 1st Part of Module -4

Key Requirements of LTE Design

 Performance on par with wireless broadband – network

performance parameters – high throughput and low latency.
 3GPP set peak data rate target of 100Mbps – downlink and
50Mbps – uplink. – experienced by few users nearby the BS
 For delay sensitive application – voice & interactive gaming
network latency is kept very low. Target round trip latency for
LTE < 10ms better than 20-40ms delay of DSL systems.
 Enhancing QoS capabilities to support variety of applications is
another goal of LTE.
 LTE system supports optimized high quality handoff.
 It supports connections up to speed – 15kmph, 120kmph with
minor degradation, 35kmph with low quality support.
 Key Requirements of LTE Design

 Flexible spectrum usage – 3GPP allows high degree of

spectrum flexibility to LTE.
 Amount of spectrum available for LTE depends on how
aggressive is the demand of LTE.
 Operators can deploy LTE in 700MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz &
2.6GHz bands.
 LTE supports a variety of channel bandwidths – 1.4MHZ,
3MHz, 5MHz, 10MHz, 15MHz, & 20MHz.
 End user devices are eligible to operate at all the channel
bandwidths lower than their maximum capability.
 LTE also supports Frequency Division Duplexing FDD & Time
Division Duplexing TDD to accommodate paired and unpaired
spectrum allocations. Commonly used is FDD.
 Key Requirements of LTE Design

 Co-existence and Interworking with 3G systems as well as

Non-3GPPsystems –
 Due to the large no. of subscribers, it is a critical requirement
that LTE networks interwork seamlessly with existing 2G & 3G
systems.
 To obtain seamless user experience – service continuity &
mobility and handoff & roaming – between LTE and existing
2G/3G systems are critical.
 As LTE aims to be a truly global standard – interworking
requirements have been extended to Non-3GPP systems –
3GPP2, CDMA, WiMAX, all IP networks and wired IP networks.
 Key Requirements of LTE Design

 Reducing cost per Megabyte

 Total network cost to be reduced.
 3GPP has made reducing the cost per megabyte of data a key
design criterion for LTE :
 High-capacity, high-spectral efficiency air-interface.
 Ability to deploy in existing spectrum and reuse cell sites and
transmission equipments, BS - lower power and space requirements
 Interworking with non-3GPP systems to be a global standard and
achieve higher sales.
 Flat architecture with fewer network components and protocols.
 Single IP packet core for voice & data. IP architecture for larger
development community and increase sales.
 Support for lower cost Ethernet based backhaul networks, self-
configuring and self-optimizing network and technologies to reduce
installation and management cost.
 Key Enabling Technologies and Features
of LTE

 Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

 SC-FDE and SC-FDMA

 Channel dependent multiuser resource scheduling

 Multiantenna techniques

 IP-based flat network architecture

 1. Orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing
 OFDM – 3G systems – UMTS & CDMA2000 – uses Code
division multiple access.
 CDMA works by spreading a narrowband signal over a
wider bandwidth to achieve interference resistance.
 It works well with low data rate communication like voice where
a large no. of users can be multiplexed to achieve high
system capacity.
 CDMA can’t be used for high speed applications due to large
BW needed to achieve useful amount of spreading.
 OFDM gives high data rates – used in Wi-Fi, WiMAX
 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing - Numerous closely
spaced orthogonal sub-carrier signals with overlapping spectra
are emitted to carry data.
 Advantages of OFDM:

 Elegant solution to multipath interference - High bit rate

transmissions are affected by ISI caused by multipath.
 In multipath environment - multipath delay > symbol period
of transmitted signal – transmitted symbol may arrive at the
receiver during the next symbol causing ISI.
 At higher data rates, symbol time is shorter – small delay
causes severe ISI.
 Multicarrier modulation – OFDM is used –where high bit rate
data stream is divided into several parallel lower bit rate
streams and modulate each stream on separate carriers-
subcarriers/ tones. – increases symbol duration of each
stream >> multipath delay spread- Orthogonal subcarriers
 -Any residual ISI is removed by guard intervals > multipath
delays. – power wastage and decrease in BW efficiency.
 Advantages of OFDM:

 Reduce computational complexity –

 OFDM can be easily implemented using FFT/IFFT.
 Computational complexity is shown by O(BlogB Tm) – B – BW,
Tm – delay spread.
 Reduced complexity simplifies Rx processing and reduces MS
cost and power consumptions.
 Graceful degradation of performance under excess delay –
performance of OFDM system degrades as delay spread
exceeds the designed value.
 OFDM is well suited for adaptive modulation and coding and
is better than single carrier system.
 Advantages of OFDM:

