Consideration of MIMO in the Planning of LTE Networks in Urban and Indoor Scenarios

Oliver Stbler, Reiner Hoppe, Gerd Wlfle, Thomas Hager, Timm Herrmann
AWE Communications GmbH Otto-Lilienthal-Strae 36, 71034 Bblingen, Germany
mail@AWE-Com.com Abstract Broadband wireless access is emerging as one of the hottest areas of growth within mobile communications. It enables users to enjoy the same QoS they have at home, in the office or wherever they go. 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the latest standard in the mobile cellular network technology. Innovative wireless communication systems, such as LTE, are expected to offer highly reliable broadband radio access in order to meet the increasing demands of emerging high speed data and multimedia services. For the planning of LTE networks, the investigation of radio transmission in urban areas, but also within and into buildings is getting more important. This paper introduces a deterministic approach for the simulation and performance evaluation of LTE networks in urban and indoor scenarios. Besides signal levels the expected MIMO capacity is evaluated. Comparisons with two measurement campaigns verify the high accuracy of the presented prediction model. Keywords LTE, MIMO channel, deterministic channel model, ray tracing, comparison with measurement data.

prediction results obtained from the 3D ray tracing propagation model within an urban area and inside a building. II. SIMULATION METHOLOGY A. 3D Ray-Optical Propagation Model The mobile radio channel in urban and indoor areas is characterized by multi-path propagation. Dominant propagation phenomena in these scenarios are the shadowing behind obstacles, the reflection at the walls of buildings, the wave guiding effects (due to multiple reflections) in street canyons or corridors, and the diffractions at vertical and horizontal wedges. The ray tracing algorithm used for the deterministic modeling is based on the evaluation of 3D building data representing the evaluated environment [1].

I. INTRODUCTION After the great success of wireless communications used in land and personal mobile radio networks, the growing demand for high data rates and high reliability becomes more and more important. Not only WLAN and WiMAX, but also 3G and LTE networks with their wireless multimedia services (e.g. video terminals) are used inside and outside buildings and rely on the same high Quality of Service (QoS) everywhere. 3GPP Long Term Evolution is able to cope with those requirements using the MIMO technology in order to guarantee high data rates and sufficient QoS. The LTE specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbit/s, uplink rates of at least 50 Mbit/s and RAN round-trip times of less than 10 ms. As LTE uses OFDMA in downlink and SC-FDMA for the uplink, scalable carrier bandwidths, ranging from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz are supported as well. The performance of such wireless communication systems depends in a fundamental way on the mobile radio channel. As a consequence, predicting the propagation characteristics between two antennas belongs to the most important tasks for the radio planning of LTE networks. In order to calibrate and evaluate the accuracy of the prediction models, comparisons with measurement data are inevitable. The next paragraph gives an overview of the deterministic ray tracing simulation approach, which is used to predict LTE systems in a time efficient and highly accurate way. The following sections show comparisons of measured LTE channel data with

Figure 1: 3D vector database with propagation paths between transmitter and receiver in an urban environment

The propagation model is fully three dimensional and computes all rays with up to three interactions (incl. double diffractions and combinations of reflections and diffractions). The prediction of the path loss along the ray is computed with the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD) and with the Fresnel coefficients for the reflections. In order to accelerate the timeconsuming path determination the Intelligent Ray Tracing (IRT) model can be utilized. The IRT is based on a preprocessing of the building data, thus combining high accuracy with short computation time [2], [3]. B. Post-Processing for Computation of MIMO Channels The main disadvantage of the deterministic wave propagation models is their excessive computation time. The most time-consuming part is the determination of all relevant paths between transmitter and receiver. To avoid large computation times, the IRT (Intelligent Ray Tracing) is used to predict the SISO channel impulse response between the centers of the transmitter and the receiver antenna arrays. As the spacing between the antenna elements of the arrays is

rather small it can be assumed that the same propagation paths exist for all antenna elements of the array and only the signal phases are changing from one element to the other (assuming planar incidence of the waves) [4]. Considering such a modular approach avoids re-computing the ray tracing between all the antenna elements of the transmitter and the receiver station during the generation of the MIMO channel matrices. III. MEASUREMENT COMPARISON IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT In order to verify prediction results in urban environments, results from a measurement campaign provided by the University of Ilmenau [5] have been used for comparison. A. Modeling of Simulation Scenario The urban simulation scenario [5] was modeled using a 3D CAD model of the buildings located in the city center of Ilmenau as well as the corresponding digital terrain elevation database. Figure 2 depicts the simulation scenario together with the location of the base station and the two receiver trajectories, which have been taken into account for the measurement comparison. Further details of the computation parameters and databases are summarized in Table 1.

