LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

1 Introduction

The purpose of this document is to illustrate the link budget principle and at the same

time provide detailed introduction to certain fundamental link budget parameters.

2 LTE Link Budget

The link budget calculations estimate the maximum allowed path loss between the

mobile and the base station. The maximum path loss allows the maximum cell range

to be estimated with a suitable propagation model, such as Okumura–Hata. The cell

range gives the number of base station sites required to cover the target

geographical area. The LTE Link Budget workflow is showed in figure 2.1.
Start

Input Data Calculate EIRP and

Minimum Receiver Sensitivity

Calculate uplink MAPL Calculate downlink MAPL

And Cell radius And Cell radius

Min (uplink, downlink)

Effective cell radius

Calculate site number

End

Figure 2.1 LTE Link Budget Workflow

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

2.1 Maximum Allowable Path Loss

Link Budget is the first step for radio network dimensioning. For an actual radio

access network, the effective coverage of eNode B depends on not only the

coverage environment but also the TX power and Rx sensitivity of eNode B and UE.

Since the properties of eNode B and UE are different from each other considerably,

the actual permitted uplink and downlink path loss vary too. Because the actual

effective coverage range will depend on the lower value of them, it is necessary to

calculate the permitted maximum allowable propagation path loss of both uplink and

downlink. Some MAPL uplink budget parameters are briefly illustrated in Figure 2.1.1
UPLINK BUDGET
Other Gain Slow fading margin
Antenna Gain

UE Antenna Gain Other Gain

Interference margin
Margin

UE Transmit Power Body Loss Loss

(e.g. 23dBm)

AntennaGain Penetration Loss

Pa
th
L os Path Loss
s

Cable Loss
Node B Antenna Gain
CableLoss

NodeB eNodeB reception sensitivity

Sensitivity (e.g. -119dBm)
Penetration
Loss

Figure 2.2.1 Uplink Budget

The Maximum Path loss (MAPL) of downlink and uplink can be described by the

formulas below:
MAPL  EIRP(dBm) - 10  Log10 (12  N RB ) - Rx Sensitivity Composite (dBm) 
AntGain(dBi)  CableLoss (dB)  BodyLoss(dB)  IM (dB) - PeneLoss(dB) - SFM(dB)  HHOGa
Where:

MAPL : Maximum path loss (dB)

EIRP : Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (dBm)
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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

PeneLoss : Penetration Loss (dB) (required for indoor coverage)

SFM : Slow fading margin (dB)
HHOGain : Hard Handover Gain (dB)

N RB : Numbers of Required Resource Block

2.2 Main LTE Link Budget Parameters

In the following sections, a detailed description of the main parameters used in link

budget is provided.

2.2.1 EIRP per Subcarrier

EIRP means the Effective Isotropic Radiated power at antenna, calculated including

cable loss, antenna gain, body loss etc. and effect by TMA used or not. The formula

is as below:

EIRP (dBm)  TX Max power  AntGain  Cell Edge Boost - Bodyloss- CableLoss

The modulation scheme of LTE is OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division).OFDM is a

modulation multiplexing technology divides the system bandwidth into orthogonal

subcarriers. The EIRP per Subcarrier means averaged EIRP per subcarrier and have

little difference for uplink and downlink.

For downlink EIRP per Subcarrier is Max TX power averaged in total bandwidth. This

is depending on the number of subcarriers at total bandwidth.

EIRPPersubcarrier  EIRP - 10  Log10 (12  TotRBNum)

For uplink EIRP per Subcarrier means Max TX power averaged in numbers of

subcarrier used,

EIRPPersubcarrier  EIRP - 10  Log10 (12  ULRBNum)

 Cable Loss

The cable loss value depends on the cable length, cable thickness and frequency

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

band. The cable Loss for downlink at eNode B side is also related with TMA used or

not.

