Performance of Repeaters in 3GPP LTE

ANTO SIHOMBING

Master of Science Thesis

Stockholm, Sweden 2009
Performance of Repeaters in 3GPP LTE

ANTO SIHOMBING

Master of Science Thesis performed at

the Radio Communication Systems Group, KTH.
June 2009

Examiner: Professor Ben Slimane

KTH School of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
Radio Communication Systems (RCS)
TRITA-ICT-EX-2009:67
c Anto Sihombing, June 2009

Tryck: Universitetsservice AB
Abstract

Repeater communication is one promising candidate solution in future cellular

networks because of its ability to increase throughput, data rate and coverage. It is
also considered as one candidate technology feature in 3rd Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced. Traditionally repeaters have
been active continuously and perform blind forwarding without knowing the signal.
However the repeater in LTE Advanced is likely to include some advanced
functionalities such as frequency selectivity, gain controllability, multi antenna
ability, advanced antenna processing, optimum power control algorithm, etc. In this
thesis, on-frequency repeaters with frequency selectivity and gain controllability are
analyzed and it is shown that the performance of repeater is highly dependent on the
environment. It is necessary that the composite path gain (two-hop link) must be
better than direct path gain (direct link) and the interference is attenuated in order to
use the repeaters. The repeater directional donor antenna can be employed to further
improve these two-hop links. And finally the benefit of advanced repeater
functionalities is larger for uplink than downlink especially in heavy interference
scenario however power limitation is often a bottleneck in uplink.

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I would thank God for His grace and wondrous work in my life and my
study. I dedicate this work to my father. I express my gratitude to Peter Moberg and
Johan Lundsj for giving the opportunity to perform this master thesis at Wireless
Access Network, Ericsson Research. The experience acquired in the research
department, the friendly atmosphere, and the valuable feedbacks have helped me a
lot in my studies. I would like also to thank all people in wireless access network
department: Aram Ant, Afif Osseiran, Anders Furuskr and Per Skillermark, who
gave me essential material and discussions to my thesis work.
I would like to thank Prof. Ben Slimane for his help and his availability during
this thesis period. The discussion and feedbacks which I had from him are important
to my work. The fruitful discussions I had with Bogdan Timus about problem
formulation and his previous research in repeater. Thanks to all my friends in
wireless system master program who also give encouragements to me and spend over
these two years together in KTH.
Finally I am also grateful for the moral support and understanding given by my
mother, brothers, sister and my fiance in Indonesia.

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Contents

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Background ........................................................................................................ 1
1.2 Previous work .................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Problem statement.............................................................................................. 2

Chapter 2 LONG TERM EVOLUTION (LTE) 5

2.1 3GPP LTE Overview ......................................................................................... 5
2.2 LTE Transmission Schemes .............................................................................. 6
2.2.1 OFDM ......................................................................................................... 6
2.2.2 SC-FDMA................................................................................................... 7
2.3 Frame Structure.................................................................................................. 9
2.4 Scheduling in LTE ........................................................................................... 10
2.4.1 Downlink Scheduling................................................................................ 11
2.4.2 Uplink Scheduling .................................................................................... 12
2.5 LTE-Advanced................................................................................................. 12

Chapter 3 REPEATER CONCEPT 15

3.1 Repeater Overview........................................................................................... 15
3.1.1 Basic Repeater Design .............................................................................. 16
3.1.2 Antenna Isolation ...................................................................................... 16
3.1.3 On-Frequency and Frequency Shifting Repeaters .................................... 18
3.1.4 Repeater Delay.......................................................................................... 18
3.1.5 Interference and Capacity ......................................................................... 19
3.1.6 Repeater Applications ............................................................................... 20
3.2 Two-Hop Communication Model.................................................................... 21
3.3 Advanced Repeater .......................................................................................... 22
3.3.1 Frequency Selective Repetition ................................................................ 23
3.3.2 Repeater Gain Controllability ................................................................... 24

Chapter 4 SYSTEM MODEL 27

4.1 General Scenario .............................................................................................. 27
4.2 Propagation and Channel Model...................................................................... 27
4.3 Repeater Model ................................................................................................ 29
4.4 Simulation Models ........................................................................................... 29
4.4.1 Radio Network Simulator ......................................................................... 29
4.4.2 Deployment Scenario................................................................................ 30

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 4.4.3 User Generation.........................................................................................30
4.5 Simulation Parameters......................................................................................31
4.6 Performance Evaluation ...................................................................................33
4.6.1 SINR Calculation ......................................................................................33
4.6.2 Throughput ................................................................................................33
4.6.3 Object Bit Rate (OBR) ..............................................................................33

Chapter 5 SIMULATION RESULTS 35

5.1 Propagation Model ...........................................................................................36
5.2 Number of Repeaters per Cell ..........................................................................38
5.3 Repeater Distance from Base Station...............................................................39
5.4 Repeater Gain ...................................................................................................40
5.5 Advanced Repeater...........................................................................................43

Chapter 6 CONCLUSION 49
6.1 Conclusion........................................................................................................49
6.2 Future Work .....................................................................................................50

APPENDIX
Appendix A Simulation time . 51
Appendix B Propagation Model 52
Appendix C Number of Repeaters per Cell 55
Appendix D Repeater Distance .. 57
Appendix E Repeater Gain 59
Appendix F Advanced Repeater . 61

References 83

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List of Tables

Table 4-1 Simulation Parameters.............................................................................. 31

Table 5-1 Performance of repeaters in downlink for different propagation models. 45
Table 5-2 Performance of repeaters in uplink for different propagation models...... 47

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x
List of Figures

Figure 2.1 E-UTRAN overall architecture ................................................................ 6

Figure 2.2 A block diagram of SC-FDMA and OFDMA.......................................... 8
Figure 2.3 LTE time-domain frame structure............................................................ 9
Figure 2.4 LTE subframe and slot structure .............................................................. 9
Figure 2.5 LTE frequency-domain structure ........................................................... 10
Figure 2.6 Channel dependent scheduling .............................................................. 11
Figure 2.7 Downlink resource block assuming normal cyclic prefix...................... 12
Figure 3.1 Repeater Block Diagram ........................................................................ 16
Figure 3.2 Antenna Isolation ................................................................................... 17
Figure 3.3 On-frequency (a) and Frequency Shifting (b) Repeaters ....................... 18
Figure 3.4 A typical repeaters installation in outdoor scenario (a) and indoor
scenario (b)............................................................................................. 20
Figure 3.5 Cellular layout of the system.................................................................. 21
Figure 3.6 Simple illustration of two-hop communication model........................... 22
Figure 3.7 An illustration of coordinated frequency selective repetition in
uplink and downlink............................................................................... 23
Figure 3.8 Repeaters with different filters............................................................... 23
Figure 3.9 Controllable filter banks in the repeater................................................. 24
Figure 3.10 Illustration of frequency selective repeater ............................................ 24
Figure 3.11 Example of gain control functionality.................................................... 25
Figure 4.1 Radio Network Simulation..................................................................... 29
Figure 4.2 Repeater deployment illustration ........................................................... 30
Figure 5.1 Illustration of cellular network deployment with repeaters ................... 35
Figure 5.2 A comparison of CDF downlink SINR for different propagation
model ..................................................................................................... 36
Figure 5.3 CDF of uplink SINR for different propagation model........................... 37
Figure 5.4 CDF of object bit rate (OBR) for different propagation model ............. 37
Figure 5.5 Five-percentile downlink object bit rate (OBR) for different
number of repeaters per cell................................................................... 38
Figure 5.6 Mean uplink object bit rate (OBR) for different number of
repeaters per cell .................................................................................... 39
Figure 5.7 Repeater path gain of a moving user for different repeater
deployment distance............................................................................... 40
Figure 5.8 Direct and Composite Path Gain for different downlink
repeater gain in WINNER LOS propagation of BS to RN links .......... 41
Figure 5.9 Mean downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain ................... 42
Figure 5.10 Mean downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain ................... 42

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Figure 5.11 Five-percentile downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput ......43
Figure 5.12 Mean downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput .....................43
Figure 5.13 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput .......................44
Figure 5.14 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput ......................................44
Figure 5.15 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell throughput .......................................47
Figure 5.16 Mean OBR vs mean cell throughput ......................................................47
Figure 5.17 Repeater activity in cell radius 166 m and WINNER nlos
propagation model scenario....................................................................48

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List of Abbreviations

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

AF Amplify and Forward
AP Access Point
BS Base Station
DF Decode and Forward
FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
IMT International Mobile Telecommunications
ISI Inter-Symbol Interference
ITU International Telecommunication Union
LOS Line of Sight
LTE Long Term Evolution
MBSFN Multi-Media Broadcast over a Single Frequency Network
MS Mobile Station
OBR Object Bit Rate
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
OTDOA Observed Time Difference of Arrival
RN Repeater Node
RTT Round Trip Time
SCM Spatial Channel Model
SINR Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio
TDMA Time Division Multiple Access
TTI Transmission Time Interval
UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network
WINNER Wireless World Initiative New Radio

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

In order to ensure the competitiveness of technology, 3rd Generation Partnership

Project (3GPP) is considering long term evolution (LTE) as the evolution of third
generation (3G) cellular systems. The 3GPP LTE radio-access technology, Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), is the future-oriented
broadband radio access system whose objective is to obtain higher data rates, low
latency, better coverage, improved system capacity, and packet optimized radio
access technology [20]. It will also support end to end services with affordable cost
by reducing number of nodes and interfaces while providing enhanced performance
and capacity.
Meanwhile, the cooperative relay communication for wireless network has
recently attracted attention because of its ability to increase the diversity gain in
fading environment [1]. The idea behind relay communication model is to improve
the cell coverage and capacity in a cost-efficient way. The demand of future cellular
networks, especially in densely populated areas, is higher cell capacity than todays
system. This implies a denser deployment by adding more base stations (BSs) with a
consequence of potential increase in deployment cost. It is shown in [2] that the
deployment cost of a radio network is proportional to the number of Access Point
(AP). Alternatively it is promising to reduce cost by deploying Repeater Node (RN)
to substitute base station (BS) while keeping the goal to enhance capacity and
coverage. The RN acts like base station but without the need of cable or fiber access,
and it uses the same radio access technology from BS to RN and from RN to mobile
station (MS).
Initial deployment of 3GPP-LTE is expected in 2009 and recent news has been
announced that a contract of commercial LTE network in Stockholm is signed
between TeliaSonera and Ericsson. An initiative has been taken by 3GPP to plan the
future work for LTE, referred as LTE-Advanced [6]. LTE-Advanced will be based
on LTE, i.e. reuse the main characteristics of LTE, with a selected set of amendments
[21] based on International Telecommunication Union (ITU) International Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT) Advanced requirements. The context of relaying is also
considered as one candidate of technology feature in LTE-Advanced [6]. However,
the repeaters considered for LTE-Advanced is likely to include some advanced

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functionalities such as frequency selectivity, on frequency repetition, network
controllability and/or observability.

1.2 Previous work

The base of relaying concept was already established in the 1970s and then it has
been proposed as one of the methods to improve capacity in cellular network.
Various aspects of transmission are developed in [4] where transmission diversity
may be employed to improve system performance in term of smaller outage
probability. The strategies of diversity transmission include amplifying and
forwarding as well as decoding and forwarding. They are also referred as layer-1
(L1) and layer-2 (L2) relays. The deployment strategy of base station (BS) and relay
node is also analyzed from a cost perspective [13] [14]. One method was proposed to
evaluate the comparison between different deployments which is called iso-
performance curve [13] [14].

1.3 Problem statement

Repeater which is used to refer L1 type of relay is studied as the focus area in the
thesis. They are considered to be simpler than L2/L3 relays and are transparent to the
system. Traditionally, repeaters are active all the time and perform "blind"
forwarding without knowing the received signals. Repeater in Global System for
Mobile communications (GSM) and 3G systems is one example of commercial
products which are widely used now [27] [28]. On-frequency repetition, in the other
hand, is used at repeaters in order to avoid duplex loss including joint use of signals
from the direct link and repeated link.
The study of this thesis involves on learning about LTE and LTE-Advanced
system, and how repeaters can be incorporated in such networks. In these systems,
repeaters have the advanced ability to select which frequencies used to forward the
signals with certain gain. If a resource block is assigned to a user, the repeater will
amplify and forward the signal in this resource block.
The aim of this thesis is to quantify the benefits and gain of advanced repeater in
3GPP LTE. There is no doubt that repeaters can be beneficial in specific scenarios,
but the question is how large the gain is and how much the system performance is
affected by the increased interference that is an inherent characteristic of a
repeater. We will see the effects of different propagation models, number of
repeaters per cell, repeater distance and repeater gain toward the cell loads. The
performance metrics used for the evaluation are signal to interference and noise ratio
(SINR), cell throughput, object bit rate (OBR), and repeater activity. It would be
more interesting to look at the 5-percentile of SINR and throughput which
correspond to target users and the main objective to be improved in repeater
deployment scenario. The deployments of repeater could be in a regular pattern with
specific radius from the base station, deployed on cell edge, inside buildings [19] or
other alternatives. For simplicity, the deployment inside building is assumed to be
the same with outside building, i.e. regular pattern, but it is simulated together with

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simple indoor propagation model which is the outdoor propagation model plus wall
attenuation loss.
Propagation model used in the system is aligned with 3GPP spatial channel
model (SCM) [22] and the backward compatible extension to 3GPP SCM [18].
Parameters used in the propagation are taken from Wireless World Initiative New
Radio (WINNER) project and 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1. BS RN links are modeled as
line of sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS). Furthermore the antenna type used in the
repeaters is normally assumed to be omni-directional antenna however it is
interesting to consider directional antenna directed towards base stations and omni
towards users.