of 46 dBm. The mobile receiver is equipped with a uniform linear antenna array, which is oriented always perpendicular to the direction of movement. It is located on top of a vehicle 1.9 meters above street level. The car drives with a nearly constant velocity along two different trajectories, which are show in Figure 2. The first route (10b-9b) is approximately 123 meters long and covers locations with and without direct line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver. The second, upper trajectory (41a-42) is about 54 meters long and has always no line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver (cf. Figure 3). B. Results of Comparison The measurement routes coincide with 30 prediction pixels for route 10b-9b and 14 prediction pixels for route 41a-42. Since the predictions are computed for each pixel separately, the measurement data is averaged and mapped to the prediction pixels using the following procedure: First, each measurement snapshot is mapped to the pixel, whose center is closest to the location where the measurement snapshot was recorded. In a second step, the median values of the received power, delay spread and channel capacity values of all snapshots mapped to the same pixel are calculated in order to obtain one measured value [5] for each pixel to compare it with the predicted results.

Figure 2: Simulation scenario with transmitter location and receiver trajectories Figure 3: Predicted LOS status along the two receiver routes TABLE 1 SIMULATION SCENARIO Simulation area No. of vector buildings Min. building height Max. building height Min. elevation Max. elevation Std. dev. of elevation Resolution of prediction 1000 m x 1000 m 4506 0.8 m 27.3 m 474.2 m 519.7 m 12.1 m 5.0 m

The uniform linear antenna array of the base station is located 26.5 meters above the ground level with an azimuthal adjustment of 315 degrees and a down tilt of 10 degrees. The two antenna elements are spaced 0.49 apart and radiate at a centre frequency of 2.53 GHz with a total transmission power

The following graphs show the comparison between measured and predicted values of received power, delay spread and channel capacity along the receiver trajectories considering a 2x2 MIMO system. The two curves of the graphs represent the measurement values (blue line) and the prediction values (red line), respectively. Prediction values are depicted additionally in the scenario map together with the building vector database of the surrounding. The curves of the received power prediction show a good agreement with the corresponding measurement values. As the delay spread is a measure of the multi-path richness of a wireless channel, it is a further crucial parameter for the characterization of MIMO channels used in broadband LTE networks. Figure 7 and Figure 8 show the comparison of the occurring delay spread along the two receiver trajectories.

Figure 4: Received power along receiver route 10b-9b

Figure 8: Delay spread along receiver route 41a-42

Figure 5: Received power along receiver route 41a-42

Figure 9: Delay spread predictions along the two receiver routes

The comparison of the delay spread values also turned out to look very promising, especially for the receiver trajectory 10b-9b. The values of the statistical evaluation and the mean prediction errors can be found in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively. Channel capacities of the 2x2 MIMO channels shown in Figure 10 and Figure 11 have been computed using a postprocessing step for the 3D ray tracing results of a SISO channel. For the prediction a fixed mean signal-to-noise-ratio of 15 dB was assumed.

Figure 6: Power predictions along the two receiver routes

Figure 10: Channel Capacity along receiver route 10b-9b

Figure 7: Delay spread along receiver route 10b-9b

These numbers refer to a case where measurement results have been subtracted from ray tracing predictions. The graphical comparisons as well as the statistical evaluation indicate a good matching between the predicted values and the measurement data for both receiver trajectories. IV. MEASUREMENT COMPARISON IN INDOOR ENVIRONMENT The availability of high data rates and QoS inside buildings becomes more and more important nowadays. The indoor coverage provided by macro cellular LTE networks can be improved substantially using indoor MIMO antenna systems, as shown in the measurement campaign presented in [6]. A. Modeling of Simulation Scenario The results of these measurements taken in the 2.6 GHz LTE test setup of the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin [6] have been used for evaluation of the MIMO prediction module [7]. The corresponding simulation scenario is depicted in Figure 13. Further details are given in Table 4.

Figure 11: Channel capacity along receiver route 41a-42

Figure 12: Channel capacity predictions along the two receiver routes TABLE 2 STATISTICAL EVALUATION FOR MEASUREMENT (M) AND PREDICTION (P)

Channel Parameter
Rx Power [dBm] Rx Power [dBm] Delay Spread [ns] Delay Spread [ns] Channel Capacity [bit/s/Hz] Channel Capacity [bit/s/Hz]

Route M
10b-9b 41a-42 10b-9b 41a-42 10b-9b 41a-42

Mean P
-50.9 -62.5 172.4 208.8 6.3 6.5 -50.8 -62.4 173.4 195.3 6.1 6.3

Std. Dev. M P
6.2 2.2 75.5 17.1 0.2 0.1 5.3 2.1 70.6 37.5 0.3 0.2

Figure 13: 3D vector database of simulation scenario TABLE 4 SIMULATION SCENARIO Simulation area No. of vector objects Height of floor Prediction height Resolution of prediction 30 m x 30 m 164 4.0 m 1.5 m 1.0 m

