function of the angle in degrees
is represented. As before, if the UE is situated in such position that the
antenna is radiating directly to it (which is the case when the angle is 0o ),
the macro-scale pathloss is very low, whereas when the angle is changing the
pathloss increases.

6.3

Further enhancements

Some other functionalities have been implemented in order to have an enhanced comprehension and visualization of some features developed for the
simulator, namely:

6.3.1

Outage users

A new implemented function allows us to obtain the percentage of outage

HSDPA users for a fixed power, so that we can calculate the cumulative dis62

Figure 6.5: Variation of the user pathloss with the distance.

Figure 6.6: Variation of the user pathloss with the angle.

tribution function. Besides, its possible to plot the number of outage users
as function of the power. As explained in [24], if the UE cannot support the
minimum CQI (CQI = 1) at BLER = 0.1, then the UE reports CQI=0 which
indicates an Out of range (OOR) condition to the Node B.
As we can observe in Figure 6.7 when a low power is used, the number of

63

outage users is very high; then, as the power is increasing, there is a big dropoff, and finally for the highest values of the power, the intercell interferences
are also increasing and a small increment in the outage users is produced.

Figure 6.7: HSDPA outage users as function of the power.

6.3.2

Throughput figures

The key performance metric for HSDPA is data throughput, which is highly
dependent on the multipath and interference environment experienced by the
UE. As already said, adaptive modulation and coding allows HSDPA users
near the base station to convert their high signal-to-noise ratio into higher
data throughput. Since the scheduler, attempting to maximize average cell
throughput, will in general favor such users, they significantly determine the
overall cell throughput [14]. In the simulator, the overall cell throughput is
calculated by

T hroughput = T BS (1 BLER),

(6.1)

thus, the average rate of messages succesfully delivered over the channel
is estimated by means of the multiplication of the transport block size and
the probability of having no errors. This throughput (in terms of bits that
went through correctly) is consecutively averaged over 500 realizations per
64

user.
In the new version of the simulator, we can plot the throughput of every
users by means of a new function. The new user positioning explained before, allows us to represent the throughput over the different scenarios. Thus,
we can observe the influence of the user positions, focusing our interest in
the fixed angle and fixed distance scenarios.
Figure 6.8 shows the average throughput as function of the angle when every
user has the same distance to the serving Node-B. Accordingly the effect of
the angle between the direction radiation and the user-position can be observed. The users positioned around a 90o angle are situated in the same
direction that the main radiation of the antenna, so the achieved throughput is the highest possible, while as the angle is increasing or decreasing the
throughput decrements until finally it is completely zero. Furthermore, we
can observe in the figure the calculated average throughput under two different situations in order to apreciate the influence of the distance: picture
in the left corresponds to an scenario in which a distance of 50 meters to
the BS is fixed, so due to the closeness the throughput reachs values of 2.5
Mbps. Picture in the right represents the opposite situation, where the distance is 250 meters so the throughput is much lower, reaching a maximum
value around 80 Kbps.
Table 6.1 specifies some of the main simulation settings used for the generation of Figures 6.8 and 6.9.

Simulation settings
Number of R99 users
5
Number of HSDPA users
40
Node-B distance
0.25 Km
Codes used for HS-DSCH
10
Maximum Node-B power
20 W
HSDPA range power
0-14 W
Table 6.1: Simulation settings used in the generation of Figures 6.8 and 6.9

In Figure 6.9 the throughput of the users is illustrated for the fixed angle
scenario. Thus, the throughput as function of the distance can be observed,
65

Figure 6.8: Throughput as a function of the angle with two fixed BS - user
positions distances (50 meters in the figure of the left and 250 meters in the
right).
and as before, the influence of the distance between the users and the main
Node-B is evaluated. We can observe how the throughput is higher around
the small distances and lower for langer distances. Here we also evaluate the
throughput of two different scenarios. The picture in the left side has been
obtained by using a fixed angle of 80o , so it is possible to achieve high values
like a throughput of 2.5 Mbps, as before. As a difference, in the right side
the angle used is 40o , so the antenna does not radiate with a proper direction
and it is only possible to achieve maximum throughput values around 100
Kbps.

66

Figure 6.9: Throughput as a function of the distances with two fixed angles
between the users and the BS (80o in the figure of the left and 40o in the
right).

67

Chapter 7
Conclusions
This bachelor thesis has investigated the HSDPA throughput performance in
a mixed traffic network. HSDPA represents an evolution of UMTS/WCDMA,
as a Third Generation mobile telephony communications protocol. The goal
of 3G systems is to provide users with high quality video and images for
person-to-person communication according to the new multimedia services.
With the ever increasing commercial application of 3G worldwide, subscribers
are showing a huge interest in high-speed data service. As a result, an exponential increase in data services and traffic is occurring. HSDPA can greatly
improve the efficiency and data transmission rate of the radio network and
decrease the transmission delay and cost. Besides, HSDPA technology allows
more subscribers to enjoy high-speed data service at the same time. In sum,
HSDPA means better service quality for subscribers.
For our purpose we focused the investigation in two enhancements. First,
the extension of the SISO HSDPA Simulator in order to handle real network
layout data. Second, the CQI mapping optimizations in order to maximize
the overall cell throughput.
This concluding chapter a summarises this bachelor thesis as follows: In
Section 7.1 a brief summary of the HSDPA simulator, especially the new
functionalities implemented during the thesis, is presented. Section 7.2 includes a summary with the results obtained with the new developed functionalities, and Section 7.3 concludes this bachelor thesis describing some
possible future enhancements in the simulator.