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Chapter 2

LONG TERM EVOLUTION (LTE)

2.1 3GPP LTE Overview

The growing commercialization of Global System for Mobile Communications

(GSM) and its evolution such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
(UMTS) with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) have been the focus topic of 3GPP.
The GSM / UMTS system is perhaps the most successful communications
technology family and its evolution to beyond 3G becomes important issue for the
next global mobile-broadband solution. In parallel to evolving HSPA, 3GPP is also
specifying a new radio access technology in Release 8 known as LTE in order to
ensure the competitiveness of UMTS.
LTE focuses to support the new Packet Switched (PS) capabilities provided by
the LTE radio interfaces and targets more complex spectrum situations with fewer
restrictions on backwards compatibility. Main targets and requirements for the design
of LTE system have been captured in [20] and can be summarized as follows.
Data Rate: Peak downlink rates of 100 Mbps and Uplink rates up to 50 Mbps
for 20 MHz spectrum allocation, assuming 2 receive antennas and 1 transmit
antenna at the terminal
Spectrum: operation in both paired (Frequency Division Duplex / FDD mode)
and unpaired spectrum (Time Division Duplex / TDD mode). Enabling
deployment in many different spectrum allocations with scalable bandwidth
of 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz, and better efficiency (downlink target is 3-4 times
better than release 6 and uplink target is 2-3 times better than release 6)
Throughput: Mean user throughput per MHz is 3-4 times (downlink) and 2-3
times (uplink) better than release 6. Cell-edge user throughput is also
expected to be improved by a factor 2 for uplink and downlink
Latency: Significantly reduced control-plane and user-plane requirements, i.e.
less than 5ms in the transmission of an IP packet (user-plane), allow fast
transition times of less than 100ms from camped state to active state (control-
plane)
Costs: Reduced CAPEX and OPEX including backhaul for both operators
and users, and effective migration from previous release shall be possible.

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 One of LTE requirement, as previously described, is to reduce the costs by
simplifying the radio architecture. Therefore the number of nodes and interfaces in
the network shall be reduced and it means that the 3GPP LTE Radio Access Network
architecture need to group user plane functionalities into one network node called
evolved Node B (eNB) [23]. The resulting radio architecture is commonly known as
System Architecture Evolution (SAE) and is depicted on Figure 2.1 below.

Figure 2.1 E-UTRAN overall architecture [23]

As shown in the figure, the 3GPP LTE Radio Access Network (RAN)
architecture is different from the one of the previous 3GPP releases. The main
difference is that a significant part of the radio control functionality has been
distributed to the so-called eNBs. Thus, it is possible to reduce latency with fewer
hops in the media path and distribution of processing load into multiple eNBs.

2.2 LTE Transmission Schemes

3GPP-LTE introduces the air interface access technologies from the use of
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), multiple antenna technologies
as well as modifications to the network architecture. OFDM is used in the downlink
transmission and Single Carrier FDMA (Frequency Division Multiplex Access)
technology is applied in the uplink transmission.

2.2.1 OFDM

OFDM is a multi-carrier transmission technique where the available spectrum is

divided into multiple carriers, called sub-carriers. It is a modulation technique
providing a high degree of robustness against frequency selectivity of transmission
channels and achieving high data rate without inter symbol interference (ISI). The
idea was proposed in mid 60s and used parallel data transmission and frequency
division multiplexing (FDM). OFDM is a current well-established technology, for

6
example in standards such as Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Worldwide
inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), High Performance Radio LAN
(Hyperlan-2), Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) and Digital Audio Broadcasting
(DAB) [9]. The utilization of OFDM in 3GPP LTE downlink transmission scheme
enables additional benefits such as access to the frequency domain, i.e. enabling
additional degree of freedom to the channel-dependent scheduler compared to HSPA,
scheduling, power allocations, flexible bandwidth allocations, broadcast/multicast
transmissions [8].
The idea of OFDM is to transform high data rate stream into low data rate
streams transmitted in parallel in order to transform a frequency-selective fading
channel into a set of frequency non-selective fading channels [9]. It uses relatively
large number of narrowband subcarriers which are overlapped and orthogonal to
each other. This is enabling OFDM to avoid the use of high speed equalization and to
combat impulsive noise, and robustness against multipath fading as well as fully use
the available bandwidth.
Any type of non-ideal transmission channels spread the OFDM symbol causing
the OFDM blocks to interfere one another. This type of interference where two
adjacent blocks overlap causing symbol distortion is called Inter-Symbol Interference
(ISI). One possible approach to combat this interference was to introduce a silence
period between the transmitted frames, known as zero prefix. The silence period
consists of a number of zeros added to the front of each symbol. The effect of ISI is
still there however it is affected these prefix and they will be discarded in the
receiver before demodulation of useful signal.
Unfortunately, the zero prefix approach will destroy the periodicity of the carrier.
Therefore instead of using silence period, one could extend the OFDM block by a
cyclic prefix interval. The cyclic prefix interval consists of the last L samples of the
OFDM symbol that are copied in the beginning of data block and it should be larger
than maximum delay spread of the channel (i.e. Tg Tm). If the cyclic prefix interval
(Tg) spans more than maximum delay spread of the channel (Tm), the interference is
entirely absorbed by the cyclic prefix which is then discarded in the receiver. The
cyclic prefix facilitates the receivers carrier synchronization and maintains the
carriers periodicity because some signals are transmitted instead of a long silence
period in the zero prefix approach.

2.2.2 SC-FDMA

The drawbacks of OFDM modulation are the large variations in the instantaneous
transmitted signal power, high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), high
sensitivity to frequency offset and a need for an adaptive scheme to overcome
spectral nulls in the channels. The smaller PAPR of the transmitted signal, the higher
average transmission power can be given for a given power amplifier. Therefore it is
required to have expensive and inefficient power amplifier at the transmitter. This is
very critical aspect in the uplink, since mobile terminal is power-limited and lower-
cost manufactured.
In the other hand, SC-FDMA is basically another way to combat frequency-
selective channel which delivers similar performance with essentially the same
overall complexity compared to orthogonal frequency division multiple access

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(OFDMA) system. 3GPP LTE proposes SC-FDMA transmission scheme in the
uplink.
SC-FDMA is a single carrier transmission based on DFT-spread OFDM where a
block of N modulation symbols is applied to N-point DFT. The DFT spreads data
symbols between all available subcarriers, combined with pilot symbols in time
division multiplexing (TDM) and then mapped to proper subcarriers. After the N-
point DFT, a size of M-point IDFT is applied to the signal, where M > N and the
unused inputs of the IDFT equals to zero. At the receiver, the process is the opposite
way in which after the M-point DFT is applied, the signal is frequency domain
equalized and then the signal is finally converted into time domain using N-point
IDFT. A comparison of SC-FDMA and OFDMA is drawn in Figure 2.2 which
summarizes the difference in block diagram.

N- M-
{xn} Subcarrier point Add CP DAC
point
Mapping IDFT / PS / RF
DFT

Channel

{xn} N- Subcarrier M-
point Remove RF /
Detect point De-mapping/
DFT CP ADC
IDFT Equalization

Figure 2.2 A block diagram of SC-FDMA ( + ) and OFDMA ( )

SC-FDMA has disadvantages in handling signal due to radio-channel frequency

selectivity, but it can be solved in the eNBs by utilizing more resources. One
example of this method is to employ different forms of equalization at receiver
however it requires higher receiver complexity. The other disadvantages of SC-
FDMA are [11]:
In SC-FDMA, the noise is averaged over all the bandwidth because the
detection is done after equalized signal is reverted to time domain by IDFT,
but in contrast, OFDMA performs the detection individually on each
subcarrier
Maximum Likelihood Detector is not feasible for Multiple-Input Multiple-
Output (MIMO)
Additional DFT processing increases mobile station complexity
Unlike OFDMA, Localized SC-FDMA cannot exploit full advantage of
multiuser diversity
Distributed SC-FDMA has some issues, e.g. vulnerability to Doppler and
frequency offset, and pilot design
Only TDM pilots can be supported by SC-FDMA
Low flexibility in multiplexing uplink control and data channels
Degraded link-level performance as compared to OFDMA.
The performance of OFDMA and SC-FDMA has been compared in terms of
spectral efficiency (i.e. bits/s/Hz) [7] in which two antenna configurations are used:
Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) and 1x2 Single-Input Multiple-Output (SIMO).
The simulation results show that SIMO makes the performance of SC-FDMA
comparable to OFDMA but in the SISO case OFDMA outperforms SC-FDMA.

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2.3 Frame Structure

In the time-domain structure, LTE transmission has frame length of Tframe = 10 ms

consisting of ten equally sized subframes of length Tsubframe = 1 ms [8]. One subframe
consists of two equally sized slots of length Tslot = 0.5 ms and each slot consists of a
number of OFDM symbols including cyclic prefix. To provide consistent and exact
timing definitions, different time intervals within the LTE radio access specification
can be expressed as multiples of a basic time unit Ts = 1 sec. Therefore Tframe
30720000
and Tsubframe can be expressed as (307200.Ts) and (30720.Ts) respectively. The
illustration of LTE time-domain frame structure is drawn in Figure 2.3.

1 frame; Tframe = 10 ms

... ...

1 subframe; Tsubframe = 1 ms

#0 #1 #9

1 slot; Tslot = 0.5 ms

Figure 2.3 LTE time-domain frame structure

One slot of length 0.5 ms consists of six or seven OFDM symbols depending on
cyclic prefix type. LTE defines two cyclic prefix lengths: normal cyclic prefix and
extended cyclic prefix which corresponds to seven and six OFDM symbols per slot
respectively shown in Figure 2.4.

One subframe = Two

slots

Tslot = 0.5 ms

Normal CP

TC TU 66.7 s =

Extended CP

TCP- TU 66.7 s =

Figure 2.4 LTE subframe and slot structure

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The reasons of defining two cyclic-prefix lengths for LTE are described below [8].
a) Extended cyclic prefix may be beneficial in specific propagation scenarios with
very extensive delay spread, for example in very large cells. In this scenario the
additional robustness to radio channel dispersion is provided however it is less
efficient from an overhead point-of-view. Therefore it is a tradeoff to choose
which cyclic prefix length should be used.
b) In case of Multi-Media Broadcast over a Single Frequency Network (MBSFN)-
based transmission, the extended cyclic prefix is typically needed to cover both
the main time dispersion part from the actual channel and the main timing
difference part between the transmissions received from the cells.
In the frequency-domain structure, LTE subcarrier spacing has been chosen to
f = 15kHz which corresponds to a useful symbol time Tu 66.7 s (2048.Ts). A
group of 12 consecutive subcarriers is called one resource block and it corresponds to
180 kHz. The illustration of LTE frequency-domain structure is shown in Figure 2.5.
One resource block (12 subcarriers)

f = 15

... ...

Figure 2.5 LTE frequency-domain structure

The basic parameters of the LTE downlink and uplink transmission scheme are
chosen to be aligned as much as possible. In the time-domain structure, the resource
block for downlink and uplink is similar to illustration on Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4.
The same basic parameter is also applied in frequency-domain structure as illustrated
in Figure 2.5 however there is an unused DC-subcarrier in the center of the spectrum
for the downlink case. The reason why it is not used for any transmission is that the
transmission may coincide with the local-oscillator frequency at the BS transmitter
and/or MS receiver, and may cause to unproportional high interference. In the other
hand, uplink transmission has no unused DC-subcarrier because of single-carrier
transmission and the presence of a DC-carrier in the center of the spectrum would
have made impossible to allocate the entire system bandwidth to a single mobile
terminal while still keeping the low-PAR single-carrier property transmission [8].
Thus the total number of subcarriers on a downlink carrier, including the DC-
subcarrier, equals: NSC = 12.NRB + 1, where NRB is the number of resource blocks.
And in the uplink transmission, the total number of subcarriers is NSC = 12.NRB.

2.4 Scheduling in LTE

LTE transmission scheme uses shared-channel transmission in which the time-

frequency resource is dynamically shared between users. This is similar to the

10
approach taken in HSDPA, although the realization of the shared resource differs
between them, time and frequency in case of LTE and time and channelization codes
in case of HSDPA.

Figure 2.6 Channel dependent scheduling [8]

The scheduler controls, for each time instant, to which users the shared resources
should be assigned. It also determines the data rate to be used for each link that is
rate adaptation. The scheduler is a key element and to a large extent determines the
overall downlink performance, especially in a highly loaded network. Both downlink
and uplink transmissions are subject to tight scheduling. It is well known that a
substantial gain in the capacity can be achieved if the channel conditions are taken
into account in the scheduling decision, so called channel-dependent scheduling.
This is exploited already in HSPA where the downlink scheduler transmits to a user
when its channel conditions are advantageous to maximize the data rate. Furthermore
LTE has also access to the frequency domain in addition to the time domain.
Therefore, the scheduler can select the user with the best channel conditions for each
frequency region. In other words, scheduling in LTE can take channel variations into
account not only in the time domain, but also in the frequency domain. This is
illustrated in Figure 2.6.
The possibility for channel dependent scheduling in the frequency domain is
particularly useful for low terminal speeds when the channel is varying slowly in
time. Channel dependent scheduling relies on channel quality variations between
users to obtain a gain in system capacity. In LTE, the scheduling decisions can be
taken as often as once every 1 ms and the granularity in the frequency domain is 180
kHz. This allows relatively fast channel variations to be tracked by the scheduler.

2.4.1 Downlink Scheduling

In the downlink, each terminal reports an estimate of the instantaneous channel

quality to the base station. These estimates are obtained by measuring on the
reference signal, transmitted by base station and used also for demodulation
purposes. Based on the channel-quality estimate, the downlink scheduler can assign
resources to users, taking the channel qualities into account. In principle, a scheduled
terminal can be assigned an arbitrary combination of 180 kHz wide resource blocks
in each 1 ms scheduling interval.

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 Figure 2.7 Downlink resource block assuming normal cyclic prefix1

2.4.2 Uplink Scheduling

The LTE uplink is based on orthogonal separation of users and it is the task of the
uplink scheduler to assign resources in both time and frequency domain (combined
TDMA/FDMA) to different users. Scheduling decisions, taken once per 1 ms,
control which mobile terminals are allowed to transmit within a cell during a given
time interval, on what frequency resources the transmission is to take place, and what
uplink data rate (transport format) to use. Note that only a contiguous frequency
region can be assigned to the terminals in the uplink as a consequence of the use of
single-carrier transmission on the LTE uplink.
Channel conditions can be taken into account in the uplink scheduling process,
similar to downlink scheduling. However, as will be discussed in more detail,
obtaining information about the uplink channel conditions is a non-trivial task.
Therefore different means to obtain uplink diversity are important as a complement
in situations where uplink channel dependent scheduling is not used.