For Marco cell with TMA in use

CableLoss(DL)  CableLength  Loss100/100  JumperLossAnttoTMA  JumperLossTMAtoBS  InsertLo

For Marco cell without TMA in use;

CableLoss(DL)  CableLength  Loss100/100  JumperLoss;

Table 2.2.1：Typical cable Loss (100m)

Insertion loss/100m

Size 800MHz 2100MHz 2500MHz

1/2" 6.456 10.961 12.09
1/2" 10.431 18.137 20.11
7/8" 3.325 5.678 6.27
7/8" 3.676 6.246 6.89
5/4" 2.465 4.342 4.828
13/8" 2.193 3.798 4.208

2.2.2 Receiver sensitivity Per Subcarrier

Rreceiver sensitivity is defined as the minimum signal strength that can demodulator

by the receiver. The general formula is:

Re ceiverSensitivity  ThermalNoise  E S / N 0  N f

The Receiver sensitivity subcarrier is:

Receiver sensitivity Composted  Thermal noise (dBm/Hz)  10 * lg(Subcarrier band)  NF  Es/N

2.2.3 Es/No（SINR）

Es/No is the Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio as experienced by the detector .

The factors Impact Es/No including:

1. Radio Environment (e.g. ETU3)

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

2. Frequency Band (e.g. 2600MHz)

3. MCS, MCS= Code bits *Code rate.

4. RB (Resource Block) number

5. BLER (e.g. 10%)

2.2.4 Body Loss

Body loss is the loss at UE due to the presence of human body. Typical value is 3dB

for voip. For services of data rates, no body loss is taken into account considering

that terminals are usually held kept a distance from the subscribers’ body.

2.2.5 Penetration Loss

When indoor coverage is required to coverage by outdoor macro NodeBs, buliding

penetration loss needs to be considered. Building penetration loss is related to such

factors as incidence angle of the radio wave, the building construction (the

construction materials and number and size of windows), the internal building layout

and Frequency. Building penetration loss is highly dependent on specific environment

and morphology and varies greatly. For instance, the wall thickness in Siberian tends

to be larger than that of Singapore in order to resist coldness and hence the former’s

building penetration loss is correspondingly larger.

In addition, sometimes vehicular coverage may be required and consequently

vehiculare penetration loss also needs to be included in link budget process. In fact,

only one penetration loss, the maximum of building penetration loss and vehicular

penetration loss, is included in link budget. Since typical vehicular penetration loss is

around 8dB which is smaller than building penetration loss, building penetration loss

rather than vehicular penetration loss is usually included in link budget process.

2.2.6 Interference Margin (IM)

Interference margin is the required margin in the link budget due to the noise rise

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

caused by system load (the noise rise due to other subscribers).The higher the

system load, the larger the interference margin.

2.2.7 SFM (Slow Fading Margin)

The log normal fading margin (also known as slow or shadow fading margin)

corresponds to the variation in mean signal level caused by shadowing effect of

physical environments such as buildings and hills.

The fading margin is the amount of margin necessary to achieve the required area

reliability for a given standard deviation. Obviously, the higher area coverage

reliability requires the larger SFM. In addition, the value of standard deviation will

also influence the required fading margin and the larger the standard deviation, the

larger the required SFM.

Coverage
CoverageProbability:
Probability:
ns
Pr

lit
bi

it
b
o

e
a

PPCOVERAGE (x)
COVERAGE
(x)==PP[F(x)
[F(x)>>FFthreshold ] ]
threshold

SFM required Without SFM

With SFM

F threshold
Received Signal Level [dBm]

2.2.8 Propagation Model

The propagation models are the basis of coverage planning. Good models ensure

the precision of planning. The propagation models are used to forecast the

influences of terrains and artificial environments on path loss and affected by the

system working frequency. Different models have different working frequency

ranges. All available Propagation Models can be used for LTE link budget are listed

in the following table

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 LTE FDD Radio Link Budget Principle

Model Applicable Range

Band:2.5/3.5/5.8GHz, Antenna height 10~80m
Stanford A/B/C Model Cell radius <10km, suburban scenario
Band: 1500~2000MHz , antenna height 30~200m
Cost231－Hata Model Cell radius 1~20km
Band: 800~2000MHz , Antenna height 4~50m
Cost231-WI Model Cell radius 0.02~0.5km
Band: 150~1000MHz , Antenna height 30~200m
Okumura-Hata Model Cell radius 1~20km
SPM Model All band after calibration

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