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Objective
Understand LTE Duplexing
Single Transmitter FDMA Principle Multi carrier principle OFDMA and SC FDMA Principle

Multipath Propagation Cyclic Prefix OFDMA and SC FDMA

Transmitter Receiver

OFDM and SC FDMA Key Parameters Resource Block

Duplexing and Multiple Access

Legacy- Single Transmitter

FDMA Principle

LTE: Multi-Carrier Principle

The Rectangular Pulse

Fourier Transform
Time Domain amplitude Ts spectral power density Frequency Domain

fs

1 Ts

fs

time

Advantages: Simple to implement: there is no complex filter system required to detect such pulses and to generate them. The pulse has a clearly defined duration. This is a major advantage in case of multi-path propagation environments as it simplifies handling of inter-symbol interference.

Inverse Fourier Transform

frequency f/fs

Disadvantage: It allocates a quite huge spectrum However the spectral power density has null points exactly at multiples of the frequency fs = 1/Ts. This will be important in OFDM.

OFDMA Principle
Transmits hundreds or even thousands of separately modulated radio signals using orthogonal subcarriers spread across a wideband channel
Total transmission bandwidth 15 kHz in LTE: fixed

Orthogonality: The peak (centre frequency) of one subcarrier

intercepts the nulls of the neighbouring subcarriers

OFDM Basics
Data is sent in parallel across the set of subcarriers, each subcarrier only transports a part of the whole transmission The throughput is the sum of the data rates of each individual (or used) subcarriers while the power is distributed to all used subcarriers FFT ( Fast Fourier Transform) is used to create the orthogonal subcarriers. The number of subcarriers is determined by the FFT size ( by the bandwidth) Power Bandwidth

Frequency

OFDM Signal

OFDM: Nutshell

Frequency-Time Representation

FFT/IFFT
It can be shown that the OFDM signal may be obtained by transforming L data symbols by the IFFT, where L is the number of subcarriers. Therefore, OFDM transmitter and receiver are implemented using IFFT and FFT respectively.
Time-domain (to be transmitted) d1 d2 d1 d2

IFFT

FFT

dL

dL

The size of the FFT should be chosen carefully as a balance between protection against multipath (i.e. ISI), temporal variations (i.e. ICI), and design cost/complexity. LTE FFT period is 66.67 usec, corresponding to the 15 KHz subcarrier separation.

Motivation for OFDMA

Good performance in frequency selective fading channels Low complexity of base-band receiver Good spectral properties and handling of multiple bandwidths Link adaptation Frequency domain scheduling Compatibility with advanced receiver and antenna technologies.

Challenges

1) ISI

Solution: CP

2) Multi-Carrier Modulation
The center frequencies must be spaced so that interference between different carriers, known as Adjacent Carrier Interference ACI, is minimized; but not too much spaced as the total bandwidth will be wasted. Each carrier uses an upper and lower guard band to protect itself from its adjacent carriers. Nevertheless, there will always be some interference between the adjacent carriers.
fsubcarrier fsub-used

f0

f1

f2

fN-2

fN-1

frequency

ACI = Adjacent Carrier Interference

Solution: OFDM Multi-Carrier

OFDM allows a tight packing of small carrier called the subcarriers - into a given frequency band.

Power Density

Power Density

Saved Bandwidth

Frequency (f/fs)

Frequency (f/fs)

No ACI (Adjacent Carrier Interference) in OFDM due to the orthogonal subcarriers !

3)Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI)

The price for the optimum subcarrier spacing is the sensitivity of OFDM to frequency errors. If the receivers frequency slips some fractions from the subcarriers center frequencies, then we encounter not only interference between adjacent carriers, but in principle between all carriers. This is known as Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) and sometimes also referred to as Leakage Effect in the theory of discrete Fourier transform. One possible cause that introduces frequency errors is a fast moving Transmitter or Receiver (Doppler effect).

Frequency Drift
Two effects begin to work: Subcarrier has no longer its power density maximum- so loose of signal energy.

The rest of subcarriers have

no longer a null point here. So we get some noise from the other subcarrier.

I3 I1 I4 I0

f0

f1

f2

f3

f4

ICI = Inter-Carrier Interference

OFDM Transmitter
Frequency Domain Signal: (Collection of Sinusoids)
b10 ,b11, s0 s1 s2 sN-1 fN-1 freq. x0 x1 t0 t1 x t2 2 f0 f1 f2

xN-1

tN-1 time

Time Domain Signal

Modulation Mapper Modulation Mapper

s0

b20 ,b21, Serial to Parallel Converter (Bit Distrib.)

s1 Frequency Domain I IQ Split D A Low Pass

cos(2fct) I CP/Guard Generation

Binary Coded Data

. . .

IFFT

x0, x1, , xN-1

RF Q

Time Domain

D A

Low Pass

-sin(2fct)
bN-1 0 Modulation Mapper sN-1

Each entry to the IFFT module corresponds to a different subcarrier Each sub-carrier is modulated independently by Modulation Schemes: BPSK,QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM

OFDM Receiver
y0 y1 x2 t0 t1 t2 yN-1 tN-1 time Frequency Domain s0 s1 s0 s1 . . . f0 f1 f2 s0 s1 s2 sN-1 fN-1 freq. B10 ,B11, B20 ,B21, Bit Distribution

Time Domain A D Derotator

Bit Mapping Bit Mapping . . .

