Mathematics for mobile generations

Yrjö Neuvo
Executive Vice President, CTO, NMP
Member of the Nokia Group
Executive Board

Diderot mathematical Forum

November 22, 2001

1 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

2 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

3 © NOKIA
 The #1 consumer electronics industry

Mobile phone market volume worldwide

450
400 Europe / Africa For comparison:
350 APAC 6,3M PDA's shipped
Americas first half 2001
300
250
200
150
100
1 Billion users:
50
1st half 2002
0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

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Moore's law describes technology evolution
• Microelectronics evolve exponentially:
• Performance doubles every 18 months
• Size and price do not increase

• The price of computers has diminished 20% annually for 40 years

already
• Moore's law is expected to stay valid at least the next decade or
two
• What does this really mean?
• Already in 2003, an average western home will contain 380
microprocessors (Dataquest)
• The processing capacity of an average processor: today at
insect brain level, mouse brain 2010, human brain 2020 … (R.
Kurtzweil: The age of spiritual machines)
 Moore's law illustrated -
transistors per chip estimate
1600 Source: Semiconductor
Evolution of transistors per chip Industry Association
No. of transistors (millions)

1400 roadmap
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1999 2001 2003 2006 2009 2012
Year of first shipment

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 Metcalfe's law and the power of networking
Utility and value = users^2
• The utility and benefit of networks
increases with the number of
nodes and users
• Real growth of a network or
application starts only when the
usefulness is proven during the
initial phases
• The first solution to reach critical
mass wins - de-facto standards
are a result of this
• Winning networking technologies
shape life around the globe

Users
7 © NOKIA
 Metcalfe's law in action -
SMS growth in Europe
60

50
Norway
SMSs/subs/month

Finland
40
Portugal
Germany
30
Sweden
20
UK Italy
Greece
10
Spain
France
0
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Mobile Penetration

8 © NOKIA
 The challenge of predicting the unpredictable
• The future is unpredictable
• Trends and directions can be sensed and
guessed - but also influenced
• With suitable mental aids the future can
be unfogged (slightly…)
• Moore's law can give directions on
what is possible
• Metcalfe's law can give hints on how
technologies and habits will be
adopted
• Roughly 5 years is a critical limit for
predictions
• The impact of new phenomena is
overestimated in the short term, but
underestimated in the long term
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 What is the current
transition about?
• Packet radio and 3G technology
• From scarce to adequate capacity
• Removing the technical constraints
for human-centered services
• Internet
• Internet becomes invisible, a
platform for using personalized
applications and services
• Ubiquitous networking

• Multimedia
• From 'Listen to what I say' to 'See
what I mean!'
• From technology to behaviour

10 © NOKIA
 Digital mobile industry phases:
from past to present
GSM
Circuit Switched
Traditional telecom business
Application: Voice
Technologies: GSM (and other
cellular protocols)
Data rate: 9.6 kbps
Apps & SW: closed
Standardization: official bodies
(ETSI)
11 © NOKIA
GSM data
Circuit switched
First data-based services appear
Main application: voice
New applications:
SMS, later WAP
Technologies: GSM, HSCSD
Data rates: 9.6 - 14.4 - 43.2
kbps
Apps & SW: mainly closed
Standardization: official bodies
(ETSI)
 … and from the transition onwards
2.5G & 3G
Circuit Switched & Packet Radio
Adapting packet-switched non-realtime services
Applications: Voice and services
New applications:
WAP browsing over GPRS, Multimedia messaging, email,
always-on Internet connection, Rich calls, location-based services,
etc
Technologies: GSM, HSCSD, GPRS, 3G radio, Bluetooth, WLAN, Symbian, ...
Data rates: Up to 384 kbps
Apps & SW: both open and closed
(SIM toolkit, WAP, Java, 3rd party SW for Symbian)
UI: Menu-based & Micro browser WAP/XHTML
Enhanced interoperability
Standardisation: 3GPP & Industry Fora

12 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

13 © NOKIA
 Mathematical heritage for mobile networks
• Electromagnetic theory Maxwell equations:

ρ ∂Β ∂Ε
(1) ∇ ⋅ Ε = (2) ∇⋅Β=0 (3) ∇ × Ε = − (4) ∇× Β = µ j +ε 0 µ
ε 0 ∂t 0 0 ∂t

• Traffic theory
Erlang B formula: pm =
(λ µ )m m!
∑ n = 0 (λ )n
m
µ n!

