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With FDD, downlink and uplink traffic is transmitted simultaneously in separate frequency bands. With TDD the transmission in uplink and downlink is discontinuous within the same frequency band.

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Time: time adjusted by the common SFN initialisation time, in units of 10ms to match the length of radio frame and accuracy accordingly; period(SFN): SFN period. NOTE: When eNB is connected via TDM interfaces, these could be used to synchronize frequency the eNB. The characteristics of these interfaces are described in 25.411. In case eNB is connected via TDM interface, it may be used to synchronize frequency the eNB. The characteristics of the clock in the eNB shall be designed taking into account that the jitter and wander performance requirements on the interface are in accordance with network limits for output wander at traffic interfaces of either Reference [7], [8] or network limits for the maximum output jitter and wander at any hierarchical interface of Reference [9], whichever is applicable. In case eNB is connected via Ethernet interface and the network supports Synchronous Ethernet, the eNB may use this interface to get frequency synchronization. In this case the design of the eNB clock should be done considering the jitter and wander performance requirements on the interface are as specified for output jitter and wander at EEC interfaces of Reference [10], defined in section 9.2.1/G.8261. Further considerations on Synchronous Ethernet recommendations and architectural aspects are defined in clause 12.2.1 and Annex A of G.8261.

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The first LTE network infrastructure and terminal products will support multiple frequency bands from day one. LTE will therefore be able to reach high economies of scale and global coverage quickly. LTE is defined to support flexible carrier bandwidths from below 5MHz up to 20MHz, in many spectrum bands and for both FDD and TDD deployments. This means that an operator can introduce LTE in both new and existing bands. The first may be bands where it, in general, is easiest to deploy 10MHz or 20MHz carriers (for example, 2.6GHz (Band VII), AWS (Band IV), or 700MHz bands), but eventually LTE will be deployed in all cellular bands. In contrast to earlier cellular systems, LTE will rapidly be deployed on multiple bands.

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The first LTE network infrastructure and terminal products will support multiple frequency bands from day one. LTE will therefore be able to reach high economies of scale and global coverage quickly. LTE is defined to support flexible carrier bandwidths from below 5MHz up to 20MHz, in many spectrum bands and for both FDD and TDD deployments. This means that an operator can introduce LTE in both new and existing bands. The first may be bands where it, in general, is easiest to deploy 10MHz or 20MHz carriers (for example, 2.6GHz (Band VII), AWS (Band IV), or 700MHz bands), but eventually LTE will be deployed in all cellular bands. In contrast to earlier cellular systems, LTE will rapidly be deployed on multiple bands.

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The two best known modern wireless digital communication transmission schemes are CDMA and OFDM. CDMA is used on the new 3G mobile phone system and is a wideband transmission scheme, which means that the channel symbols (which are called chips for CDMA) are far shorter than the maximum delay of the mobile channel. OFDM, as used on DAB and Freeview actually uses narrowband channels (subcarriers), but there are many of these narrowband channels transmitted in parallel, so the overall spectrum is wide (but this doesn't mean that it uses wideband transmission principles).

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Downlink and uplink transmission in LTE are based on the use of multiple access technologies: specifi cally, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) for the downlink, and single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) for the uplink. OFDMA is a variant of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), a digital multi-carrier modulation scheme that is widely used in wireless systems but relatively new to cellular. Rather than transmit a high-rate stream of data with a single carrier, OFDM makes use of a large number of closely spaced orthogonal subcarriers that are transmitted in parallel. Each subcarrier is modulated with a conventional modulation scheme (such as QPSK, 16QAM, or 64QAM) at a low symbol rate. The combination of hundreds or thousands of subcarriers enables data rates similar to conventional single-carrier modulation schemes in the same bandwidth. The diagram in Figure taken from TS 25.892 illustrates the key features of an OFDM signal in frequency and time. In the frequency domain, multiple adjacent tones or subcarriers are each independently modulated with data. Then in the time domain, guard intervals are inserted between each of the symbols to prevent inter-symbol interference at the receiver caused by multi-path delay spread in the radio channel. its use in mobile devices is more recent. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) fi rst looked at OFDM for GSM back in the late 1980s; however, the processing power required to perform the many FFT operations at the heart of OFDM was at that time too expensive and demanding for a mobile application. In 1998, 3GPP seriously considered OFDM for UMTS, but again chose an alternative technology based on code division multiple access (CDMA). Today the cost of digital signal processing has been greatly reduced and OFDM is now considered a commercially viable method of wireless transmission for the handset.
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Data symbols are synchronously and independently transmitted over a high number of closely spaced orthogonal sub-carriers using linear modulation (either PSK or QAM).

