11/09/2012

Carrier Aggregation
ITU ASP COE Training on
Wireless Broadband Roadmap Development

Pr. Sami Tabbane

11-14 September Bangkok (Thailand)

Summary
I. Introduction: Trends in broadband wireless
systems and Spectrum pressures
II. Carrier aggregation in LTE-A and other
similar systems using carrier aggregation (e.g.,
CDMA2000). Integration of carrier aggregation
in the standards
III.Carrier aggregation and performance
IV.Cognitive radio: generalization of carrier
aggregation concept
V. Conclusions
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I. Introduction

State of art of existing WB System

Standardization bodies
ITU-T: Definition of the characteristics of the generation (2, 3,
4, ), validation of proposed standards and allocation of
spectrum,
3GPP: European standardization body (GSM family),
3GPP2: North-American standardization body (CDMA
family),
IEEE: data networks standards (802.xx family),

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State of art of existing WB System

Typical user data rates
LTEAdvanced

30 300 Mbit/s

LTE
5 60 Mbit/s

HSPA
1.0 5 Mbit/s

3G basic
150-350 kbit/s

100 kbps

1 Mbps

10 Mbps

100 Mbps

3GPP systems,
Building on Releases
Release 99: Enhancements to
GSM data (EDGE). Majority of
deployments today are based on
Release 99. Provides support for
GSM/EDGE/GPRS/WCDMA
radio-access networks.

Release 4: Multimedia
messaging support. First steps
toward using IP transport in the
core network.
Release 5: HSDPA. First phase
of Internet Protocol Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS). Full ability to
use IP-based transport instead of
just Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM) in the core
network.
Release 6: HSUPA. Enhanced
multimedia support through
Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast
Services (MBMS). Performance
specifications for advanced
receivers. Wireless Local Area
Network (WLAN) integration
option. IMS enhancements. Initial
VoIP capability.

Release 11
Interworking - 3GPP EPS and fixed BB
accesses, M2M, Non voice emergency
communications, 8 carrier HSDPA, Uplink
MIMO study
Release 10 LTE-Advanced meeting the
requirements set by ITUs IMT-Advanced
project.
Also includes quad-carrier operation for
HSPA+.
Release 9: HSPA and LTE enhancements
including HSPA dual-carrier operation in
combination with MIMO, EPC
enhancements, femtocell support, support for
regulatory features such as emergency userequipment positioning and Commercial
Mobile Alert System (CMAS), and evolution
of IMS architecture.

Release 7: Evolved EDGE. Specifies HSPA+, higher order modulation and MIMO. Performance enhancements, improved
spectral efficiency, increased capacity, and better resistance to interference. Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC) enables
efficient always-on service and enhanced uplink UL VoIP capacity, as well as reductions in call set-up delay for Push-to-Talk
Over Cellular (PoC). Radio enhancements to HSPA include 64 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) in the downlink DL
and 16 QAM in the uplink. Also includes optimization of MBMS capabilities through the multicast/broadcast, single-frequency
network (MBSFN) function.

Release 8: HSPA Evolution,

simultaneous use of MIMO and 64
QAM. Includes dual-carrier HSPA
(DC-HSPA) wherein two WCDMA
radio channels can be combined for
a doubling of throughput
performance. Specifies OFDMAbased 3GPP LTE.
Defines EPC.

Text adapted from 3G Americas White Paper, September 2010

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Releases and bitrates

expectations

Peak data rates in LTE and LTELTE-A

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Theoretical spectrum efficiencies

LTE is the most spectral efficient wireless technology but it cannot

be expected that early LTE deployments achieve this theoretical
spectral efficiency.
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Main LTE data rates

improvement techniques:
- Link adaptation
- MIMO and beamforming
- Fast scheduling
- Hybrid ARQ
-
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LTE physical layer

User #1 scheduled

f=15kHz

User #2 scheduled

DL: adaptive OFDM

Scheduling channel and link adaptation dependent in the
time and frequency domain

User #3
scheduled

UL: SC-FDMA with a dynamic bandwidth (pre-coded OFDM)

PAPR Better spectrum efficiency
Reduced UL interference (allows intra-cell orthogonality)
Flexible bandwidth (with resolution of 180 kHz)
Possibility to deploy in bandwidth of <5 MHz to
20 MHz
Multiple antennas, RBS and terminal
MIMO, antennas lobes, TX- and RX diversity, interference rejection
High bitrates and higher capacity
Harmonised FDD and TDD concept
FDD and TDD maximum spectrum sharing
Maximum UE capacity: BW = 20 MHz