Erlang C formula: (mρ )m 1

p Q = m!(1 − ρ ) m −1
(mρ ) n (mρ ) m
∑
n =0 n!
+
m!(1 − ρ )
• Information theory
Channel Capacity:  S
C = B log1 + 
 N

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 Historical milestones of technology and mathematics
leading to cellular systems
Integrated Digital signal
First concepts for circuits processor
The age of
Electron tube spread spectrum Texas Texas
Fleming systems Instruments Instruments Digital
FM Cellular
Electromagnetism Cellular
modulation Transistor The first Analog Systems is
Maxwell system
Wireless Armstrong micro cellular starting, first
concept Bardeen
Telephone telegraphy processor Systems GSM call in
AT&T Brattain
Bell Marconi Radar Intel 4004 NMT and Helsinki
Shockley
Telegraph Electromagnetic Appleton AMPS are
Morse waves Barnett launched
Hertz

1844 1870 1876 1888 1896 1904 1925 1933 1940 1947 1948 1958 1971 1981 1983 1991

1822 1837 1846 1900 1917 1928 1930 1936 1942 1948 1950 1965

Fourier Poisson Galois Markov Teletraffic Spectral Estimation Fast

Analysis Process Field Chain Theory Analysis Theory Information Coding Fourier
Fourier Poisson Galois Stochastic Erlang Wiener Wiener Theory Theory Transform
Process Sampling Algorithms and Shannon Hamming Cooley
Markov Tukey
Theory computation
Nyquist Turing

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 1G characteristics
• Analog techniques
• Frequency modulation (FM)
• Many regional systems: NMT, AMPS, …
• Idea of cellular network
• Mobility: handovers, limited roaming
• Multiple access technique: FDMA
• Car telephone
• Speech calls

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 Mathematics in 1G
• Mathematics was not used as extensively as in later generations
• The legacy from radio technology and telephone networks was a
necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for development of 1G
• Radio interface
• Typical problem: How much bandwidth is needed to support transfer
of speech ?
• Some mathematical methods needed for synchronization, receiver
techniques, demodulation, interference, modelling, filters
• Network planning
• Typical problem: Where to place base stations to provide full and
uniform coverage for moving users ?
• Capacity planning: How many cells are needed to serve all users in a
densely populated area?
• Optimization techniques

17 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

18 © NOKIA
 2G characteristics
• Digital information transmission
also in radio interface
• One widely deployed system:
GSM
• Global roaming
• Multiple access technique: TDMA
• Data services possible
• Flexible service addition
• Increased capacity

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 Mathematics for 2G
• Legacy from information theory becomes applicable
• Revolution in radio interface --> many new mathematical methods
• digital source coding of speech
• linear predictive coding

sampled sequence xn , n = 0, 1, 2,...

p

estimate xˆn = ∑ ak xn − k , n = 0, 1, 2,...

k =1

The difference xˆn − xn together with coefficients ak is

encoded and transmitted instead of xn

E.g. Levinson-Durbin algorithm used to compute ak recursively

• unequal error protection

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• Radio channel can be modelled as linear system:
∞
r (t ) = ∫ u (t − τ )c (t ,τ ) dτ ,
−∞

where
u (t ) = low pass input signal ,
c (t ,τ ) = impulse response ,
r (t ) = low pass output signal ,
and all functions are complex valued .