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In practice, the OFDM signal can be generated using IFFT digital signal processing. The baseband representation of the OFDM signal generation using an N-point IFFT is illustrated in Figure 3, where a(mN+n) refers to the nth sub-channel modulated data symbol, during the time period mTu < t (m+1)Tu. The vector sm is defined as the useful OFDM symbol. Note that the vector sm is in fact the time superposition of the N narrowband modulated subcarriers.

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It is therefore easy to realize that, from a parallel stream of N sources of data, each one modulated with QAM useful symbol period Tu, a waveform composed of N orthogonal sub-carriers is obtained, with each narrowband sub-carrier having the shape of a frequency sinc function (see Figure 1). Figure 4 illustrates the mapping from a serial stream of QAM symbols to N parallel streams, used as frequency domain bins for the IFFT. The N-point time domain blocks obtained from the IFFT are then serialized to create a time domain signal.

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A guard interval may be added prior to each useful OFDM symbol. This guard time is introduced to minimize the inter-OFDM-symbol-interference power caused by time-dispersive channels. The guard interval duration Tg (which corresponds to Np prefix samples) must hence be sufficient to cover the most of the delay-spread energy of a radio channel impulse response. In addition, such a guard time interval can be used to allow soft-handover. A prefix is generated using the last block of Np samples from the useful OFDM symbol. The prefix insertion operation is illustrated in Figure 5. Note that since the prefix is a cyclic extension to the OFDM symbol, it is often termed cyclic prefix. Similarly, a cyclic postfix could be appended to the OFDM symbol.

The cyclic prefix should absorb most of the signal energy dispersed by the multi-path channel. The entire the inter-OFDM-symbol-interference energy is contained within the prefix if the prefix length is greater than that of the channel total delay spread.

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Il profilo spettrale del segnale OFDM a coseno rialzato e quindi loccupazione di banda dipende dal fattore di roll-off scelto ed pari a (1+alfa)*1/(2*Ts) in banda base. Siccome non possibile utilizzare fattori di roll-off troppo bassi, a causa delleccessiva complessit del filtro, i canali OFDM attigui sono parzialmente sovrapposti. Per tale ragione, al fine cio di evitare la cosiddetta InterCarrier Interference (ICI) le portanti laterali vengono soppresse, cio non sono utilizzate per il trasporto dei bit. Il valore di alfa oscilla solitamente da un minimo di 0.1 ad un massimo di 0.4.

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With standard OFDM, very narrow UE-specific transmissions can suffer from narrowband fading and interference. That is why for the downlink 3GPP chose OFDMA, which incorporates elements of time division multiple access (TDMA). OFDMA allows subsets of the subcarriers to be allocated dynamically among the different users on the channel.

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As a reminder, IFFT (Inverse Fast Fourier Transform) is used in a transmitter to create an OFDM waveform from modulated data streams, while FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) is used in a receiver to demodulate the data streams. The FFT size equals the number of sub-carriers, e.g. in a OFDM/OFDMA system with 256 sub-carriers, the FFT size is 256. SOFDMA is the OFDMA mode used in Mobile WiMAX and LTE. It supports channel bandwidths ranging from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz. With bandwidth scalability, Mobile WiMAX technology can comply with various frequency regulations worldwide and flexibly address diverse operator or ISP requirements, that's whether for providing only basic Internet service or a broadband service bundle.