<5

180 kHz

frequency

FDDFDD-only

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frequency

TX

RX

15

20 MHz

Half
Half--duplex FDD

fDL

fDL

fUL

fUL

TDDTDD-only

fDL/UL

Link adaptation

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Example of link adaptation

MIMO and Beamforming

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Fast scheduling

Scheduling depending on the channel

Hybrid ARQ
Principle: Reuse of the errored frames for the decoding of
the retransmissions.
Drawback: Requires a large buffer.
Loss of the frame #2 => retransmission request

Link layer

Physical
layer

Storage in the
HARQ buffer

2
error

Combines the
errored frame with
the retransmitted one
Time

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II. Carrier aggregation

in LTELTE-A and other
systems
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LTE--A improvements (1)

LTE

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LTE--A improvements (2)

LTE

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Impacts of various techniques in

improving the data rates

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Carrier aggregation in LTE

Release-10 carrier aggregation supports the following features:
Peak data rates of 1 Gbps on downlink and 500 Mbps on uplink.
Up to five carriers can be aggregated, each carrier is called a component carrier.
Each component carrier can have any of the bandwidths supported in LTE Rel-8 (1.4, 3,
5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz). As a result, LTE carrier aggregation can support operation on
transmission bandwidths of up to 100 MHz by aggregating five 20 MHz carriers.
Each component carrier is fully backward compatible to Release-8/9. This backward
compatibility to Release 8/9 allows the technologies developed for LTE Release-8/9 to
be fully reused in Release-10. It also allows the coexistence of Release 8 and 9 UEs
together with Release-10
UEs, which is very important for seamless system transition from Release 8 and 9 to
Release 10.
A carrier aggregation capable UE can simultaneously receive and transmit in one or
multiple component carriers.

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Carrier aggregation in LTE

Carrier Aggregation (CA): multiple component
carriers are aggregated and jointly used for
transmission to/from a single terminal. There are up
to five component carriers, possibly each of
different bandwidth, which can be aggregated,
allowing for transmission bandwidth up to 100 MHz
backwards compatibility where, each component
carrier (CC) uses the release-8 structure.
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Key Features in LTE Release 10

100 MHz

Support of Wider Bandwidth (Carrier

Aggregation)

f
CC

Advanced MIMO techniques

Extension to up to 8-layer transmission in downlink
Introduction of single-user MIMO up to 4-layer transmission
in uplink

Heterogeneous network and eICIC (enhanced Inter-Cell

Interference Coordination)

Interference coordination for overlaid deployment of cells with

different Tx power
Improvement of cell-edge throughput and coverage

Relay
Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and
reception (CoMP)

LTE--A features for increased bitrates

LTE

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Carrier aggregation benefits

Maximize the total peak data rate and throughput
performance by combining peak capacities and throughput
performance available at different frequencies
Provide a higher and more consistent quality of
service by load-balancing across frequencies and systems.
Mitigate the relative inefficiencies that may be
inherent in wireless deployments in non-contiguous or
narrow (5 MHz or less) channel bandwidths, often spread
across different spectrum bands.
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Carrier aggregation in HSDPA

8C-HSDPA is a further extension of the multicarrier operation with

eight carriers. Similar to the 4 carrier feature, in 8C-HSDPA the
transmissions are independent. The carriers do not need to be
adjacent. The activation/deactivation of the secondary carriers is
done by the serving NodeB through physical layer signaling. The
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uplink signaling is carried over a single carrier.

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HSPA + LTE Carrier Aggregation

Same mechanisms as the intra-RAT carrier aggregation schemes. It bring similar
data rate gains:
Data rates of carrier aggregation UEs boosted by utilizing unused resources
from overlapping cell(s) operating on different carrier(s)
Data rates of all UEs improved by fast (TTI level) load balancing

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III. Carrier aggregation

performance

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Carrier aggregation impact on

throughputs

Improves average cell throughput both in uplink and downlink due to more
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efficient utilization of radio resource by statistical multiplexing

Inter-band Carrier Aggregation enables to benefit from different

Interpropagation characteristic of different frequency bands

Carriers at different frequency bands have different propagation losses and different interfering
systems. Far-off UE are better served with a low frequency carrier and near cell center UE with a high
frequency carrier.
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Inter-band Carrier Aggregation provides more flexibility to utilize fragmented spectrum allocations.