68

7.1

Simulator enhancement

This thesis has consisted in the development of new functionalities in the

MATLAB simulator created by the Institute of Communications and RadioFrequency of the Vienna University of Technology. These functionalities are
necessary for the investigation of the main enhancements explained before.
The initial purpose of the simulator was to evaluate the performance of a
mixed network in which both R99 and HSDPA traffics are simulated, in
order to find the optimum parameters to obtain the maximum overall cell
throughput.
One of the most important extensions in the SISO HSDPA simulator was the
inplementation of new functions that allow us for the handling of real network
layout data that the Mobilkom Austria AG provided by means of measured
path-loss matrices of an HSDPA cluster. This data have been converted in
an useful form to be analyzable in the simulator, and the source-code has
been enabled to use the data files after the necessary modifications.
The second extension concerns the CQI values reported by the user equipment. It consisted in the optimization of the CQI mapping in order to maximize the overall cell throughput. This mapping is important since a poorly
algorithm on one model of UE can have an adverse effect on the efficient
allocation of network resources. The initial formula used previously in the
simulator has been modified. For the purpose of achieving the new mapping
and visualization, we have represented the CQI values as function of the
SINR, with two new parameters: a scale factor to change the slope of the
mapping, and a shift value used like an offset.
Finally, some other changes in the initial simulator have been implemented,
namely:
The possibility of choosing four different situations concerning the users
positions: snapshot, fixed distance, fixed angle and exhaustive snapshot. The type of simulation is chosen in the settings and accordingly
the users positions are established. This enhances the simulation in the
sense that it is possible to analize the user pathloss and throughput for
every scenarios.
More efficient implementation of the macro-scale pathloss generation,
by considering the three antenna radiations of every Nodes-B, including the principal and the neighboring, in order to sum the overall cell
interference for each user.
69

 HSDPA outage users calculation as function of the power.

Analysis of the throughput of every users over the different scenarios
explained before, in order to observe the influence of the user positions.

7.2

Results

This section presents a summary of the results obtained with the new developed functionalities in the simulator. First, table 7.1 shows the optimizations
in the new CQI mapping in order to maximize the overall cell throughput,
by changing two new parameters: slope and shift. The tables present some
values of the slope and shift that cause significative throughputs. As a conclusion, the optimum pair of values are pointed out in yellow.

Shift = 0
Slope
0.5
0.75
1
1.2

Slope = 1
Shift
-2
-1
-0.4
2

Throughput
0.6 Mbps
1 Mbps
1.5 Mbps
0.1 Mbps

Throughput
0.1 Mbps
0.5 Mbps
0.7 Mbps
0.55 Mbps

Table 7.1: Variation of the throughput as function of the slope and shift.

Table 7.2 illustrates the percentage of outage HSDPA users as function

of the power. The number of outage users decreases with the increment of
the power, except for the highest values of the power, when the intercell interferences are also increasing and a small increment in the outage users is
produced.

70

Power
0.2 W
1W
4 - 11 W
11 - 14 W

Outage users
45%
10%
5%
6%

Table 7.2: Variation of the outage users as function of the range of HSDPA
power.

In Tables 7.3 and 7.4 some values of the macro-scale pathloss for different distances and angles between the user and the main Node-B are shown,
and Table 7.5 presents some significative values of the throughput calculated
within different scenarios of the users possitions. We can observe the great
influence of the user position in the pathloss and throughput generation.

Angle
0o
30o
60o
100o -180o

Pathloss
-95 dB
-100 dB
-110 dB
-133 dB

Table 7.3: Variation of the pathloss as function of the angle between the user
and the Node-B.

Distance
20 m
100 m
250 m
500 m

Pathloss
-55 dB
-78 dB
-93 dB
-103 dB

Table 7.4: Variation of the pathloss as function of the distance between the
user and the Node-B.

71

```
```
```Distance
Orientation ``````

Good
Medium
Bad

Close

Medium

Far

2.5 Mbps
2 Mbps
100 Kbps

1.5 Mbps
900 Kpbs
5 Kpbs

90 Kbps
5 Kpbs
0 Kpbs

Table 7.5: Variation of the throughput as function of the angle of orientation

and distance between the user and the Node-B.

7.3

Future enhancements

During the development of this bachelor thesis only some possibilities of the
new simulator have been explored. A new CQI mapping and the handling
of real data network layouts were introduced but more investigations can
be developed, like some HSDPA technologies that still are not incorporated.
Besides, a wide range of simulations is possible and the simulator is more complete and realistic thanks to the implementation of a time-based functionality
and the HSDPA scheduling developed in other thesis. Further system level
investigations on the simulator have already started, [25], [26], [27], [28], [29].
Besides these enhancements, lets remember HSDPA Evolved or HSPA+,
which is the next step in HSDPA and provides HSPA data rates up to 25
Mbps on the downlink and 11 Mbps on the uplink with MIMO technologies
and higher order modulation. It also introduces an optional all-IP architecture for the network where base stations are directly connected to the
internet. Australias Next G was the first network to enable some features
of HSPA+ in June 2008, [30]. In this context, it could be interesting the
investigation for adapting the simulator to new HSPA+ technologies.

72

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