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The high peak-to-average ratio (PAR) associated with OFDM led 3GPP to look for a different transmission scheme for the LTE uplink. SC-FDMA was chosen because it combines the low PAR techniques of single-carrier transmission systems, such as GSM and CDMA, with the multi-path resistance and fl exible frequency allocation of OFDMA. A mathematical description of an SC-FDMA symbol in the time domain is given in TS 36.211 sub-clause 5.6. Note that OFDMA and SC-FDMA symbol lengths are the same at 66.7 s; however, the SC-FDMA symbol contains M sub-symbols that represent the modulating data. It is the parallel transmission of multiple symbols that creates the undesirable high PAR of OFDMA. By transmitting the M data symbols in series at M times the rate, the SC-FDMA occupied bandwidth is the same as multi-carrier OFDMA but, crucially, the PAR is the same as that used for the original data symbols. Adding together many narrow-band QPSK waveforms in OFDMA will always create higher peaks than would be seen in the wider-bandwidth, single-carrier QPSK waveform of SC-FDMA. As the number of subcarriers M increases, the PAR of OFDMA with random modulating data approaches Gaussian noise statistics but, regardless of the value of M, the SC-FDMA PAR remains the same as that used for the original data symbols.

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As noted, SC-FDMA signal generation begins with a special pre-coding process. Figure shows the first steps, which create a time-domain waveform of the QPSK data sub-symbols. Using the four color-coded QPSK data symbols, the process creates one SC-FDMA symbol in the time domain by computing the trajectory traced by moving from one QPSK data symbol to the next. This is done at M times the rate of the SC-FDMA symbol such that one SC-FDMA symbol contains M consecutive QPSK data symbols. Time-domain filtering of the data symbol transitions occurs in any real implementation, although it is not discussed here. Once an IQ representation of one SC-FDMA symbol has been created in the time domain, the next step is to represent that symbol in the frequency domain using a DFT. This is shown in Figure 10. The DFT sampling frequency is chosen such that the time-domain waveform of one SC-FDMA symbol is fully represented by M DFT bins spaced 15 kHz apart, with each bin representing one subcarrier in which amplitude and phase are held constant for 66.7 s. A one-to-one correlation always exists between the number of data symbols to be transmitted during one SC-FDMA symbol period and the number of DFT bins created. This in turn becomes the number of occupied subcarriers. When an increasing number of data symbols are transmitted during one SC-FDMA period, the time-domain waveform changes faster, generating a higher bandwidth and hence requiring more DFT bins to fully represent the signal in the frequency domain. Note in Figure that there is no longer a direct relationship between the amplitude and phase of the individual DFT bins and the original QPSK data symbols. This differs from the OFDMA example in which data symbols directly modulate the subcarriers. K Labs S.r.l. all right reserved Cap 2 - pag. 22

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The next step of the signal generation process is to shift the baseband DFT representation of the time-domain SC-FDMA symbol to the desired part of the overall channel bandwidth. Because the signal is now represented as a DFT, frequency-shifting is a simple process achieved by copying the M bins into a larger DFT space of N bins. This larger space equals the size of the system channel bandwidth, of which there are six to choose from in LTE spanning 1.4 to 20 MHz. The signal can be positioned anywhere in the channel bandwidth, thus executing the frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) essential for effi ciently sharing the uplink between multiple users.

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SC-OFDMA combines: Small variations in the instantaneous power of the transmitted signal (single carrier property). Possibility for low-complexity high-quality equalization in the frequency domain. Possibility for FDMA with flexible bandwidth assignment.

DFT/IDFT combination achieves multiplexing between users. Padding with zeros in frequency domain reduces PAR (remember the delta function example). Cyclic prefix simplifies the frequency domain equalization at the receiver side.