2.5 LTE-Advanced

Initial deployment of 3GPP-LTE is coming to the realization and the 3GPP is already
planning to the future work for LTE, referred as LTE-Advanced [6]. LTE Advanced
will be based on LTE, i.e. improvement of LTE in 3GPP Release 8, with a main
driver of ITU requirements so called IMT Advanced 4G wireless system [21]. LTE
Advanced targets higher data rates, reduced delay and latency, improved capacity
and coverage, and fulfilling or surpassing the requirements for IMT Advanced.
IMT Advanced is a concept used by ITU for radio-access technologies in mobile
communication systems with capabilities beyond IMT-2000. The candidate
technologies for IMT Advanced have been proposed to ITU and 3GPP already
initiated the definition of requirements as well as technology components on LTE
Advanced to meet all the requirements of IMT Advanced. 3GPP plans to submit to
ITU on September 2009 which will probably be fully specified in 3GPP release 10,
and IEEE is likely to submit based on 802.16m standard which is an evolution of

1
Figure is adapted from: http://www.ericsson.com/technology/whitepapers/lte_overview.pdf

12
802.16e. The preliminary requirements for IMT Advanced can be found on the ITUs
IMT Advanced website2.
It is quite certain that in terms of spectrum and bandwidth, all technologies
beyond 3G such as LTE, LTE Advanced, WiMaX, etc., should have wider
bandwidth and be backwards compatible. It means that there is no significant impact
at user terminal while deploying LTE Advanced in the spectrum occupied by LTE
now and the consequence is that the LTE Advanced should have a similar network as
LTE network. The other compatibility is spectrum which is important for a smooth,
low-cost transition within the network.
Apart from the requirement on backwards compatibility, LTE-Advanced should
fulfill the other requirements of IMT Advanced which are capacity, data rates and
low-cost deployment. The final target for peak data rates leaves the possibility to
have up to 1 Gbps in the downlink and 500 Mbps in the uplink, 100 Mbps for high
mobility and 1 Gbps for low mobility. This is the headline requirements for 4G
which is nailed to the same goal as in 3G: the growth in single-user peak data rates.
However it is more important to provide high data rates over a larger part of the cell
rather than for a single-user data rates.
From the link performance perspective, the current cellular system in LTE is
already close to the Shannon bound limit. And from a pure link budget point of view,
the peak data rates targeted by LTE Advanced will require a higher Signal to Noise
Ratio (SNR) than what is typically experienced in cellular networks. Although some
link improvements are still possible, i.e. using additional bandwidth to improve the
coding/modulation efficiency, it is also necessary to introduce concepts and tools to
improve the SNR. A set of components and technologies being considered for LTE
Advances includes:
A. Wider-band transmission and spectrum sharing
B. Multi-antenna solutions
C. Coordinated multi-point transmission
D. Repeaters.
The improvement of SNR with denser deployment could be done by deploying
denser number of base station or with different types of relaying solutions. The idea
is to reduce the transmitter to receiver distance in order to get higher data rates and
depending on the schemes, different types of relaying solutions can be employed.
The detail of repeater is discussed in the following section.

2
ITU-R IMT-Advanced website: www.itu.int/ITU-R/go/rsg5-imt-advanced

13
14
Chapter 3

REPEATER CONCEPT

3.1 Repeater Overview

The fundamental question occurred to wireless system area is how the signals should
be distributed to and collected from the user terminal in very efficient manner to
have high data rate and system coverage requirements. This developments yield
architecture of the present cellular networks which can not meet the requirements of
high data rate for the fourth generation (4G) cellular systems. The extreme solution
to solve this problem is to use larger bandwidth/spectrum or to significantly increase
the density of base stations. Unfortunately, there is no indication that significant new
spectrum will be available in the near future. In the other hand, high number of base
stations results a considerably high deployment costs and it does not seem
economically justifiable [12] [16].
The concept of relaying has been studied as a theoretical problem from a network
information theory perspective in 1970s and in early 1980s. Capacity regions of
simple relaying channels have also been evaluated [15]. However there was no
further analytical study most probably due to the fact that there were no foreseeable
applications at that time. Recently the concept has been brought up again to be used
and proposed in the cellular network system.
Relaying technique is a promising solution to substitute BS because a relay costs
considerably lower than a BS but it acts to improve the link budget [13] just as a BS
does. It has been used typically for handling areas with low signal coverage such as
in radio shadowed areas, tunnels, business and industrial buildings, and where the
traffic is too low to justify the installation of a base station. There are many products
available in the market for this type of solution, e.g. [27] [28]. Several types of relay
which have been developed in cellular network system are:
Amplify-and-forward (AF) relay or sometimes referred as repeater (Layer 1
relay)
Decode-and-forward (DF) relay or Layer 2 relay
Self-backhauling relay or Layer 3 relay.
A repeater (L1 relay) is a relay which amplifies the received signal and forwards
it to user. The repeaters are transparent to system and they are blind when forwarding
the signal without knowing whether it is desired signal, interference or noise.

15
According to what frequency the signals are transmitted, the repeater is classified
into two types: on-frequency repeater and frequency shifting repeater. The
explanation of these repeaters is given in section 3.1.3. DF relays, in the other hand,
decode the received signal first before forwarding it to user. Hence there is additional
delay occurred due to signal processing and it needs other resources for the relays to
MS links, i.e. first time/frequency slot for BS to MS link and second time/frequency
slot for relay to MS link. The advantage of this type of relay is of course no noise
forwarded by relay, however it is difficult to receive both the composite and desired
signal at the same resource block in LTE therefore it needs more resources. Another
type of relay is L3 relay which is often denoted as self-backhauling and performed
on layer 3. Self-backhauling is recently attracted researchers because it is very
similar with Layer 2 relaying in their basic characteristics and it is proposed to be
one of the feature technology in LTE-Advanced [6].
This thesis only studies on-frequency repeater which amplifies the received
signal before retransmission.

3.1.1 Basic Repeater Design

Repeater basically consists of two way amplifier with duplex filter as shown in
Figure 3.1. It has two antennas: one for the connection to the parent base station and
the other one for service area to the users. They are called donor antenna and service
area antenna respectively. The repeater receives signal from donor antenna, filters the
signal, amplifies the signal and directs to the other antenna to be transmitted.
The repeater is located in the cells and is used to improve the cell coverage and
cell capacity in certain areas. Physically a repeater could be in one package with two
built-in antennas inside or it could be a box with two built-out antennas connected
with cable/fiber. The second implementation is sometimes preferable to increase the
antenna isolation and to reduce feedback interference by giving more distance to
both antennas.

Donor Antenna Service

Antenna

Adjustable
amplifiers

Filters Filters

Adjustable
amplifiers

Figure 3.1 Repeater Block Diagram

3.1.2 Antenna Isolation

Antenna isolation is an essential issue for the performance of a repeater because the
feedback signal from service area antenna to donor antenna acts as interference. An
illustration for antenna isolation is drawn in Figure 3.2. In the indoor installation the
isolation between the donor antenna, generally mounted outside the building, and the

16
service area antennas inside the building is not a big issue. The attenuation path is
high enough due to concrete, walls and the usage of feeder cable, but in the outdoor
installation the attenuation path from service to donor antenna is relatively low. If the
antenna isolation does not meet the requirement, the repeater acts as an oscillator
making the repeater itself not to work.

RBS
Coverage
Antenna

Antenna Isolation = Repeater Gain + 15 dB Margin

Donor
Antenna Service
Antenna

Repeater

Figure 3.2 Antenna Isolation

Self-oscillation can be avoided if the overall path loss between the repeater
service antenna and donor antenna, referred as antenna isolation, is higher than the
maximum repeater gain (GR,max). An additional 15 dB margin is considered to ensure
the antenna isolation according to specification for UTRA Repeater [24]. As a rule of
thumb, the antenna isolation should fulfill the following inequality:
Antenna isolation GR,max + 15 dB (3.1)
In the implementation antenna isolation must be resolved before a repeater is
installed. If antenna isolation cannot be reached, it is necessary to decrease the
maximum repeater gain at the expense of losing repeater coverage area. There are
several factors that influence the antenna isolation [17]:
The distance between antennas: the path loss is higher when the distance
between antennas is increased. It is roughly proportional to the square of the
distance between the antennas (free space propagation loss) and in the UMTS
frequency system, antenna separation up to 10 m is recommended
Antenna lobe width and front to back ratio: higher antenna isolation can be
reached if the antennas have narrow lobe width and higher front to back ratio.
The service area antenna is typically an omni directional antenna, but a
directional antenna can be employed especially at donor antenna to increase
antenna isolation. The typical donor antenna gain ranges from 15 to 18 dBi
Antenna polarization
Shielding
Surrounding environment: the reflection and attenuation properties of all
materials close to antennas can influence the antenna isolation drastically
Isolation through Self Interference Cancellation3.

3
Peter Larsson, MIMO On-Frequency Repeater with Self-Interference Cancellation and Mitigation,
VTC2009-Spring, 29 April 2009.

17
3.1.3 On-Frequency and Frequency Shifting Repeaters

An on-frequency repeater, as the name clearly explains, is a repeater which uses the
same frequency band on both base station to repeater link and repeater to user
terminal link. On-frequency repeater which receives and transmits on the same
frequency band sometimes creates problems since it relies on the antenna isolation
which effectively limits the repeater gain. Therefore it is important to choose high
gain antennas with low side/back lobes and performing a good antenna installation.
The resulting coverage from an on-frequency repeater strictly depends on the antenna
type and installation skill.
Generally it is difficult to obtain high antenna isolation between donor and
service area antenna at the repeaters. Indeed, as shown in Figure 3.3, on-frequency
repeater needs to have an additional and costly component to achieve sufficient
antenna isolation known as canceller, therefore it makes the entire repeater solution
approach more expensive and less desirable. Instead, frequency shifting repeaters can
be used. These repeaters use one frequency to communicate with base station and use
another frequency to talk with mobile station. For example, it converts frequency F1
to frequency F2 for downlink, and vice versa for the uplink communication.
Therefore, sometimes frequency shifting repeaters are also known as frequency
translation or conversion repeater.

Feedback Interference

F1 Antenna isolation (30dB)

Canceller
F1
(45dB)

On-Frequency
Base Station Mobile Station F1
Repeater

(a)
Feedback Interference

F1
Antenna isolation (30dB)
o
F2 Filter (45dB)

Feedback
Frequency F2 F1
interference
Base Station Mobile Station
Shifting
Repeater

(b)
Figure 3.3 On-frequency (a) and Frequency Shifting (b) Repeaters

Frequency shifting repeater uses different frequency for two hops channel which
can solve the antenna isolation problem. It is possible to provide up to 100 dB
repeater gain with much lower antenna isolation requirement. In general, frequency
shift repeaters shall be more cost-effective solution than on-frequency repeaters
because they do not have canceller and only have band pass filter in the RF module.
The high gain and low antenna isolation requirement of this unit are suitable for
coverage extension in rural areas.
However frequency shift between link between repeater to user and link between
base stations to repeaters requires more resources in order to allow the repeater to
work correctly and this would result a reduced capacity (duplex loss). Obviously
more complex frequency planning and guard channels are needed. Therefore
frequency-shifting repeaters are not recommended to be used widely in LTE network

18
and successful installation enforces high requirements on low adjacent channel signal
levels in the area. The other common problem that occurs in the frequency-shifting
repeater is synchronization problem. Even though a repeater is equipped with a very
high quality local oscillator, a frequency drift in time may not be avoided. A manual
frequency re-tuning with an interval of period time is necessary, i.e. less than two
years for repeater in GSM.

3.1.4 Repeater Delay

In two-hop communication model, the repeater introduces delay due to filtering,

processing and feeder links used in application which could deteriorate the signal
coming to user terminal. As long as the delay is within cyclic prefix, the signal can
be recognized and combined to obtain the original transmitted signal. This happens
because OFDM scheme employs cyclic prefix, a circular extension of the data
symbol to combat inter-symbol interference introduced by the frequency selectivity
of the radio channels. The cyclic prefix is used in order to avoid the effect of time
dispersion by multipath propagation which makes two consecutive frames to
interfere each other at the receiver. If the frame delay is more than cyclic prefix, the
receiver can not combine the signal and they are seen as interference. Therefore it is
important to keep the repeater delay as low as possible such that the total delay at
user terminal must be within cyclic prefix period. An example of total delay in
frequency selective repeater in GSM network is 4 - 6 s while the extended cylic
prefix period in LTE is 14.2857 s.
Another effect of repeater delay is causing the positioning system to estimate the
UE position wrongly. This effect depends on what positioning system type is used. In
Round Trip Time (RTT) and Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA)
methods the estimation of UE position strongly depends on propagation delay
measurements between the UE and NodeB, however in Cell-ID method the repeater
delay will not affect the identification of the serving cell.

3.1.5 Interference and Capacity

The deployment of repeaters in cellular network has a main task to extend the cell
coverage while keeping the total investment costs lower than the deployment of
NodeBs without repeaters. Repeaters have some impacts on the cellular system in
term of interference, capacity and coverage especially in outdoor scenarios. In rural
areas where the traffic density is low, the number of NodeBs is generally
dimensioned according to coverage. In such applications where the capacity is not
limited, the repeaters are used to replace one or more NodeBs as long as the service
quality is still acceptable. In urban areas capacity is an important factor for
determining the number of NodeBs and it is limited by the downlink power. A
repeater in this area generally increases the overall downlink power because it
amplifies both the desired signal and interference. Thus it actually increases the
overall downlink capacity if the desired signal without any interference is amplified.
However, in multi-cell environment inter-cell interference exists and it means that
there is a tradeoff between the interference and capacity in the system.

19
3.1.6 Repeater Applications

Choosing a base station or a repeater to be deployed is not an easy way but it is

possible to provide general rules in order to make one choice more sensible than the
other one. A base station basically needs high electrical power feeding, a physical
transmission link to the core network, and it is relatively expensive. On the other
hand a repeater is a cost-effective complementary solution for solving coverage
problems, but it does not add any new hardware capacity to the system and it has
often somewhat worse radio performance than a base station.
Implementation of a repeater solution starting from the coverage extension issue
to a complete working system is a very rapid process. Acceptable signal strength at
the donor antenna and a capacity of the donor cell which allows serving the new MSs
introduced by the repeater are some prerequisites required for a repeater solution.
The repeater can be seen as a natural way in expanding the network coverage,
therefore there is an expectation of increased capacity demand in the system. In
summary, the cost, required capacity, and limited implementation time are critical
factors to this process.