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Average downlink data rate before and after refarming of one

HSPA carrier (assuming low-to-medium system loading, 10MHz
LTE and 2x5MHz HSPA before refarming)

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UE capabilities and carrier

aggregation

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Different types of carrier

aggregation in LTE (1)

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Example of carrier aggregation

in different frequency bands

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Componant carriers after carrier

aggregation

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Symmetric/Asymmetric carrier
aggregation in LTE

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Intra/Inter-band carrier
Intra/Interaggregation in LTE (1)
A. Intra-band aggregation with frequency-contiguous component
carriers
Contiguous bandwidth wider than 20 MHz.
B. Intra-band aggregation with non-contiguous component
carriers
Multiple CCs belonging to the same band. Countries where spectrum
allocation is non-contiguous within a single band.
C. Inter-band aggregation with non-contiguous component
carriers
Carriers in different operating bands are aggregated. Inter
modulation and cross-modulation within the UE device when
multiple transmitter and receiver chains are operated simultaneously.
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Spectrum Aggregation Scenarios for FDD

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Intra/Inter-band carrier
Intra/Interaggregation in LTE (2)

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Intra-Band Carrier Aggregation RF

Intraparameters with 2 aggregated carriers

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The 6 LTE carrier aggregation bandwidth

classes

Carrier Aggregation
Bandwidth Class

Aggregated Transmission
BW Configuration

100

100

100 - 200

N.B.: classes D, E, & F are in the study phase.

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Downlink Multiple Access Scheme with CA

Downlink OFDMA with component carrier (CC) based structure

One transport block is mapped within one CC
Parallel-type transmission for multi-CC transmission

Cross-carrier scheduling is possibleDL control channels (such as PDCCH, PCFICH,

and PHICH) are updated to support cross-carrier scheduling.
Add a Carrier Indicator Field (CIF) to DCI.

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Advantages of CA
Lot of permutations and combinations, some of them are a bit
more difficult to implement due to interference problems caused
(intermodulation products of transmitted signals on different
frequency bands).
Only intraband carrier aggregation is supported in uplink in LTE
Release 10 (higher range of band combinations will be supported in
later releases).
Carrier aggregation provides almost as high spectrum efficiency
and peak rates as single wideband allocation.
In heterogeneous deployment scenarios, the performance can be
better since flexible frequency reuse can be arranged between local
area nodes to provide better inter-cell interference coordination.
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CA between operators
The system bandwidth will increase substantially,
up to 80 MHz
For two cooperating operators with 2*20 MHz
each. The average data rates can reach 80 or 160
Mbps, and the peak data rates can be up to 400 or
800 Mbps.
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Drawbacks of CA (1)
Loss in throughput: by the vulnerability due to channel aggregation or bonding in
LTE-A and HSPA+ networks.
Channel aggregation is susceptible to about 70% loss of throughput in LTE
networks and about 11-15% in HSPA+ networks compared to systems with no
aggregation or bonding.

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Drawbacks of CA (2)
Interference coordination,
UE compatibility (frequency
bands, bandwidths, ),
Radio planning constraints,

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IV. Cognitive radio:

generalization of the
carrier aggregation
concept
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The origin: Apparent

Spectrum Scarcity
Spectrum Holes

Spectrum measurement across the 900 kHz 1 GHz band (Lawrence, KS, USA)

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RF Spectrum Occupancy

Spectrum measurement across the 928 948 MHz band (Worcester, MA, USA)
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The Idea: Dynamic Spectrum

Access
Fill with secondary
users

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White Space Concept

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Cognitive Radio: Definition

Cognitive radio is an intelligent wireless communication system
that is aware of its surrounding environment (i.e., outside world),
and uses the methodology of understanding-by-building to learn
from the environment and adapt its internal states to statistical
variations in the incoming RF stimuli by making corresponding
changes in certain operating parameters (e.g., transmit-power,
carrier-frequency, and modulation strategy) in real-time, with two
primary objectives in mind:
highly reliable communications whenever and wherever needed;
efficient utilization of the radio spectrum.
S. Haykin, Cognitive Radio: Brain-Empowered Wireless
Communications, IEEE J-SAC, Feb. 2005.

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Cognitive Radio
Cognitive radio technology is expected to improve
spectrum access through:
Increased spectrum efficiency of licensed spectrum users
Secondary markets by allowing licensees to lease their
spectrum access e.g. by machine-controlled negotiation
between systems
Automated frequency coordination between licensees
Opportunistic spectrum use by unlicensed devices while
protecting incumbents from harmful interference
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Terminology
Primary User (PU):
Licensed user
Has exclusive rights for the spectrum
Secondary User (SU):
Unlicensed user
Opportunistically utilizes the white spaces
Has to vacate the spectrum band as soon as a PU
appears
Also called cognitive user
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Example of OFDM Carriers Selected for Use That Fall

into Available Spectrum

Spectral Adaptation Waveforms

T
I
M
E
Frequency

Conclusions
To achieve up to 1 Gbps peak data rate in the downlink
and 500 Mbps in the uplink in future IMT-Advanced
mobile systems, Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology is
introduced by the 3GPP to support very-high-data rate
transmissions over wide frequency bandwidths (e.g., up
to 100 MHz) in its new LTE-Advanced standards.
In CA, communication is achieved through the
simultaneous use of multiple LTE carriers called
Component Carriers (CCs) enabling broadband
transmission exceeding 20 MHz.
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