TABLE 3 MEAN PREDICTION ERRORS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS (MEASUREMENT VALUES HAVE BEEN SUBTRACTED FROM PREDICTION VALUES)

Channel Parameter
Rx Power dBm] Rx Power [dBm] Delay Spread [ns] Delay Spread [ns] Channel Capacity [bit/s/Hz] Channel Capacity [bit/s/Hz]

Route
10b-9b 41a-42 10b-9b 41a-42 10b-9b 41a-42

Mean
0.0 0.1 0.9 13.5 0.1 0.2

Std. Dev.
1.7 0.7 27.2 33.3 0.2 0.2

The indoor antenna system was fed from an urban macro cell eNodeB, which is located on the left hand side of the building, approximately 500 meter apart. Four different indoor antenna configurations have been investigated in order to identify the best solution for maximum radio coverage and data rate on the depicted floor of the building. The following sub sections show the comparisons between predicted (left part) and measured (right part) maximum achievable data rates for four different antenna configurations.

B. Scenario A: Single Antenna Pair A simple approach to obtain radio coverage at indoor locations, where no coverage from the outdoor macro cell is available, is to deploy indoor antennas in these areas. As the Table 2 summarizes the results of the statistical evaluation outdoor eNodeB is placed on the left hand side of the building, of the measurement data as well as of the prediction results Scenario A introduces two MIMO antenna elements in the along the two receiver trajectories. The mean prediction errors shadowed part of the building (cf. Figure 14) in order to and the corresponding standard deviations are listed in Table 3. enhance the coverage in this area.

Figure 14: Measurement comparison for maximum achievable data rate in scenario A

Figure 17: Measurement comparison for maximum achievable data rate in scenario D

C. Scenario B: Distributed Antennas Due to the floor plan of the building and the anticipated wave guiding effects in the corridors, a system with two distributed antennas radiating one spatial stream each was evaluated as well. The comparison between prediction and measurement is depicted in Figure 15 and shows a good agreement.

The simulation results for the maximum achievable data rate depicted on the left hand side of the Figures 14-17 show a good agreement between measured and predicted values and therefore proof the high simulation accuracy of WinProp [7] in indoor environments. V. SUMMARY The baseline of the paper introduces a deterministic approach for the simulation and performance evaluation of LTE networks in urban and indoor scenarios. In the second part simulation results predicted with a 3D ray tracing model are compared to measurement data taken within an urban city center and inside a building. Based on the deterministic simulation approach presented in this paper, received power, delay spread and data rate predictions in urban macro cellular and in indoor pico cellular propagation environments are achieved with high accuracy in very short simulation times. VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work has been supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) within the project SIMPLON, which is kindly acknowledged. REFERENCES
[1] R. Hoppe, G. Wlfle, P. Wertz, F. M. Landstorfer, Advanced RayOptical Wave Propagation Modelling for Urban and Indoor Environments Including Wideband Properties, European Transactions on Telecommunications (ETT), January/February 2003 (Number 01/2003), January 2003. T. Rautiainen, G. Wlfle, and R. Hoppe: Verifying Path Loss and Delay Spread Predictions of a 3D Ray Tracing Propagation Model in Urban Environments, 56th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC) 2002 - Fall, Vancouver, Canada, September 2002. H. Zhang, O. Mantel, M. Kwakkernaat, M. Herben, Analysis of Wideband Radio Channel Properties for Planning of Next-Generation Wireless Networks, 3rd European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) 2009, Berlin, Germany, March 2009. O. Staebler, R. Hoppe, MIMO Channel Capacity Computed with 3D Ray Tracing Model, 3rd European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) 2009, Berlin, Germany, March 2009. C. Schneider, G. Sommerkorn, M. Narandi, M. Kske, A. Hong, V. Algeier, W.A.Th. Kotterman, R. S. Thom, C. Jandura, Part I: Reference Campaign Description and Application, ITG WSA, Berlin, Germany, 2009. O. Braz, J. Stefanik, T. Wirth, L. Thiele, T. Haustein, Mimo bringt Mobilfunk ins Haus, Funkschau 07/2010, pp. 44 47, July 2010. AWE Communications: WinProp Software Package. Free evaluation version of a 3D ray tracing tool for urban and indoor environments. Available: http://www.awe-communications.com.

Figure 15: Measurement comparison for maximum achievable data rate in scenario B

D. Scenario C: Distributed Antenna Pairs Radiating both spatial streams from two separated locations further enhances the maximum achievable data rate in large parts of the floor to a nearly optimum level as depicted in the following figure.

[2]

[3]

Figure 16: Measurement comparison for maximum achievable data rate in scenario C

[4]

E. Scenario D: Interleaved Antennas The scenario with four interleaved antennas provides the best configuration regarding the maximization of the achievable data rate. With this configuration, maximum achievable data rates above 100 Mbit/s can be reached all over the building floor.

[5]

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