Repeater

Donor
antenna
Service area
antenna

Base
Station
User
Terminal

(a)

(b)
Figure 3.4 A typical repeaters installation in outdoor scenario (a) and indoor scenario (b)

Typical repeater applications are to improve cellular system performance in

outdoor or indoor scenario. The performance could be system coverage and/or
capacity. Figure 3.4 shows a typical outdoor repeater on the buildings rooftop and
indoor repeater. The outdoor scenario is typically used for macrocell coverage
extension purposes where the direct signal path from BS to MS is obstructed by hills
or there are coverage holes in the service areas. Note that in this case the capacity

20
should not be a limiting factor. The indoor scenario is intensely used for in-building
coverage where the external macrocell coverage is not sufficient.

3.2 Two-Hop Communication Model

The capability of relaying method is perhaps a promising architecture to be

implemented in the wireless network structure as a cost efficient solution. It allows
coverage extension with high data rates and can reduce the total number of expensive
base stations in the system. The multi-hop feature also allows many units to
retransmit the signal to the destination in several hops, but two-hop relaying could
decrease the operation cost and simplifies the routing function. Furthermore fixed
relaying is utilized to simplify the radio protocols and to improve the efficiency.
Two-hop fixed relaying method is based on fixed repeater node (RN) deployed in
the system infrastructure and the number of hops allowed is restricted to two, i.e. BS
to RN and RN to MS. This simplification further increases the practical
implementation of the multi-hop technology and reduces the complexities. Figure 3.5
shows the layout of our model: hexagonal cells with radius R, one cell site with three
sectorized antennas BSs, and repeater node (RN) placed at some distance from the
base station to the cell border. Furthermore, 3 repeaters per cell are considered in our
work.

: Base Station

: Repeater Node

: Mobile Station

Figure 3.5 Cellular layout of the system

A simple illustration of two-hop communication model and how the system

works for a single cell is drawn in Figure 3.6. The desired signal is sent from serving
base station to the user (black line) and the interference signal comes from other base
stations to the user (red line). The blue line represents the desired signal sent through
repeaters in other cells. The received signals (with thermal noise) at repeater is
amplified and retransmitted to the user, and then all signals received at user terminal
are summed together as multipath signals.

21
1

Mobile

Base
Station

Desired signal
Base
Station Desired signal from outer repeater
Interference from outer cell
Repeater

Figure 3.6 Simple illustration of two-hop communication model

If Ci ,k is the path gain from base station-k of cell-i, Es is the symbol energy, and
z2 is the noise variance, the SINR equation of a user in cell-K in this model is:
0
N repeaters

2
C K , k Es
= k =1
N cell N repeaters
(3.2)
+
2 2
z0 Ci , k Es
i =1 k =1
i K

where thermal noise is assumed to be white.

3.3 Advanced Repeater

As being explained in Section 2.5, layer 1 relays or also referred to repeaters are
considered to be one of potential technology features of LTE Advanced. Some
problems appeared to repeaters in 3GPP Rel-8 are energy consumption, interference
problems, lower throughput when served by repeaters, difficult to monitor operation
and potential features for improved performance. Practically the conventional
repeaters are always on continuously even when there is no data transmitted, so the
repeater consumes more energy than what it needs. Moreover in multicells scenario
the repeaters may contribute more interference to the other users and could degrade
the overall performance. Therefore it is important to have some advanced
functionalities, i.e. to switch the repeater on/off in an optimum way, to have
frequency selectivity and gain controllability, to use multi antenna ability and
advanced antenna processing, etc.
There are two advanced repeater functionalities analyzed in this thesis. First, an
advanced repeater may use time and/or frequency selective functionality and it only

22
forwards when there is data to be forwarded and chooses the frequency bands
needed. Second, it may control the repeater gain. In these ways, power consumption
and interference can be reduced. Furthermore power control at repeaters can give
benefits in order to reduce unnecessary power and to increase the overall
performance. The simplest power control is to have an on/off switch that will turn the
repeater on if there is data to be forwarded from serving base station. More complex
power control algorithm can control repeater gain such that all users in the system
get the best performance with fairness condition and satisfaction. This power control
and other advanced repeater functionalities are not in the scope of this thesis hence
they may be considered as future work.

3.3.1 Frequency Selective Repetition

Frequency selective repetition is one of the advanced repeater functionalities which

can improve the system performance. The frequency selective functionality is used in
order to reduce the unwanted signal being forwarded to the users therefore the
interference introduced to other cells is reduced. This method is similar to Inter-Cell
Interference Cancellation (ICIC) where MSs in the the cell edge served by repeater
on coordinated resources and BSs control the repetition of frequencies used by
repeater. Hence it can allow an improvement of the users SINR and system
performance in general. Figure 3.7 illustrates this functionality in a simple case.

Figure 3.7 An illustration of coordinated frequency selective repetition in Uplink and Downlink

The frequency selective repetition is basically implemented in the frequency

selective repeaters by employing filters. According to the bandwidth of the filters
implemented, these repeaters can be classified into: broadband repeater, band
selective repeater and frequency selective repeater. An illustration of these repeaters
with different type of filters is given in Figure 3.8.

Broadband Band Selective Frequency Selective

f f f
Figure 3.8 Repeaters with different filters

23
 Frequency selective repeater has a bank of band-pass filters to amplify multiple
channels or resource blocks as shown in Figure 3.9. The bandwidth of a repeater can
be made as minimum as possible to achieve the maximum selectivity against
adjacent channels, i.e. the minimum schedulable bandwidth in LTE system is one
resource block. However sharper filter will cost more and makes the processing time
longer. It is sometimes assumed that the filters have the same bandwidth and
component. Therefore if the bandwidth of a single filter is narrower, the number of
filters in a repeater is higher and the granularity of the filter bank is also finer.

Controller

Figure 3.9 Controllable filter banks in the repeater

In LTE the frequency selective repeater can be used to retransmit the data to
users scheduled in the resource blocks. Each user can be scheduled in a consecutive
resource blocks or in a localized resource blocks. An illustration of repeater
frequency selectivity function and the amplification in frequency domain is drawn in
Figure 3.10. Note that the repeater is also potentially controllable in time domain, i.e.
it may be active when there is resource block assigned to active user served in the
cell and can be off when there is no resource block used by active users.

User 1 User 2

Scheduled
resource blocks Frequency

Conventional
repeater Frequency

Frequency selective
repeater Frequency

Figure 3.10 Illustration of frequency selective repeater

3.3.2 Repeater Gain Controllability

Repeater gain controllability is another feature in the advanced repeater which can be
used in order to reduce interference, to reduce power consumption, to improve uplink

24
power control and to avoid instability. This feature is motivated from a simple
illustration where a repeater could be on/off or continuously transmitting in time.
On/off state simply refers to if there are data to be forwarded or not. Furthermore
different amplification factor or gain may give different system performance because
higher gain contributes higher interference to the system.
There are two granularities that can be controlled which are time granularity and
frequency granularity. In the time granularity, the repeater may use long time scale or
at scheduling rate to review and to change the gain based on power control
algorithm. We define fast repeater as a repeater allowed to change the gain
drastically at the next time instant and slow repeater as a repeater which needs to
increase/decrease stepwise. In frequency granularity case, a repeater may amplify the
entire bandwidth or in a frequency-selective way. We define fine resolution as
filters correspond to one resource block and coarse resolution as filters
correspond to a chunk of resource blocks (e.g. 5 MHz). The tradeoff of this
functionality is the need of synchronization and control signaling from base station to
repeaters and it makes the interference estimation accuracy decrease.
In our simulation, there are five repeater states which will be considered. They
are: always on, slow coarse resolution, slow fine resolution, fast coarse
resolution and fast fine resolution. The example of gain control functionality is
given in Figure 3.11.

Figure 3.11 Example of gain control functionality

25
26
Chapter 4

SYSTEM MODEL

4.1 General Scenario

3GPP LTE radio cellular network environment is developed in a system level

simulator. In this thesis, a typical urban multi-cell with two-hop transmission link
scenario is focused on. The framework developed in this simulator uses a traffic map
scenario with some predicted user demand generated in the cellular network area.
The repeaters are placed in fixed locations and the users are generated with
uniform distribution throughout the area. The advanced functionalities are
implemented in the repeater and are evaluated in term of system performance.
Moreover the radio channel is modeled using the 3GPP spatial channel model (SCM)
with different parameters and proposed for LTE based on WINNER (Wireless World
Initiative New Radio) project and 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 #54bis R1-084026. Radio
resource management for scheduling, link adaptation and power control are also
supported by this simulator. Detailed descriptions of the models are given in the
following sections.

4.2 Propagation and Channel Model

Reflection, diffraction and dispersion due to the obstacles in the environment

introduce the multipath property of a radio channel. The received signals from each
path have different delays, phase shifts and path losses depending on the path that
they cross through. Based on the multipath fading channel model, the impulse
response of the frequency selective fading channel can be written as:
P 1
h(t ) = h p (t p ) (4.1)
p =0

where hp is assumed to be complex Gaussian and represents the channel coefficient

of path p, and p represents the delay of path p. The frequency response of the
channel is therefore given by:

27
 P 1
H ( f ) = hp e
j 2 f p
(4.2)
p =0

The channel modeling considered in 3GPP LTE is based on spatial channel model
(SCM) [22]. The SCM in the system-level simulations is used to describe the
propagation between two nodes when transmitting the data. The propagation path
loss occurs due to several factors including among others free-space, penetration and
multipath losses. There are several paths modeled for each link and several sub-paths
for each path. Each sub-path is modeled with a delay, amplitude, phase and angles at
both the transmitter and the receiver sides.
Depending on environments and models used, the path loss dependent equation
are generally in the function of carrier frequency, transmitter antenna height, receiver
antenna height and distance from transmitter to receiver. Modified COST231 Hata
urban propagation model or COST 231 Walfisch-Ikegami model are one example of
the model. In a simplified equation, propagation model between two nodes can also
be modeled as:
L(d ) = + 10 * * log(d ) [dB] (4.3)

where is the path loss exponent, is a constant that depends on the propagation
conditions and d is the distance from transmitter and receiver. The path loss exponent
varies between 2 and 6 depending on the environment where 2 is used for free-space
and 6 is for an environment with many obstacles. Parameter of the propagation
model, and , used in this thesis is based on WINNER project [26] and 3GPP
TSG-RAN WG14. The values of these parameters are given in Table 4-1.
Shadow fading or slow fading is a large variation in the received power due to
the sudden appearance or disappearance of obstacles between the transmitter and
receiver. This is most often due to the movement of the receiver. In a cellular
network this can be modeled by a log-normal distributed random variable S with a
standard deviation of . This variable can be added to the path loss equation in (4.3)
and then the expression becomes:
L(d ) = + 10 * * log(d ) + S [dB] (4.4)

We also consider a simple indoor propagation model. The parameter of indoor

propagation model is based on WINNER model with an additional wall attenuation.
The wall attenuation is 10 dB as defined in [25] for outside wall loss. It is assumed
that all users are indoor users therefore the BS to MS links is always attenuated by 10
dB wall loss. The composite links are defined in 3 cases which are based on repeater
location:
1. RN has two separate antennas, one is placed outdoor (donor antenna) and the
other one is indoor (service area antenna). No additional changes are made
for BS RN and RN MS links.
2. RN and its antennas are placed outside the building. BS RN links are not
changed and RN MS links are attenuated by wall loss.
3. RN and its antennas are placed inside the building. BS RN links are
attenuated by wall loss and RN MS links are not changed.
We denote Indoor Case 1, Case 2 and Case 3 for these three cases in the results on
Chapter 5.

4
3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 #56bis, Seoul, Kroea, March 23- 27, 2009, Doc: R1-091566.

28
4.3 Repeater Model

Repeater considered in this thesis amplifies the received signal before retransmission.
On-frequency repetition is used in order to avoid duplex loss. Repeaters are deployed
in a regular pattern placed at a certain distance from the serving base station. This is
the most efficient way to deploy the repeaters because we have homogeneous traffic
scenario. Number of repeaters per cell and repeater distance from BS are the
variables and they are set to values given in Table 4-1.
Repeater has two basic constraints: maximum repeater gain (GR) and maximum
repeater output power (PR). The maximum repeater gain (GR) is set to 90 dB [24]
which is 15 dB less than the antenna isolation and the maximum repeater output
power is 20 W. It is assumed that the repeater processing delay is shorter than the
cyclic prefix of an OFDM symbol. In this case the repeated signal path and the direct
signal path do not interfere with each other. Instead they add, in the air, in the same
way as normal multi-path does. And it is also assumed that there is no inter-repeater
interference due to well-isolation of the repeaters. No MIMO model is considered in
this thesis to make the evaluation of advanced repeater functionalities easier.

4.4 Simulation Models

4.4.1 Radio Network Simulator

The problems in this thesis are studied and analyzed using software simulator
platform. It is implemented in Java and the general concept of this radio network
simulation is illustrated in Figure 4.1.

Radio Network Simulator

environment deployment transmit power throughput
mobility & traffic interference service quality
alg. parameters error rates block rate
... ... drop rate
...

Figure 4.1 Radio Network Simulation

The software simulator platform is built not only for simulating the radio
propagation model, radio resource management, and radio protocol parts but also for
modeling the traffic, internet protocols and transport network. The results are taken
from real time simulation and simulation time is chosen as low as possible while still
keeping low-error compare to results in long simulation time. Reliability of the result
can be motivated under some circumstances and assumptions being made. Some
assumptions are made in order to decrease the complexity of the simulation, for
example: user distribution is assumed to be uniform, repeater deployment is assumed
to be regular pattern, antenna isolation in the repeater is assumed to be good enough,
etc. Therefore it must be followed by further research, implementation, test bed and
measurements.

29
4.4.2 Deployment Scenario

The cellular network consists of base stations, repeaters and mobile stations. The
system is first set up at the beginning of each simulation where a cellular network
environment and a predetermined number of sites are created. It is created according
to hexagonal pattern and based on inter site distance (ISD). One site has three base
stations where each base station uses 1200 directional antenna. Then the repeaters are
placed at fixed distance from station (Rrepeater). There are two type of repeater
deployment considered in this thesis as shown in Figure 4.2. The deployment in
Figure 4.2(a) is regular deployment of repeaters with fixed distance from base station
(if Rrepeater < Rcell 3 ), while in Figure 4.2(b) the repeaters deployment is parallel to
the two sides of the cell edge (if Rrepeater > Rcell 3 ). The second deployment is
considered because the possible arc of circle to deploy the repeaters is smaller if
Rrepeater is increased. In this illustration, we show the deployment of system in the cell
radius 166m and there are 3 repeaters per cell.