• In practice the signals and impulse response are discretized and the
convolution is modelled as a linear filter

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• The impulse response is modelled as a tapped delay line model, and
each tap is modelled as a stochastic process with Rayleigh or Ricean
distribution
Rayleigh distribution
x2
x −
f ( x) = e 2σ 2
, where x ≥ 0.
σ 2

Rician distribution
x2 +s 2
x − 2σ 2 sx
f (x) = 2 e I0 ( 2 ) , where x ≥ 0.
σ σ

The function I0 is the zero order modified Bessel function of

the first kind.

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• channel coding
• error-correcting codes: convolutional codes
• finite field F
• An [n,k] linear block code over F is a k-dimensional subspace of F n.
• An (n,k) convolutional code is a k-dimensional subspace of F(D)n
where F(D) is the field of rational functions over F
• decoding by Viterbi algorithm

• Example (Rate ½ code). Denote the generator matrix of half rate CC

code by
(
G (1/ 2) (D) := (G0 (D) G1 ( D)) := 1 + D3 + D4 1 + D + D3 + D4 )
• Then encoding by G1/ 2 ( D) means simply multiplication of an
information stream i ( D) = ∑∞ ik D k :
k =0

i ( D ) → i ( D ) ⋅ G1/ 2 ( D )

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• Convolutional codes in GSM specification (quote):

• The class 1 bits are encoded with the 1/2 rate convolutional code
defined by the polynomials:
• G0 = 1 + D3+ D4
• G1 = 1 + D + D3+ D4
• The coded bits {c(0), c(1),..., c(377)} are then defined by:
• c(2k) = u(k) + u(k-3) + u(k-4)
• c(2k+1) = u(k) + u(k-1) + u(k-3) + u(k-4) for k =0,1,...,188
u(k) = 0 for k < 0

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 Mathematics for 2G

• Error detection: CRC (Cyclic redundancy codes)

i( D ) → i ( D ) ⋅ D n − k − r ( D )

here r(D) is the remainder polynomial when dividing i(D)Dn-k by g(D)

In GSM: g(D) = D8 + D4 + D3 + D2 + 1

• Error check by dividing the received polynomial by the generator

g(D): If no errors then the remainder is zero.

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• modulation techniques
• security
• encryption in GSM:
ciphertext = plaintext ⊕ A5( key, frame )

• authentication: one-way functions are used

easy to compute
x f(x)
infeasible to compute

• channel estimation
• equalization

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 Mathematics for 2G (cont'd)
• Modelling of channels and receiver structures
• stochastics

• Algorithm development
• suboptimal algorithms

• Evolution on core network structure; digital switches imply new

mathematical methods

27 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

28 © NOKIA
 2½G characteristics

• Packet data
• Systems: GPRS

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 Mathematical trends for 2½G
• Traffic model changes towards Internet model --> affects network
planning
• Complexity increased
• More advanced coding schemes
• Reed-Solomon codes
• The cyclic code associated to the generator polynomial g (D) (divides D n − 1 in Fq [D ]
) is the ideal

(
g ( D ) ⋅ Fq [D ] /( D n − 1) )
= {i ( D ) ⋅ g ( D ) mod( D n − 1) | i ( D ) ∈ Fq [D ], deg( i ( D )) ≤ k − 1}
11
g ( D) := ∏ ( D −a i +122 ) ∈ Fq [D ]
• In RS (EDGE) code the generator is

i=0
• Berlekamp-Massey decoder
• Non-real time services: ARQ protocols
30 © NOKIA
 Quote from GSM EDGE specification:
– 3.11.2.2 Reed Solomon encoder
The block of 584 information bits is encoded by shortened systematic Reed Solomon
(RS) code over Galois field GF(28). The Galois field GF(28) is built as an extension
of GF(2). The characteristic of GF(28) is equal to 2.

The code used is systematic RS8 (85,73), which is shortened systematic RS8(255,243)
code over GF(28) with the primitive polynomial p(x)=x8+x4+x3+x2+1. The primitive
element a is the root of the primitive polynomial, i.e.

a8 = a4 + a3 + a2 + 1.