 Exploitation of frequency diversity – OFDM facilitates

coding and interleaving across subcarriers in the frequency
domain providing robustness against errors caused due to deep
fading.
 OFDM allows scalable channel BW without effecting hardware
design of BS & MS. – allowing LTE to be deployed in various
BW.
 Enables efficient multi access schemes – OFDM can be
used as multi access by dividing different subcarriers among
multiple users- OFDMA provides capacity improvements.
 Robust against narrowband interference – narrowband
interferences effects only a portion of the subcarriers
 Suitable for coherent demodulation – it is more power
efficient.
 Advantages of OFDM:

 Facilitates use of MIMO –

 Uses multiple antennas at both Tx & Rx to improve system
performance.
 For MIMO system flat fading channel are more suitable.
 OFDM converts frequency selective broadband channel into
several flat fading narrowband channels where MIMO works
well.
 MIMO & OFDM are combined in Wi-Fi & WiMAX.
 Efficient support of broadcast services –
 Broadband services are improved by enabling higher data rate
 2. SC-FDE and SC-FDMA

 To reduce cost and

increase battery life –
Single Carrier Frequency
Domain Equalization is
used.
 The data symbols are
transmitted as a set of
QAM symbols with a
cyclic prefix added.
 It has low peak to average
ratio.
 SC-FDE increases the Tx &
Rx complexity.
Multiple Access
 3. Channel dependent multiuser resource
scheduling
 OFDM provides flexibility in channel resource allocation in LTE.
This allocation is done is both time & frequency.
 Frequency selective multiuser scheduling - As each user will be
experiencing uncorrelated fading channel subcarriers are
assigned so as to increase the overall capacity.
 Each user is given the maximum transmission power of its
capacity. It requires good channel tracking and is used for slow
varying channel.
 Frequency selective scheduling can be combined with multiuser
time domain fading
 For high mobility users OFDMA is used to achieve frequency
diversity.
 Frequency diverse scheduling is best suited for control
signalling and delay sensitive services.
 4. Multiantenna techniques

 LTE provides support for multiantenna to improve link

robustness, system capacity & spectral efficiency. Multiantenna
technique uses:
 Transmit diversity – reduces multipath fading, increases
system capacity and cell range. Transmit multiple copies of
same signal, coded differently, over multiple transmit antenna.
LTE transmit diversity is based on space-frequency block
coding techniques along with frequency shift time diversity.
 Beamforming – multiple antennas are used to focus the beam
in the direction of the receiver and away from interference,
improving the received SIR. Improves coverage range,
capacity, reliability & battery life.
 4. Multiantenna techniques

 Spatial multiplexing – multiple streams can be transmitted

in parallel over multiple antenna and separated at the
receiver. LTE supports spatial multiplexing with 4 Tx & Rx
antennas.
 Multiuser MIMO – spatial multiplexing is not used currently
due to complexity & cost. Multiuser MIMO – MU-MIMO
gives each user an antenna to transmit.
 5. IP-based flat network architecture
 Low cost & low latency gave a flat architecture to LTE with
fewer nodes gives- low infrastructure cost, fewer interfaces,
reduced interoperability, low development & deployment cost.
 Fewer nodes also allows better optimization of radio interfaces,
merging of control protocol and short start-up session time.
 3GPP release 6 – 4 network elements in its data path:
 BS node B, RNC – radio network controller, SGSN – serving
GPRS service node, GGSN – gateway GPRS service node.
 Release 7 – direct tunnel option from RNC to GGSN.
 LTE has 2 network element: enhanced Node- B/ eNode-B and
SAE-GW – system architecture evolution gateway. MME –
mobility management entity – provides control function related
to user, mobility & session management.
 All services are supported on IP protocol.
Flat SAE Architecture
 LTE Network Architecture

 Core network design presented in 3GPP release 8 to support

LTE is Evolved Packet Core – EPC.
 It provides high capacity, all IP, reduced latency, flat
architecture, reduced cost, supports advanced real-time and
media services.
 It also provides interworking with 2G GERAN & 3G UTRAN
networks connected via SGSN.
 Functions provided by EPC : access control, packet routing &
transfer, mobility management, security, radio resource
management and network management.
 LTE Network Architecture

 EPC includes 4 elements:

 SGW- serving gateway – which terminates the interface
towards the 3GPP radio access network. Manages mobility,
downlink packet buffering, inter-operator charging.
 Packet data network gateway – PGW – controls IP data
services, does routing, allocates IP addresses, enforces policy,
packet filtering, charging support, provides access for non-
3GPP access networks.
 Mobility management entity – MME – supports user
equipment context and identity, authenticates & authorizes
users, location tracking, paging, roaming, handover, security.
 Policy and charging rules function – PCRF - manages QoS
aspects, supports data flow detection, policy enforcement, flow-
based charging.
Evolved Packet Core Architecture