Scenario deployment Scenario deployment

400 400

300 300

200 200

100 100

0 0

-100 -100

-200 -200

-300 -300
Base Station Base Station
Repeater Repeater
-400 -400
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400

(a) (b)

Figure 4.2 Repeater deployment illustration

After deploying base stations and repeaters, the users are created throughout the
simulation area and the channel models as well as the frequency-independent fast
fading gain are also initialized. Further explanation of these methods is given in the
following section.

4.4.3 User Generation

Users are uniformly distributed over the service area. New users are created
simultaneously in the beginning of simulation and/or randomly according to Poisson
processes at the initialized positions. Each user selects the base station according to
cell selection algorithm which is based on the strongest long term path gain. The user
can also be connected to a repeater if the composite path gain (the gain from BS
through RN to the MS) is larger than direct path gain. A user may stay during entire
simulation or may be removed according to some rules, i.e. after random lifetime or
finish downloading.

30
 The user moves with an average speed 3 km/h. Handover implemented in the
system is hard handover, i.e. link to the old eNodeB is removed before the new link
with other eNodeB is established. Maximum uplink power in the user equipment is
250 mW which is equivalent to 24 dBm.

4.5 Simulation Parameters

The LTE system simulated in this thesis consists of 7 sites with 3 base stations per
site which means in total there are 21 hexagonal cells. A wrap-around technique is
used to avoid interference-free effects in the border area. This technique makes
another virtual tier (6 virtual positions) generated around the original cell. The base
stations and repeaters are created according to parameters in Table 4-1. The system is
operated at 2 GHz frequency carrier and 5 MHz total bandwidth.
The complete simulation parameters considered in this thesis are provided in the
following table.

Table 4-1 Simulation Parameters

Traffic and Mobility Models
Traffic model File transfer (download/upload). File size 1 MB,
model includes TCP and protocol overhead
User distribution Uniformly distributed in space according to an
intensity (i.e. 5 users per sec) and removed when file
transfer completed
User speed 3 km/h
Radio Network Models
Cell layout 21 hexagonal cells (7 sites, 3 base stations per site)
Cell radius 166m (3GPP case 1), 577 m (3GPP case 3)
Repeater Based on deployment shown in Figure 4.2,
deployment 250 m (3GPP case 1) and 800 m (3GPP case 3)
from serving BS
Number of 3 repeaters per cell
repeaters
Channel model Typical Urban
Distance According to simplified equation on (4.3):
dependent PL = + *10log(d)
propagation
Parameters used in WINNER:
WINNER los: = -40.5, = -2.35
BS to MS: = -40.5, = -3.57
BS to RN: = -40.5, = -2.35
RN to MS: = -40.5, = -3.57

WINNER nlos: = -40.5, = -3.57

BS to MS: = -40.5, = -3.57
BS to RN: = -40.5, = -3.57
RN to MS: = -40.5, = -3.57

31
 Parameters used in 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1:
BS to MS: = -30.6, = -3.67
BS to RN: = -11.7, = -3.76
RN to MS: = -30.6, = -3.67

Parameters used in indoor model are the same with

WINNER nlos with additional attenuation wall loss:
Case 1: BS to MS: = -50.5
Case 2: BS to MS and RN to MS: = -50.5
Case 3: BS to MS and BS to RN: = -50.5
Shadow fading Log-normal, SF = 0dB and SF = 8dB
Multipath fading SCM Suburban Macro or Urban Micro
AP Maximum Base station: 20 W
Power Repeater: 20 W
UE: 250 mW
Maximum 90 dB [24]
repeater gain
Repeater Gain 1. Time selectivity: Fast/Slow (maximum step up 3
Control dB, down 0.5 dB)
2. Frequency selectivity: Fine (one resource block
granularity) / Coarse (5 MHz granularity)
Antenna BS: 1 SCM antenna with sectorized antennas. No
configuration and MIMO. Max gain: 16 dBi.
antenna gains RN: 2 antennas (donor and service area antennas) of
omni-directional type with 2 dBi gain. In case of
directional antenna, the donor antenna has SCM
pattern with max gain 10 dBi.
UE: 2 Rx antennas at the terminal. Omni antennas
with 0 dBi gain
Scheduler DL: If a UE has enough data buffered it is allocated
the entire bandwidth
UL: Both FDM and TDM scheduling (power
limitations)
General System Models
Simulation time 200 sec
Spectrum 5 MHz DL / 5 MHz UL
Carrier Frequency 2 GHz
Number of
25
subbands
Number of
subcarriers per 12
subband
Number of total
300
subcarriers
Number of OFDM
symbols used for 3 symbols/subframe
PDCCH
Subframe rate 1000 subframes/sec

32
 Modulation and QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM
coding Turbo codes, rates: 0.05, 0.1, 0.14, 0.2, 0.25, 0.33, 0.4,
0.5, 0.6, 0.67, 0.75, 0.8, 0.89, 0.97

4.6 Performance Evaluation

Several performance metrics are considered in the evaluation: SINR and cell
throughput both in downlink and uplink, and object bitrate. The items are logged
during simulation and then post processed. The explanation of these performance
metrics is provided below.

4.6.1 SINR Calculation

Downlink and Uplink SINR are calculated based on equation (3.2). The signals are
measured per subband where combining method of direct path and repeater path are
utilized. The total interference depends on repeater type used in the system. Always
on repeater creates interference continuously but advanced repeater creates
interference when it forwards the data on the same resource blocks. The main interest
of evaluation is 5-percentile SINR which corresponds to users in the cell border or
area which has limited SINR and mean SINR which corresponds to average SINR in
the system.

4.6.2 Cell Throughput

Cell downlink throughput is the total number of bits downloaded by users measured
at a cell. In the uplink scenario, the definition is the same but it uses uploaded bits
instead of received bits. The simulation is done with simulation time period and
throughput is logged every 0.1 sec interval.

4.6.3 Object Bit Rate (OBR)

The object bit rate is defined as the total number received bits per second received by
a user and measured for every object / packet (in this case one TCP block data). In an
equation, it is the packet size (including header) divided by time period needed
(timeReceived - timeSent).

33
34
Chapter 5

SIMULATION RESULTS
The simulation is implemented in the radio simulator platform as the explanation in
the Section 4.4.1. This chapter presents the numerical results of several scenarios
using parameters in Table 4-1. An example of the cellular network deployed in this
thesis is drawn in Figure 5.1. In this figure, there are 7 sites with 3 base stations per
site and 3 repeaters per cell. The deployment of repeater follows the pattern shown in
Figure 4.2b.

Scenario deployment
800
Base Station
Repeater
600 User

400

200

-200

-400

-600

-800
-800 -600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600 800 1000

Figure 5.1 Illustration of cellular network deployment with repeaters

The procedure of the simulation is to analyze the effect of one variable by setting
the others to the default parameters, and if it is possible to find the optimum value of
this parameter. And then by using these results we analyze the other scenario and use
the same procedure again. Simulation is done in 200 sec basis, and it is chosen in
order to have a system with stable results. The comparison of simulation with 1000
sec and simulation with 200 sec is given in Appendix A and it is concluded that 200
sec is enough to give necessary results.
The rest of this chapter is divided into several subsections. The first scenario is to
analyze the impact of several propagation models, and then followed by examining

35
number of repeaters per cell, repeater distance to base station, repeater gain, and
finally the advanced repeater. Performance evaluation metrics used in the simulation
are items stated in Section 4.6.

5.1 Propagation Model

The evaluation of different propagation model is carried out in this section. The
system is set up mainly based on parameters in Table 4-1. There are 7 sites, 3 base
stations per site and 3 repeaters per cell in the system. Cell radius is 166 m and
repeater distance from base station is 250 m. The users are generated with intensity
10 users/sec. The propagation models used in this scenario are either WINNER or
3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 model. We will use the terms: WINNER nlos and WINNER
los to refer WINNER model and the corresponding BS RN links for the rest of this
report. The parameter of distance dependent path loss, and , according to equation
(4.4) are set to values provided in Table 4-1. Repeater is configured as always on
with 90 dB repeater gain. The donor antenna at repeater can be omni-directional
antenna (repOmniDonorAntenna) with 2 dBi gain or directional antenna
(repDirDonorAntenna) with SCM pattern and max gain of 10 dBi in forward
direction.
Figure 5.2 shows the CDF of downlink SINR with different propagation model.
Note that nlos and los correspond to propagation of BS RN links in WINNER
model. The reference curves are WINNER noRep and 3GPP noRep which are the
performance of system without repeater. From this figure, the SINR in the WINNER
los case is worse than WINNER nlos because the path loss exponent for LOS is lower
than path loss exponent for NLOS propagation model and then both the desired and
interference signals are received with higher signal strength at the repeater. In small
cell radius (166 m), the effect of interference is much higher than the desired signal.
CDF of downlink SINR
100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40 WINNER noRep
WINNER, nlos, repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER, nlos, repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER, los, repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER, los, repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
SINR (dB)

Figure 5.2 A comparison of CDF downlink SINR for different propagation model

All scenarios which we simulate in Figure 5.2 show that systems with repeaters
using omni-donor antenna (repOmniDonorAntenna) are worse than systems without
repeater (noRep) for both WINNER and 3GPP propagation models. It means that
repeaters do not give beneficial gain to the system. In order to have a gain when

36
using repeater, it is necessary to have better path gain in two-hop links than the path
gain in the direct link. One way to improve this is by using directional donor antenna
at repeater which affects the BS RN links and another way is to use directional
service antenna at repeater which affects the RN MS links. The intuitive issues for
the second approach are the changes of repeater coverage and spatial separation
between donor and service antenna if they face the same direction. Since the users in
this simulation are generated randomly, we will only consider the first approach and
the second approach will not be in the scope of this thesis.
As shown in Figure 5.2, the directional donor antenna at the repeater enhances
the SINR. System with repeater directional donor antenna performs better than
system without repeater for both in WINNER nlos propagation and 3GPP propagation
models. Furthermore repeater directional donor antenna degrades users having low-
percentile SINR because it also amplifies the interference. Therefore it is important
to know that directional donor antenna at repeater gives additional gain only for
specific cases. In WINNER los propagation, it is clear that the repeater does not bring
gain even with repeater directional donor antenna. This will be analyzed and
explained later in Section 5.5 with other cell loads.

CDF of uplink SINR

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40
WINNER noRep
WINNER, nlos, repOmniDonorAntenna
30
WINNER, nlos, repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER, los, repOmniDonorAntenna
20
WINNER, los, repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
SINR (dB)

Figure 5.3 CDF of uplink SINR for different propagation model

CDF of Object Bit Rate

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40 WINNER noRep
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Object bit rate (bps) 6
x 10
Figure 5.4 CDF of object bit rate (OBR) for different propagation model

37
 Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.4 show the CDF of uplink SINR and the object bit rate
(OBR) for this scenario. The results are similar to Figure 5.2. Other results using
advanced fast fine resolution repeater, cell radius of 577 m, and simple indoor
propagation models can be found in Appendix B. From these results, we can derive a
conclusion that system with repeaters performs better/worse than system without
repeater depending on propagation model used. Directional donor antenna at repeater
can generally give further gain to improve BS RN links with possibility to lose the
performance of users with low-percentile SINR.

5.2 Number of Repeaters per Cell

In this section, the effect of number of repeater per cell is analyzed. Most of the
parameters are aligned with Table 4-1. First we look into three numbers of repeaters
per cell (3, 6 and 9 repeaters per cell) in different cell loads, i.e. 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13,
and 15 users/sec. Two types of repeaters considered here are always on and advanced
fast fine resolution repeaters. Cell radius is 166 m and WINNER nlos propagation
model is used. The results are given in Figure 5.5 and Figure 5.6 where the x-axis
shows mean cell downlink throughput which also corresponds to cell loads. The
same results for cell radius 577 m are also provided in Appendix C.
From Figure 5.5 and Figure 5.6, there is limited gain when we increase number
of always on repeaters or it is basically no difference in performance between 6 and 9
repeaters per cell. And with advanced repeaters, some additional gain can be
achieved with more repeaters, i.e. from Figure 5.6 at intensity 10 users/sec the gain
from 3reps/cell to 6 reps/cell using fast fine repeater is 725 kbps which is higher than
320 kbps, the gain using always on repeater. A threshold also exists if we increase
N R further in which the performance will be worse. In our results, 9 repeaters per
cell has a similar performance or slightly worse than 6 repeaters per cell. Therefore
the threshold could be in the range of 6 9 repeaters per cell.
6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
8
no repeater
7 always on, 3reps/cell
always on, 6reps/cell
6 always on, 9reps/cell
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine, 3reps/cell
fast-fine, 6reps/cell
5
fast-fine, 9reps/cell

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.5 Five-percentile downlink object bit rate (OBR) for different number of repeaters per cell

38
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12

10

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

8

no repeater
4 always on, 3reps/cell
always on, 6reps/cell
always on, 9reps/cell
2 fast-fine, 3reps/cell
fast-fine, 6reps/cell
fast-fine, 9reps/cell
0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.6 Mean uplink object bit rate (OBR) for different number of repeaters per cell

Second, we will analyze several scenarios with numbers of repeaters per cell
N R (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 repeaters per cell) in one cell load, i.e. 10 users/sec. The
results and scenario details are provided in Appendix C. From these results, it is of
course possible to optimize the number of repeaters per cell (N R ,max ) based on other
pre-defined settings such as propagation model, cell loads, repeater distance from
base station, repeater types and repeater gain. In this case, we only show WINNER
nlos model. Therefore it is quite difficult to conclude N R ,max , but it can be seen from
results in Appendix C that 3 repeaters per cell is a reasonable number considering all
curves in Figure C.1 and Figure C.2. This number is also the number of repeaters
used in simulation parameter at [12] and [14].