Generator polynomial for RS8(255,243) code is:

g(x)=; that results in symmetrical form for the generator polynomial with coefficients given in
decimal notation

g(x)= x 12 +18x11 + 157x10 + 162x9 + 134x8 + 157x7 + 253x6 + 157x5 + 134x4 + 162x3 + 157x2 +
18x + 1
where binary presentation of polynomial coefficients in GF(256) is {a7, a6, a5, a4, a3, a2, a, 1}.

31 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

32 © NOKIA
 3G characteristics
• Global system: UMTS
• Multiple access technique:
WCDMA
• More computing power in
terminals and network elements
• Core network evolution towards
IP
• Multimedia

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 Mathematics for 3G
• The idea of CDMA is based on linear algebra. By simplifying it can be
described as follows:

orthogonal vectors (one per user) : c1 , c2 ,…, cn

information bit (for user k) ik is spread, i.e. multiplied by vector ck

Base station transmits total signal:
n
T = ∑ ik c k
k =1
User k computes the correlation of received T and vector ck :

T , c k = ik

34 © NOKIA
 Mathematics for 3G (cont'd)
Walsh-Hadamard sequences (of length 2 k )
1 1   Hn Hn 
H 1 = ( 1 ) , H 2 =   , H2n =  
1 −1   Hn − Hn 
• rows of each matrix are orthogonal
• Hadamard sequences are used in WCDMA for downlink. They cannot
be used for uplink (lack of synchronization).
• Long scrambling codes are used
• in uplink to separate users
• in downlink to separate sectors / cells
• Long codes are based on Gold sequences
• Remark: A well-known upper bound for Gold sequence correlations is a corollary of
Riemann’s hypothesis for function fields of curves proved by Andre Weil 1948.

• CDMA detection structures

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 Mathematics for 3G (cont'd)
• CDMA detection structures
• WCDMA affects the network design; complex resource management
problems
• continuous power control and adjustments per terminal (in WCDMA
once in 0.67 millisecond)
• RF design: integral equations
• speech recognition

36 © NOKIA
 Mathematics for 3G (cont'd)
• Turbo codes : The idea is to have two parallel concatenated (very simple) convolutional
codes with internal interleaver between constituent encoders
xk

1st CC encoder zk
xk
Input D D D

Output
Turbo code
internal interleaver
2nd CC encoder
z’k

D D D
x’k

37 © NOKIA
 Mathematics for 3G (cont'd)
• security: more complex cryptographic algorithms
• IP routers introduced to mobile networks --> math needed in e.g.
• header compression
• ARQ
• traffic models
• TCP error correcting

• New services
• location services --> fast geometric algorithms
• mobile commerce --> digital signatures, public key cryptography
RSA digital signatures (m=message; s= signature):

s ≡ md ( mod n ) ; n = pq; p,q prime numbers

m ≡ me ( mod n )
ed ≡ 1 ( mod ϕ(n) )

38 © NOKIA
 Outline
• An industry in transition
• Mathematics from past to 1G
• Mathematics for 2G - current bread and butter
• Mathematics for 2½G - the transition starts
• Mathematics for 3G
• … and still more mathematics

39 © NOKIA
 General trends in mathematics for mobile
• Mathematical modelling more and more important
• virtual prototypes
• complex modelling before physical implementations
• system specifications
• requirement for increased bitrates

• Increased processing power makes more complex algorithms feasible

• sometimes also mathematically simpler but heavier algorithms can
be taken into use
• Management of complex software systems
• Algebraic methods
• Algorithm development

40 © NOKIA
 The evolution goes on

• It is already time for

Future research communities
Systems to look beyond 3G
Mobility

3G

2G

0.1 1 10 100 1000

Data Rate (Mbps)

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 Concluding remarks

• Mathematics in a central position

• Are mathematicians too modest?
• Welcome to come closer and take a more active role in the
industry

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