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To complete SC-FDMA signal generation, the process follows the same steps as for OFDMA. Performing an IDFT converts the frequency-shifted signal to the time domain and inserting the CP provides the fundamental robustness of OFDMA against multipath. At this point, it is reasonable to ask how SC-FDMA can be resistant to multipath when the data symbols are still short. In OFDMA, the modulating data symbols are constant over the 66.7 s OFDMA symbol period, but an SC-FDMA symbol is not constant over time since it contains M sub-symbols of much shorter duration. The multipath resistance of the OFDMA demodulation process seems to rely on the long data symbols that map directly onto the subcarriers. Fortunately, it is the constant nature of each subcarriernot the data symbolsthat provides the resistance to delay spread. The DFT of the time-varying SC-FDMA symbol generated a set of DFT bins constant in time during the SC-FDMA symbol period, even though the modulating data symbols varied over the same period. It is inherent to the DFT process that the time-varying SC-FDMA symbolmade of M serial data symbolsis represented in the frequency domain by M time-invariant subcarriers. Thus, even SC-FDMA with its short data symbols benefi ts from multipath protection. It may seem counterintuitive that M time-invariant DFT bins can fully represent a time-varying signal. However, the DFT principle is simply illustrated by considering the sum of two fi xed sine waves at different frequencies. The result is a non-sinusoidal time-varying signalfully represented by two fi xed sine waves.
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LTE uses OFDM for the downlink that is, from the base station to the terminal. OFDM meets the LTE requirement for spectrum flexibility and enables cost-efficient solutions for very wide carriers with high peak rates. It is a well-established technology, for example in standards such as IEEE 802.11a/b/g, 802.16, HIPERLAN- 2, DVB and DAB. OFDM uses a large number of narrow sub-carriers for multi-carrier transmission. The basic LTE downlink physical resource can be seen as a time-frequency grid, as illustrated in Figure. In the frequency domain, the spacing between the subcarriers, f, is 15kHz. In addition, the OFDM symbol duration time is 1/f + cyclic prefix. The cyclic prefix is used to maintain orthogonally between the sub-carriers even for a time-dispersive radio channel. One resource element carries QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM. With 64QAM, each resource element carries six bits. The OFDM symbols are grouped into resource blocks. The resource blocks have a total size of 180kHz in the frequency domain and 0.5ms in the time domain. Each 1ms Transmission Time Interval (TTI) consists of two slots (Tslot). Each user is allocated a number of so-called resource blocks in the timefrequency grid. The more resource blocks a user gets, and the higher the modulation used in the resource elements, the higher the bit-rate. Which resource blocks and how many the user gets at a given point in time depend on advanced scheduling mechanisms in the frequency and time dimensions. The scheduling mechanisms in LTE are similar to those used in HSPA, and enable optimal performance for different services in different radio environments. In the uplink, LTE uses a pre-coded version of OFDM called Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA). This is to compensate for a drawback with normal OFDM, which has a very high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR). High PAPR requires expensive and inefficient power amplifiers with high requirements on linearity, which increases the cost of the terminal and drains the battery faster. SC-FDMA solves this problem by grouping together the resource blocks in such a way that reduces the need for linearity, and so power consumption, in the power amplifier. A low PAPR also improves coverage and the cell-edge performance.

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The channel edges are defined as the lowest and highest frequencies of the carrier separated by the channel bandwidth, i.e. at FC +/- BWChannel /2

Unlike the eNB, the UE does not normally transmit across the entire channel bandwidth.

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The transmission bandwidth configuration shall be supported for each of the specified channel bandwidths. The same (symmetrical) channel bandwidth is specified for both the TX and RX path.

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The channel spacing can be adjusted to optimize performance in a particular deployment scenario.

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The carrier frequency in the uplink and downlink is designated by the EUTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number (EARFCN) in the range 0 - 65535.

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