5.3 Repeater Distance from Base Station

In this thesis, a homogeneous traffic system is considered hence the most efficient
way to deploy the repeaters is by using a regular pattern with fixed distance from the
serving base station. The repeater deployment is based on Figure 4.2 in Section 4.4.2.
To emphasize the effect of repeater deployment in a cell and the handover done in
the system, a simple case is considered first. In this scenario, the number of site is
one with 3 base stations and only 1 repeater per cell is deployed in a fixed distance
from BS of 250 m. There is one user in the system placed initially in the origin (x=0
and y=0). This user moves toward repeater (along the green line) with speed of 3
km/hour and continues forward till handed over to the other cells. Wrap around
technique is used here therefore this user will always be in the system.
Figure 5.7 shows the path gain for this scenario. The directPathGain shown by
solid blue line is the path gain of serving BS to user link and compositePathGain is
the path gain of serving BS to user through repeater link. There are five
compositePathGain in the Figure 5.7 which correspond to repeater deployment
distance: 250 m, 270 m, 290 m, 310 m and 330 m. Handover criterion is based on
maximum path gain between directPathGain and compositePathGain. The result
shows that the user connects to cell0 first, then at r = 120m (approx.) it uses

39
compositePathGain from repeater0. We can also observe that a repeater works within
radius of 110 m (approx.). If the repeater distance from BS is increased, the serving
area of repeater will follow its location. Therefore the compositePathGain moves to
right direction and follows repeater location when repeater distance from BS is
increased. Similar result is shown in Appendix B for 3GPP propagation model.

Repeater pathgain with different deployment distance

directPathGain 250m 270m 290m 310m 330m
-60

-70

-80
cell 0
PathGain (dB)

cell 1
-90

-100 cell 2

-110
Repeater Position

-120

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Distance from base station (m)

Figure 5.7 Repeater path gain of a moving user for different repeater deployment distance

The scenario of multiusers environment is now considered. In this scenario, the

users are generated with intensity of 5 users/sec. There are 7 sites, 3 base stations per
site and 3 repeaters per cell in the system. Deployment and other related parameters
are based on Table 4-1. In addition, BS to RN link is modeled as WINNER nlos
propagation model. The result of this simulation case, Figure D.2, is provided in
Appendix D. Based on this figure, the SINR of system with repeater deployed around
210-230 m outperforms the other deployments, but they slightly differ one to the
others. This happens because the repeater distance only changes the location of the
service area. And when the users are generated randomly with uniform distribution in
the system, the effect of repeater location is not really significant. In the case of
system with other user distribution, repeater location is an important issue and the
results could have an optimum repeater distance from BS. Hence repeater planning is
recommended. There is a recommendation of repeater location as shown in the result
of [12]. It is 1.4*cellradius in the 3-sectorized base stations case. Therefore for the rest
of our simulations, we consider the repeater distance from base station as 250 m
(3GPP case 1) and 700 m (3GPP case 1).

5.4 Repeater Gain

One important issue in the repeater scenario is to control the gain which is used for
the amplification when forwarding the signal in the downlink and uplink. If the
repeater gain is too large, there is a high probability that repeaters amplify a lot of
interference in the system. Therefore it is important to control the repeater gain in
order to optimize the overall system performance.

40
 One simple scenario is considered first to analyze the effect of repeater gain.
Most of parameters are the same with the simple case used in the previous section
where one user walks towards a repeater in a system which has 1 site and 3 base
stations per site. The maximum repeater gain is 90 dB [24] as already explained in
the section 4.3, and some other values as well: 80 dB, 70 dB, 60 dB and 50 dB. The
result of this scenario is drawn in the Figure 5.8. Additional results of this scenario in
WINNER nlos and 3GPP propagation model are provided in Appendix E.
It is clear that the serving area of a repeater depends on repeater gain as shown in
Figure 5.8. When the repeater gain is increased, the composite pathgain and the
radius of service area are also increased. Therefore increasing the repeater gain can
increase the coverage of the repeater. This is true because we assume a rather simple
case where there are no other users and cells generating interference. If the multicells
and multiusers environment is used, the interference gives more contribution in
reducing the received SINR. From this figure, we can observe that a minimum 60 dB
repeater gain must be fulfilled in WINNER los in order to utilize repeaters
(used/chosen by users) and 80 dB repeater gain is needed in WINNER nlos. In
WINNER nlos propagation environment, two-hop links are simply worse than direct
link therefore it is necessary to have high repeater gain. To improve these links, one
can use directional donor antenna at the repeaters as shown in Figure 5.8.

Pathgain for different downlink repeater gain in LOS propagation

-40
directPathGain
90 dB
80 dB
-60 70 dB
60 dB
50 dB

-80
Pathgain (dB)

-100

-120

-140

-160
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Distance from base station (m)

Figure 5.8 Direct and Composite Path Gain for different downlink repeater gain
in WINNER LOS propagation of BS to RN links

The effect of repeater gain in multiusers scenario is now analyzed. Deployment

and other related parameters are based on Table 4-1. The users are generated with
intensity of 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 15 users/sec. Two types of repeaters considered
here are always on and advanced fast fine resolution repeaters. In addition, BS to RN
link is modeled as WINNER nlos propagation model and cell radius is 166 m. The
results are given in Figure 5.9 and Figure 5.10.
Figure 5.9 and Figure 5.10 are similar with Figure 5.5 and Figure 5.6 in some
way. In these figures, we can observe that advanced fast fine repeater provide higher
additional gain than always on repeater when we increase the repeater gain. From
Figure 5.10 with intensity 10 users/sec, increasing the repeater gain from 80 dB to 90
dB results in an object bit rate gain of 935 kbps (fast fine repeater) and 741 kbps
(always on repeater). It is also obvious that reducing the gain results in performance

41
degradation and the result goes to system without repeater. Hence there is a
minimum repeater gain which must be fulfilled in order to utilize repeaters in the
system. In this case (WINNER nlos propagation model with cell radius 166 m), the
system with repeater gain of 70 dB performs similarly with system without repeater
and 80 dB is the minimum repeater gain needed.
6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
7
no repeater
always on, 90 dB
6
always on, 80 dB
always on, 70 dB
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

5 fast-fine, 90 dB
fast-fine, 80 dB
fast-fine, 70 dB
4

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.9 Mean downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on, 90 dB
10 always on, 80 dB
always on, 70 dB
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine, 90 dB
8 fast-fine, 80 dB
fast-fine, 70 dB

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.10 Mean downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain

It is important to note that there exist repeaters with 70-80 dB in UMTS [27]
[28], therefore it is reasonable to assume a repeater in LTE working with 80-90 dB.
However in order to have worse case, in the simulation the maximum repeater gain
should be taken as minimum as possible, i.e. 80 dB.

42
5.5 Advanced Repeater

The advanced repeater with frequency selective functionality is evaluated in this

section. First the system is set up based on parameters in Table 4-1 with scenario of
multiusers environment. The users are generated with intensity of 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13,
and 15 users/sec. There are 7 sites, 3 base stations per site and 3 repeaters per cell in
the system. The cell radius and repeater distance from BS are 166 m and 250 m
respectively (3GPP case 1) or 577 m and 700 m (3GPP case 3). Repeaters are placed
in fixed distance from BS and they have 90 dB repeater gain. There are 5 different
repeaters considered in this simulation as already explained in Section 3.3.1 which
are always on, slow coarse, slow fine, fast coarse, and fast fine repeaters.
Propagation models used in this simulation are WINNER and 3GPP models. It will
be shown later in this section that different propagation models give different results.

Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

8
no repeater
always on
6
slow-coarse
slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

4 fast-coarse
fast-fine

-2

-4

-6
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.11 Five-percentile downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

30
no repeater
always on
slow-coarse
25
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
20

15

10

5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.12 Mean downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

43
 Cell radius considered first is 166 m which corresponds to repeater distance from
BS of 250 m. The system is modeled with WINNER NLOS propagation (BS to RN
links) and the results are shown in Figure 5.11, Figure 5.12, Figure 5.13, and Figure
5.14. In the x-axis the figure shows mean cell downlink throughput which
corresponds to cell load or user intensity.
Figure 5.11 and Figure 5.12 show that the SINR of system with advanced
repeater is higher than system with conventional repeater (always on) and system
without repeater. The gain in 5-percentile SINR by using fast-fine repeater compare
to no repeater case is 2.4 dB at both low load (3 users/sec) and high load (11
users/sec). In the mean downlink SINR, the gain is 2.9 dB and 5.4 dB for low load
and high load respectively. We can observe that the SINR will be saturated at high
load because at this moment the number of users in the system is high and the period
length of a user occupying the system is long. Therefore adding more users in the
system gives similar amount of interference.
6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
8
no repeater
7 always on
slow-coarse
6 slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.13 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
8 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.14 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

The object bit rate is shown in Figure 5.13 and Figure 5.14. From these figures,
conventional repeater brings additional gain compare to system without repeater and

44
repeater with advanced functionality will enhance the performance further. The gain
is generally due to improved geometry. We can observe that Fine and coarse
repeater perform almost identically. In high cell loads, it is obvious if fine and coarse
repeater perform similarly because at this point there are a lot of users occupied the
system and most of the channels are used. In low cell loads scenario the downlink
scheduler allocates the entire bandwidth to the user if there is enough data in the
buffer. Therefore fine repeater will use and forward the entire bandwidth resulting
similar results as coarse repeater. Another reason is that the transmissions are
rarely power limited.
Fast repeater performs slightly better than slow repeater as expected because
fast repeater allows itself to increase the power up to maximum in the next TTI but
slow repeater needs a ramping to do it. In some cases fast repeater performs
similar or worse than slow repeater probably due to unpredictable interference
which neighboring cell terminals might suffer from (e.g. degraded link adaptation).

It has been explained above that system with advanced repeater outperforms
system with conventional repeater (always on) and system without repeater in
WINNER nlos propagation environment and cell radius of 166 m. The results of other
propagation models (WINNER los propagation, 3GPP propagation and indoor
propagation model) in two cell radius (166 m and 577 m) can be found in Appendix
D. In addition, a simple conclusion is made in Table 5-1 based on these results where
repeaters give significant gain or not. The term significant is defined if the gain of
object bit rate in one user intensity (10 users/sec) is more than 20% and the system
with advanced repeater gives better OBR than system with always-on repeater. The
analysis of this table is given below.

Table 5-1 Performance of repeaters in downlink for different propagation models

Cell Radius 166 m 577 m

Propagation Model (3GPP case 1) (3GPP case 3)

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links)

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links)
3GPP model limited

Indoor propagation case 1 model

Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model
repeaters bring significant gain (more than 20% OBR)
- repeaters do not bring significant gain

In cell radius 166 m, repeaters in system with WINNER LOS propagation model
do not give improvement (even with directional donor antenna at repeater). In this
scenario, cells are close to each other which make the path gain from BS to RN
become higher (or lower path loss). Then all signals coming to repeater, both desired
signals and interference, are received with good power reception. Therefore the
effect of interference is dominant and the SINR at user terminal is generally bad.
This effect is not happened in WINNER NLOS propagation, 3GPP propagation and
indoor propagation models because these models have higher path loss than LOS
propagation model (in BS to RN links) and they can reduce the interference. To

45
improve the desired signal the repeater directional donor antenna can be used and it
may give more gain than the system with repeater omni-directional antenna.
The interesting results come when we simulate the scenario of 577 m cell radius.
In contrary with 166 m cell radius, the repeaters work the other way around. In
WINNER nlos propagation and indoor propagation models, the repeaters do not give
gain compare to system without repeater (even by employing directional donor
antenna at repeater). But the repeaters bring some gain in WINNER los propagation
and 3GPP propagation model. The reason can be explained in the following and
more details can be found in Appendix F (Table F.1 and F.2). In the WINNER nlos
propagation and indoor propagation cases, the composite signal is worse than the
direct link therefore the users most likely use the single-hop (direct link). In
WINNER los propagation and 3GPP, the composite signal is better than the direct
link. Furthermore, it is shown from simple distance dependent analysis where a user
is placed at the cell border shows that the BS RN link in WINNER los is 10 dB
better than the BS RN link in 3GPP link. Therefore the gain of using repeater in
WINNER los propagation is higher than in 3GPP propagation model.
From all of these explanations, we can finally give a short review. In two-hop
communication downlink model, it is necessary that BS to RN links (with or without
repeater directional donor antenna gain) must be good enough both for amplifying
the desired signal and attenuating the interference. It has been explained in section
5.3 and 5.4 that the composite pathgain (two-hop links) must be better than direct
pathgain (single link) in order to use the repeaters. And then it has also proved that
repeater directional donor antenna bring additional gain to the system in general
cases.

5.5.1 Upload Scenario

We have been looking through the downlink cases and now we will show the result
of an upload scenario for system with WINNER propagation model (NLOS for BS to
RN links) and cell radius 166 m. The results for this case are given in the Figure 5.15
and Figure 5.16 which are similar to downlink case shown in Figure 5.11 Figure
5.14. Note for this scenario, the cell loads considered are 3, 5, 7, 10 and 11 users/sec.
A simple conclusion for uplink is made in Table 5-2 based on these results where
repeaters give significant gain or not. The analysis of these results is similar to
downlink cases which are provided before, but more explanation is given below.
The results for uplink case in Table 5-2 show the similarity with the downlink
case however repeaters in uplink are more favorable than downlink where power
limitation is the bottleneck. The benefit of advanced repeaters is larger for uplink
than for downlink as shown in the result of Table F.3 and Table F.4 in Appendix F.
We can also observe that uplink case in cell radius 577 m gives slightly different
result with downlink case. In uplink, repeater in WINNER LOS propagation model
gives less gain than repeater in 3GPP propagation model which is the opposite result
of downlink case. A simple distance dependent analysis where a user is placed at the
cell border shows that the MS RN link in 3GPP propagation model is 7 dB better
than the MS RN link in WINNER LOS propagation model. In this case, it might be
that desired signal in winner los propagation model is received with very low power
at repeater. Furthermore system in WINNER LOS propagation model gives higher
interference than system in 3GPP model.

46
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
4
no repeater
3.5 always on
slow-coarse
slow-fine
3
fast-coarse

5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine
2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10

Figure 5.15 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
9
no repeater
8 always on
slow-coarse
7 slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
6

1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure 5.16 Mean OBR vs mean cell throughput

Table 5-2 Performance of repeaters in uplink for different propagation models

Cell Radius 166 m 577 m

Propagation Model (3GPP case 1) (3GPP case 3)

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links)

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links) limited

3GPP model
Indoor propagation case 1 model
Indoor propagation case 2 model
repeaters bring significant gain (more than 20% OBR)
- repeaters do not bring significant gain

47
 In LTE system, it is preferable to have repeater in uplink scenario because the
control signal in downlink is transmitted in the same resource block as the data use
and the control signal in uplink is transmitted several timeslot before the data. It
means that repeater need to extract the control signal and it must be done less than
the cyclic prefix in the downlink. Moreover the downlink scheduler may assign all
possible resources to the users if there is available data to be transmitted in the buffer
which gives a similar result for both fine resolution repeater and coarse repeater.

5.5.2 Repeater Activity

One advantage of using advanced repeaters is the low consumption power or energy
efficiency compare to always on repeater which has 100% activity in time domain.
Here, we show the repeater activity in one scenario: cell radius 166 m and WINNER
nlos propagation model. In downlink, we can reduce the activity of a repeater up to
90% and in uplink we can reduce the repeater activity up to 55% for the high load.
Hence it is clear that advanced repeater can decrease power consumption.

Repeater activity logged every 100 ms

100

90

80 always on
fast-fine, DL
70 fast-fine, UL
Repeater activity in %

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Increasing load

Figure 5.17 Repeater activity in cell radius 166 m and WINNER nlos propagation model scenario

The activity in uplink is higher than the activity in downlink because this is only
the activity of repeater in time domain and the scheduler in LTE uplink may allocate
several users

48
Chapter 6

CONCLUSION

6.1 Conclusion

Simulation results show that the performance of repeater in 3GPP LTE is highly
dependent on propagation model used in the simulation and it depends on real
environment when it comes to implementation. In cell radius 166 m (3GPP case 1),
repeaters bring significant gain in WINNER nlos propagation model (non-line of
sight (NLOS) for base station (BS) to repeater node (RN) links) and 3GPP
propagation model, but they degrade the performance in WINNER los propagation
model (line of sight (LOS) for BS to RN links). Moreover in cell radius 577 m
(3GPP case 3), repeaters work the other way where they bring improvement in both
WINNER los propagation model and 3GPP propagation model but they do not give
significant gain in WINNER nlos propagation model. This is because in two-hop
communication model, it is necessary that BS to RN links (for downlink) or RN to
MS links (for uplink) must be good enough for amplifying the desired signal and
attenuating the interference. And then the composite path gain (two-hop links) must
be better than the direct path gain (direct link) in order to use the repeaters.
Furthermore it has also proved that repeater directional donor antenna bring
additional gain to the system in general cases, especially for large cell radius.
Simulation results show that having advanced functionalities in the repeater gives
additional gain compare to system with conventional repeaters. Fine resolution
repeater performs only slightly better than coarse repeater because the downlink
scheduler may allocate the entire bandwidth to the user if there is enough data to be
transmitted. Fast repeater outperforms slow repeater because fast repeater allows
itself to increase the power until maximum in the next TTI but slow repeater needs to
increase/decrease stepwise.
Finally the repeater deployment parameters such as number of repeaters per cell
and repeater distance from base station depend on several factors, i.e. the propagation
model, advanced functionalities at repeater such as repeater frequency selectivity and
repeater gain. We have shown through several settings parameter that it is possible to
optimize the number of repeaters per cell or repeater distance from base station.
However scenarios with different settings give different result. Therefore it is
important to define assumptions and model used and to have good planning in
deploying repeaters in the real network.

49
6.2 Future Work

In this work, we use propagation model based on WINNER project and 3GPP model.
The model is intended to be used for system with repeater (LTE Advanced) in
outdoor scenario. The standardization for this propagation model is still on the
progress and it may change depending on simulation results and measurements in
reality. And our simulation results show different propagation model gives different
performance result. Therefore more suitable model and indoor propagation scenario
can be part of future work.
Other future work may include less ideal repeater assumptions (non-ideal
isolation, inter-repeater interference) where in our case the repeater is ideal with
good isolation. More sophisticated gain and power control algorithms at the repeaters
(in collaboration with eNBs and MSs) can be employed in order to improve system
performance. And finally the heterogeneous users distribution with heterogeneous
repeater deployment would be interesting to analyze.

50
Appendix A Simulation time

This section provides a comparison of result with simulation time 200 sec and 1000
sec. The simulation is done based on parameters in Table 4-1. Propagation model is
WINNER los propagation (BS to RN links) and cell radius is 577 m (3GPP case 3).
Small difference in the curves is expected but they give similar results. Hence we
will do the rest of simulation in 200 sec.
6
x 10 Obr vs mean cell downlink throughput
5
no repeater, 200sec
4.5 no repeater, 1000sec
fast-fine, 200sec
4
fast-fine, 1000sec
5-perc object bit rate (bps)

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean cell downlink throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure A.1 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean cell downlink throughput
10
no repeater, 200sec
9 no repeater, 1000sec
fast-fine, 200sec
8
fast-fine, 1000sec
Mean object bit rate (bps)

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean cell downlink throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure A.2 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

51
Appendix B Propagation Model

In section 5.1, we have simulated different propagation model with always on

repeater in cell radius 166 m. This section gives the results when using advanced fast
fine resolution repeater in cell radius 166 m and 577 m, and using always on repeater
in cell radius 577 m.

CDF of downlink SINR

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40 WINNER noRep
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
-10 0 10 20 30 40
SINR (dB)

Figure B.1 CDF of downlink SINR for different propagation model

using advanced fast fine resolution repeater and cell radius of 166 m

CDF of Object Bit Rate

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40 WINNER noRep
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Object bit rate (bps) 6
x 10
Figure B.2 CDF of OBR for different propagation model
using advanced fast fine resolution repeater and cell radius of 166 m

52
 CDF of downlink SINR
100

90

80

70

60

CDF
50
WINNER noRep
40
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
30
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
SINR (dB)

Figure B.3 CDF of downlink SINR for different propagation model

using always on repeater and cell radius of 577 m

CDF of Object Bit Rate

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

WINNER noRep
40
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Object bit rate (bps) 6
x 10
Figure B.4 CDF of OBR for different propagation model
using always on repeater and cell radius of 577 m

CDF of downlink SINR

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

WINNER noRep
40
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
SINR (dB)

Figure B.5 CDF of downlink SINR for different propagation model

using advanced fast fine resolution repeater and cell radius of 577 m

53
 CDF of Object Bit Rate
100

90

80

70

60
CDF
50

40 WINNER noRep
WINNER nlos repOmniDonorAntenna
30 WINNER nlos repDirDonorAntenna
WINNER los repOmniDonorAntenna
20 WINNER los repDirDonorAntenna
3GPP noRep
10 3GPP repOmniDonorAntenna
3GPP repDirDonorAntenna
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Object bit rate (bps) 6
x 10
Figure B.6 CDF of OBR for different propagation model
using advanced fast fine resolution repeater and cell radius of 577 m

CDF of downlink SINR

100

90

80

70

60
CDF

50

40
WINNER noRep, Rcell = 166m
WINNER noRep, Rcell = 577m
30
3GPP noRep,Rcell = 166m
20 3GPP noRep,Rcell = 577m
Indoor, WINNER noRep
10 Indoor case1, repDirDonorAntenna
Indoor case2, repDirDonorAntenna
0
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
SINR (dB)

Figure B.7 CDF of downlink SINR for different propagation model

using always on repeater and cell radius of 166 m (except stated in legend)

54
Appendix C Number of Repeaters per Cell

The numbers of repeater per cell that will be analyzed in this simulation are 0, 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 and 6. The simulation is done in WINNER propagation model and the users are
generated with intensity 10 users/sec. The results are shown in Figure C.1 and Figure
C.2 which correspond to the 5-percentile and mean downlink SINR for different
number of repeaters per cell. Table C-1 shows the parameters of scenario a, b, c, d, e
and f used in the figures.
Number of repeaters per cell vs 5-percentile SINR

a
12 b
c
d
10 e
f
5-percentile SINR (dB)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Number of repeaters per cell

Figure C.1 The 5-percentile downlink SINR with different number of repeaters per cell

Number of repeaters per cell vs Mean Downlink SINR

34
a b c d e f
32

30

28

26
Mean SINR (dB)

24

22

20

18

16

14

12
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Number of repeaters per cell

Figure C.2 Mean downlink SINR with different number of repeaters per cell

55
 Table C-1 Parameters used in Figure C.1 and Figure C.2
Directional
Propagation Intensity
Curve Donor Repeater State
model (users/sec)
Antenna
a Yes LOS 5.0 Advanced Fast Fine Resolution
b Yes LOS 5.0 Always on
c No NLOS 5.0 Always on
d Yes LOS 10.0 Advanced Fast Fine Resolution
e No NLOS 10.0 Always on
f Yes LOS 10.0 Always on
Note that: propagation model used is WINNER model. LOS and NLOS correspond to BS to RS links.

From Figure C.1 and Figure C.2, we can see that the number of repeaters per cell
(N R ) varies on different scenario settings. First, we can observe that system with
higher user intensity generally gives lower SINR (the upper three curves are the
results from system with intensity 5.0 users/cell and the lower three curves are from
10.0 users/cell). Second, advanced fast fine resolution repeater has better
performance than always on repeater. More explanation of advanced repeater
which is the main contribution of this thesis can be read in section 5.5.
6 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
x 10
7
no repeater
always on, 3reps/cell
6
always on, 6reps/cell
always on, 9reps/cell
fast-fine, 3reps/cell
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

5
fast-fine, 6reps/cell
fast-fine, 9reps/cell
4

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10

Figure C.3 Five-percentile downlink OBR for different number of repeaters/cell in cell radius 577 m

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on, 3reps/cell
10 always on, 6reps/cell
always on, 9reps/cell
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine, 3reps/cell
8 fast-fine, 6reps/cell
fast-fine, 9reps/cell

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure C.4 Mean downlink OBR for different number of repeaters/cell in cell radius 577 m

56
Appendix D Repeater Distance

This section gives additional results of section 5.3 where we have simulated different
repeater distance in WINNER propagation environment. Figure D.1 shows similar
result when using 3GPP propagation model and Figure D.2 shows multiusers
environment. Detail analysis can be read further in section 5.3.

Repeater pathgain with different deployment distance in 3GPP propagation model

-60

-70

-80
PathGain (dB)

-90

-100
directPathGain
250 m
270 m
-110
290 m
310 m
330 m
-120
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Distance from base station (m)

Figure D.1 Repeater Path Gain with different deployment distance in 3GPP propagation model

6
x 10 Obr vs mean cell downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on, 3rep, 190m
10 always on, 3rep, 210m
always on, 3rep, 230m
Mean object bit rate (bps)

always on, 3rep, 250m

8 always on, 3rep, 290m

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean cell downlink throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure D.2 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput
for different repeater distance in cell radius 166 m

57
 6 Obr vs mean cell downlink throughput
x 10
11
no repeater
10 always on, 3rep, 500m
9 always on, 3rep, 600m
always on, 3rep, 700m
8 always on, 3rep, 800m

Mean object bit rate (bps)

always on, 3rep, 900m
7

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean cell downlink throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure D.3 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput
for different repeater distance in cell radius 577 m

58
Appendix E Repeater Gain

Figure E.1 in 0% load (one user) and WINNER NLOS propagation shows the result
which is similar to Figure 5.8.
Pathgain for different downlink repeater gain in NLOS propagation
with directed donor antenna at repeater
-60

-80

-100
Pathgain (dB)

-120

-140

-160 directPathGain
90 dB
80 dB
-180 70 dB
60 dB
50 dB
-200
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Distance from base station (m)

Figure E.1 Direct and Composite Path Gain for different downlink repeater gain in 0% load

Multiusers scenario (100% loads) is considered here for different repeater gain in
WINNER LOS propagation model and cell radius 577 m. The results are shown in
Figure E.2 and E.3.
6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
5
no repeater
4.5 always on, 90 dB
always on, 80 dB
4
always on, 70 dB
fast-fine, 90 dB
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

3.5
fast-fine, 80 dB
3 fast-fine, 70 dB

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure E.2 Five-percentile downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain in cell radius 577 m

59
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
10
no repeater
9 always on, 90 dB
always on, 80 dB
8
always on, 70 dB

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine, 90 dB
7
fast-fine, 80 dB
6 fast-fine, 70 dB

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5

Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure E.3 Mean downlink OBR for different downlink repeater gain in cell radius 577 m

Figure E.2 and E.3 show that 80 dB repeater gain is the optimum gain and
increasing the gain to 90 dB gives worse result. The scenario of cell radius 166 m
shown in Figure 5.9 and Figure 5.10 where 90 dB repeater gain outperforms 80 dB
and 70 dB scenarios. This is because repeater forwards both desired signal and
interference and therefore a higher repeater gain does not always give better
performance.

60
Appendix F Advanced Repeater

This section gives additional results of section 5.5 where we have simulated and
analyzed the performance of advanced repeaters in different propagation
environment (WINNER NLOS propagation model, WINNER LOS propagation
model, 3GPP model and indoor propagation case 1 and case 2 model) and cell radius
(166 m and 577 m). The result of system in WINNER NLOS propagation model (BS
to RN links) and cell radius 166 m has been shown in section 5.5. The rest will be
shown here (F.1 to F.9) which then gives 10 combination scenarios in total. Note that
these are downlink cases, and uplink cases for selected scenarios will be shown after.

F.1 Cell radius = 166 m and WINNER LOS propagation model

Figure F.1, F.2, F.3 and F.4 show the result of cellular system with cell radius 166 m
and different type of repeaters in WINNER model (LOS propagation for BS to RN
links). The simulations are done with several cell loads by generating different user
intensities, i.e. 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15 users/sec. In the x-axis the figure shows mean
cell downlink throughput which is increased as we increase cell load (user intensity)
and in the y-axis the figure shows the SINR or object bit rate (OBR).
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
30
no repeater
always on
25 slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
20 fast-fine

15

10

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.1 Mean downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

The first impression that we can observe from Figure F.1 is that advanced repeaters
generally perform as good as system without repeater. In the always on repeaters, the
SINR performance has a large gap compare to system without repeaters. In this case,
the users are highly affected by interference from other repeaters and base stations
(downlink scenario). Advanced repeater can further improve the SINR which makes
the result closer to system without repeater and it is even better in the low load

61
scenario. Note that this figure only shows mean downlink SINR and does not
correspond to all users. In fact, users with low-percentile SINR get worse SINR in all
repeater type than system without repeater as shown by Figure F.2. The 5-percentile
and mean object bit-rate (OBR) of this scenario are given in Figure F.3 and F.4.
From these figure, it is showed that increasing the mean downlink SINR by using
advanced repeaters does not give direct effect to throughput or OBR. The throughput
relies on links adaptation, source coding, etc.
From these figures, it can be concluded that repeaters do not give improvement
even with directional donor antenna at repeater in system with cell radius 166 m and
WINNER model (LOS propagation for BS to RS links).

Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

10
no repeater
8 always on
slow-coarse
6 slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
4 fast-fine

-2

-4

-6

-8
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.2 Five-percentile downlink SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
6
no repeater
always on
5 slow-coarse
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
4 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.3 Five-percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

62
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
8 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.4 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.2 Cell radius = 166 m and 3GPP propagation model

If we use 3GPP propagation model as explained in Table 4-1, the results are similar
with WINNER NLOS propagation model (for BS to RS links). Figure F.5, F.6, F.7,
and F.8 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
15
no repeater
always on
slow-coarse
10
slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
5

-5

-10
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.5 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

63
 Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
35
no repeater
always on
30 slow-coarse
slow-fine

Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
25 fast-fine

20

15

10

5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.6 Mean percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
8
no repeater
7 always on
slow-coarse
6 slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.7 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
8 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.8 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

64
F.3 Cell radius = 166 m and Indoor propagation case 1 model
The results of system in indoor propagation model and cell radius 166 m are given in
this section. Figure F.9, F.10, F.11 and F.12 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
10 always on
slow-coarse
8
slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)
6 fast-coarse
fast-fine
4

-2

-4

-6

-8
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.9 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput
Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
30
no repeater
always on
25 slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
20

15

10

5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.10 Mean percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput
6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
8
no repeater
7 always on
slow-coarse
6 slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.11 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

65
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
8 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.12 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.4 Cell radius = 166 m and Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model
Figure F.13, F.14, F.15 and F.16 show the results of system in indoor propagation
case 2 model and cell radius 166 m. System with indoor propagation case 3 model
gives very similar results to system with indoor propagation case 2 model.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
8
no repeater
always on
6
slow-coarse
slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

4 fast-coarse
fast-fine
2

-2

-4

-6
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.13 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput
Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

24 no repeater
always on
22
slow-coarse
20 slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
18 fast-fine

16

14

12

10

4
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.14 Mean percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

66
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
7
no repeater
always on
6
slow-coarse
slow-fine

5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

5 fast-coarse
fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.15 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput
6 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
x 10
11
no repeater
10 always on
slow-coarse
9
slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

8 fast-coarse
fast-fine
7

1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.16 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.5 Cell radius = 577 m and WINNER NLOS propagation model

The results of system with WINNER model (NLOS propagation for BS to RS links)
and cell radius of 577 m are given in this section. Figure F.17, F.18, F.19 and F.20
show the results of this scenario.
In contrast with results in section 5.5 (cell radius of 166 m and WINNER NLOS
propagation model), repeaters with the same propagation model do not give
significant gain in this system with cell radius of 577 m. These can be seen from the
results in which the gain is very low. The reason is because two-hop links are only
slightly better than single-hop link. Even with repeater directional donor antenna, the
repeaters still bring limited gain.

67
 Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
3
no repeater
2.5 always on
slow-coarse
2
slow-fine

5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

1.5 fast-coarse
fast-fine
1

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.17 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

14
no repeater
13 always on
slow-coarse
12
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

11 fast-coarse
fast-fine
10

4
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.18 Mean SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6 Obr vs mean downlink throughput

x 10
4
no repeater
3.5 always on
slow-coarse
slow-fine
3
fast-coarse
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-fine
2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.19 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

68
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
9
no repeater
8 always on
slow-coarse
7 slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
6 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.20 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.6 Cell radius = 577 m and WINNER LOS propagation model

Figure F.21, F.22, F.23 and F.24 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
6
no repeater
5 always on
slow-coarse
4
slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

3 fast-coarse
fast-fine
2

-1

-2

-3

-4
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.21 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput
Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
18
no repeater
always on
16
slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

14 fast-coarse
fast-fine
12

10

4
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.22 Mean SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

69
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
5
no repeater
4.5 always on
slow-coarse
4
slow-fine
fast-coarse

5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

3.5
fast-fine
3

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10

Figure F.23 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
x 10
10
no repeater
9 always on
slow-coarse
8
slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

7 fast-coarse
fast-fine
6

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.24 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.7 Cell radius = 577 m and 3GPP propagation model

Figure F.25, F.26, F.27 and F.28 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
7
no repeater
6 always on
slow-coarse
5 slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
4 fast-fine

-1

-2
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.25 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

70
 Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
22
no repeater
20 always on
slow-coarse
18 slow-fine

Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
16 fast-fine

14

12

10

4
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.26 Mean SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
6
no repeater
always on
5 slow-coarse
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
4 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.27 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine
fast-coarse
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

8 fast-fine

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10

Figure F.28 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

71
F.8 Cell radius = 577 m and Indoor propagation case 1 model
Figure F.29, F.30, F.31 and F.32 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
1.5
no repeater
1 always on
slow-coarse
0.5 slow-fine

5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
0

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2

-2.5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.29 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

7
no repeater
always on
6.5
slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

6 fast-coarse
fast-fine

5.5

4.5

3.5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.30 Mean SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
2
no repeater
1.8 always on
slow-coarse
1.6
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

1.4 fast-coarse
fast-fine
1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.31 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

72
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
7
no repeater
always on
6 slow-coarse
slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
5 fast-fine

1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.32 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

F.9 Cell radius = 577 m and Indoor propagation case 2 model

Figure F.33, F.34, F.35 and F.36 show the results of this scenario.
Downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput
1.5
no repeater
1 always on
slow-coarse
0.5 slow-fine
5-perc Downlink SINR (dB)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
0

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2

-2.5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.33 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

Mean downlink SINR vs mean downlink throughput

7
no repeater
always on
6.5
slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Downlink SINR (dB)

6 fast-coarse
fast-fine
5.5

4.5

3.5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.34 Mean SINR vs mean cell downlink throughput

73
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
2
no repeater
1.8 always on
slow-coarse
1.6
slow-fine

5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

1.4 fast-coarse
fast-fine
1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.35 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean downlink throughput
7
no repeater
always on
6 slow-coarse
slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
5 fast-fine

1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mean Cell Downlink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.36 Mean OBR vs mean cell downlink throughput

Table F.1 and Table F.2 show the summary of downlink case at cell load 10
users/cell which are provided in Appendix F.1 - F.9.
Table F.1 Downlink SINR (at user intensity 10 users/cell)

Downlink SINR
Cell Radius 166 m 577 m
Propagation Model NoRep FastFine NoRep FastFine

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links) 7.5 12.6 5.1 5.5

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links) 7.5 6.8 5.1 8.4

3GPP model 8 16.6 7.1 9.5

Indoor propagation case 1 model 7 15.6 3.9 4.06

Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model 7 12.4 3.9 3.98

Table F.2 Downlink OBR (at user intensity 10 users/cell)

74
 Object Bit Rate
Cell Radius 166 m 577 m
Propagation Model NoRep FastFine % NoRep FastFine %

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links) 4.8 7 45.8% 3.15 3.42 8.6%

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links) 4.8 3.5 -27.1% 3.15 4.7 49.2%

3GPP model 5 7.7 54.0% 4.4 5.64 28.2%

Indoor propagation case 1 model 4.5 7.7 71.1% 2.5 2.5 0%

Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model 4.5 6.9 53.3% 2.55 2.55 0%

We can observe that at cell radius 166 m and without repeater (NoRep), indoor
propagation gives worse downlink SINR and OBR performance than winner nlos
propagation. It is obvious because indoor propagation model has wall attenuation
loss and the performance of system without repeater in indoor model must be worse
than winner nlos propagation. We have shown in the table above the difference at 10
users/cell, but if lower user intensity is used the difference becomes higher, i.e. at 3
users/cell the SINR difference is 4 dB. However having advanced repeater in indoor
propagation model gives more gain both in downlink SINR and OBR than in winner
nlos propagation. This is also because wall attenuation in the direct link makes the
probability of users connect to composite link higher. Other observations in this
cell radius are that 3GPP model outperforms other models for both without repeater
and with repeater cases, and repeater in winner los propagation model reduces the
performance due to high interference.
Cell radius 577 m case gives the opposite of cell radius 166 m. We see here that
repeater in winner nlos, indoor propagation case 1, case 2 and case 3 models do not
give improvement to the system. These three models are basically similar each other
which come from winner nlos propagation model. In the other hand, the repeater at
system with winner los model gives significant gain. It is clear that system with
winner los propagation model has higher received power at repeater both for desired
signal and interference due to lower path loss exponent. Moreover a simple distance
dependent analysis where a user is placed at the cell border shows that the composite
link in winner nlos propagation model is really worse than the direct link, i.e. the
composite link is 20 dB less than the direct link, where in winner los propagation
model the composite link is 10 dB higher than direct link. Therefore in this case, the
users prefer to use the direct link than the composite link.

75
The following section provides the results for selected uplink scenarios in Table 5-2.
The explanation and analysis are similar to downlink cases which can be found in
section 5.5.

F.10 Cell radius = 166 m and WINNER LOS propagation model (Upload)
Uplink SINR vs mean uplink throughput
0
no repeater
-1 always on
slow-coarse
-2
slow-fine
-3 fast-coarse
5-perc Uplink SINR (dB)

fast-fine
-4

-5

-6

-7

-8

-9

-10
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.37 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput
Uplink SINRr vs mean uplink throughput
16
no repeater
always on
14
slow-coarse
slow-fine
12 fast-coarse
Mean Uplink SINR (dB)

fast-fine
10

2
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.38 Mean SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput
6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
2.5
no repeater
always on
slow-coarse
2
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
1.5

0.5

0
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.39 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

76
 6 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
x 10
9
no repeater
8 always on
slow-coarse
7 slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
6 fast-fine

0
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.40 Mean OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

F.11 Cell radius = 166 m and 3GPP model (Upload)

Uplink SINR vs mean uplink throughput
4
no repeater
always on
2 slow-coarse
slow-fine
fast-coarse
5-perc Uplink SINR (dB)

0 fast-fine

-2

-4

-6

-8
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.41 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

Uplink SINRr vs mean uplink throughput

25
no repeater
always on
slow-coarse
20
slow-fine
fast-coarse
Mean Uplink SINR (dB)

fast-fine
15

10

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.42 Mean SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

77
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
4.5
no repeater
4 always on
slow-coarse
3.5 slow-fine

5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
3 fast-fine

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.43 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
10
no repeater
9 always on
slow-coarse
8 slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
7 fast-fine

1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.44 Mean OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

F.12 Cell radius = 577 m and WINNER LOS propagation model (Upload)

Uplink SINR vs mean uplink throughput

-3.5
no repeater
-4 always on
slow-coarse
-4.5 slow-fine
fast-coarse
5-perc Uplink SINR (dB)

-5 fast-fine

-5.5

-6

-6.5

-7

-7.5

-8
1 1.5 2 2.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.45 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

78
 Uplink SINRr vs mean uplink throughput
4
no repeater
always on
3.5 slow-coarse
slow-fine
fast-coarse

Mean Uplink SINR (dB)

3 fast-fine

2.5

1.5

1
1 1.5 2 2.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.46 Mean SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

5 Obr vs mean uplink throughput

x 10
3
no repeater
always on
slow-coarse
2.5
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
2

1.5

0.5
1 1.5 2 2.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.47 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

6 Obr vs mean uplink throughput

x 10
4.5
no repeater
4 always on
slow-coarse
3.5 slow-fine
Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
fast-fine
3

2.5

1.5

0.5
1 1.5 2 2.5
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.48 Mean OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

79
F.13 Cell radius = 577 m and 3GPP model (Upload)

Uplink SINR vs mean uplink throughput

0
no repeater
always on
-1
slow-coarse
slow-fine
-2 fast-coarse
5-perc Uplink SINR (dB)
fast-fine
-3

-4

-5

-6

-7
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.49 Five percentile SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

Uplink SINRr vs mean uplink throughput

8
no repeater
always on
7 slow-coarse
slow-fine
fast-coarse
Mean Uplink SINR (dB)

6 fast-fine

2
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.50 Mean SINR vs mean cell uplink throughput

5
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
12
no repeater
always on
10 slow-coarse
slow-fine
5-perc Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
8 fast-fine

0
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.51 Five percentile OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

80
 6
x 10 Obr vs mean uplink throughput
7
no repeater
always on
6 slow-coarse
slow-fine

Mean Object Bit Rate (bps)

fast-coarse
5 fast-fine

1
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Mean Uplink Throughput (bps/cell) 6
x 10
Figure F.52 Mean OBR vs mean cell uplink throughput

81
Table F.3 and Table F.4 show the summary of uplink case at cell load 10 users/cell
which are provided in Appendix F.10 - F.12.
Table F.3 Uplink SINR (at user intensity 10 users/cell)

Uplink SINR
Cell Radius 166 m 577 m
Propagation Model NoRep FastFine NoRep FastFine

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links) 3.08 5.45 1.88 1.9

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links) 3.08 2.51 1.88 2.2

3GPP model 3.26 7.46 2.62 3.68

Indoor propagation case 1 model 2.85 7.1 0.82 0.9

Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model 2.85 4.68 0.82 0.835

Table F.4 Uplink OBR (at user intensity 10 users/cell)

Object Bit Rate

Cell Radius 166 m 577 m
Propagation Model NoRep FastFine % NoRep FastFine %

WINNER model (NLOS for BS to RN links) 1.68 2.85 69.6% 1.332 1.342 0.75%

WINNER model (LOS for BS to RN links) 1.68 1.6 -4.76% 1.332 1.354 1.65%

3GPP model 1.83 3.8 107.7% 1.59 2.03 27.7%

Indoor propagation case 1 model 1.57 3.6 129.3% 1.227 1.182 -3.7%

Indoor propagation case 2 and case 3 model 1.57 2.36 50.3% 1.227 1.2 -2.2%

We can observe that at cell radius 166 m, the upload case gives similar result
with download case. At cell radius 577 m, the only different result compare to
downlink is winner los propagation model which does not give gain if we use
repeater. A simple distance dependent analysis where a user is placed at the cell
border shows that the RN MS link in winner los model is 7 dB less than the 3GPP
model. Therefore in this case, it might be that desired signal in winner los
propagation model is received with very low power at repeater. Furthermore system
in winner los propagation model gives higher interference than system in 3GPP
model because the distance dependent attenuation of BS RN link in winner los
model is less than in 3GPP model.

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