Demodulator

Windowing + FFT

RF

Frequency Domain

Low Noise Amp. + Bandpass

Channel Correction

signal strength

phase correction

signal autocorreation

. . .

. . .

Soft Bit Coded Data

LNA gain

timee adjust

reference (pilot)

channel response

AGC Automatic Gain Control

sN-1

sN-1

Bit Mapping QPSK Im 01 sk 00

BN-1 0

Frequency And Timing Sync

Channel Estimation

11 d11 Re d10 10

OFDM Key Parameters

1) Variable Bandwidth options: 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz

Frequency f Power density 2) Subcarrier Spacing (f = 15 KHz) The Symbol time is Tsymbol = 1/ f = 66,7s Amplitude TCP TSYMBOL CP T SYMBOL TS Time Frequency

OFDM Key Parameters

3) The number of Subcarriers Nc If BW = 20MHz Transmission BW = 20MHz 2MHz = 18 MHz the number of subcarriers Nc = 18MHz/15KHz = 1200 subcarriers
Channel Bandwidth [MHz] Transmission Bandwidth Configuration [RB] Transmission Bandwidth [RB] Channel edge Channel edge

Resource block

Active Resource Blocks

DC carrier (downlink only)

OFDM Key Parameters

4) FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) size Nfft For a bandwidth BW = 20 MHz Nc = 1200 subcarriers not a power of 2 The next power of 2 is 2048 the rest 2048 -1200 848 padded with zeros 5. Sampling rate fs This parameter indicates what is the sampling frequency: fs = Nfft x f Example: for a bandwidth BW = 5 MHz (with 10% guard band) The number of subcarriers Nc = 4.5 MHz/ 15 KHz = 300 300 is not a power of 2 next power of 2 is 512 Nfft = 512 Fs = 512 x 15 KHz = 7,68 MHz fs = 2 x 3,84 MHz which is the chip rate in UMTS!! The sampling rate is a multiple of the chip rate from UMTS/ HSPA. This was acomplished because the subcarriers spacing is 15 KHz. This means UMTS and LTE have the same clock timing!

OFDM Recap
Bandwidth (NCf) Subcarrier 1.4 MHz 3 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 15 MHz 20 MHz

Fixed to 15 kHz Spacing (f)

Symbol duration Sampling rate, fS (MHz) Data Subcarriers (NC) NIFFT (IFFT Length) Number of Resource Blocks Symbols/slot CP length

Tsymbol = 1/f = 1/15kHz = 66.67s 1.92 72 128 6 3.84 180 320 15 7.68 300 512 25 15.36 600 1024 50 23.04 900 1536 75 30.72 1200 2048 100

Normal CP=7; extended CP=6 Normal CP=4.69/5.12sec., Extended CP= 16.67sec

OFDMA Challenges
ICI

1) Tolerance to frequency offset (Inter carrier Interference-ICI)

Frequency

2) High Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR)

SC FDMA

SC-FDMA
Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access is another variant of OFDMA used to reduce the PAPR for lower RF hardware requirements. SC-FDMA is a new hybrid modulation scheme that cleverly combines the low PAR of singlecarrier systems with the multipath resistance and flexible subcarrier frequency allocation offered by OFDM.
OFDMA SC-FDMA

This mechanism can reduce the PAPR of 6..9 dB compared to normal OFDMA. SC-FDMA is one option in WiMAX (802.16d) and it is the method selected for EUTRAN in the uplink direction.

SC-FDMA and OFDMA

OFDMA transmits data in parallel across multiple subcarriers SC-FDMA transmits data in series employing multiple subcarriers In the example: OFDMA: 6 modulation symbols ( 01,10,11,01,10 and 10) are transmitted per OFDMA symbol, one on each subcarrier SC-FDMA: 6 modulation symbols are transmitted per SC-FDMA symbol using all subcarriers. The duration of each modulation symbol is 1/6th of the modulation symbol in OFDMA

OFDMA

SC-FDMA

SC-FDMA and OFDMA

Difference in transmission: for SC-FDMA there is an extra block on the transmission chain: the FFT block which should spread the input modulation symbols over all the allocated subcarriers

OFDM

SC-FDMA

OFDMA vs SC-FDMA: QPSK

From:

TS 36.211.

SC-FDMA Principles
PAPR is the same as that used for the input modulation symbols
This could be achieved by transmitting N modulation symbols in series at N times the rate. One can see that the SC-FDMA symbol which is having 66.66s is containing N sub-symbols N = 6 in the example shown In Time domain only one modulation symbol is transmitted at a time.

The number of subcarriers which could be allocated for transmission should be multiple of 2,3 and/or 5
This limitation is imposed by the input of the FFT block which is before the IFFT. This enables efficient implementation of the FFT. Note that also the number of Resource Blocks should be multiple of 2,3 or/and 5

SC-FDMA Principles
The FFT output size is always smaller than the IFFT input size
This is because a typical cells uplink capacity will be greater than 180kHz Other UEs will be assigned other groups of subcarriers to use across the uplink channel bandwidth. No two UEs will be assigned the same 180KHz block to use simultaneously. As not all sub-carriers are used by the mobile station, many of them are set to zero in the diagram Note that if the output size of the FFT is equal to the size of the IFFT input then the overall effect is null since the two operations (FFT and IFFT are complementary)
FFT

Subcarriers allocated for one UE

. . .

IFFT

Subcarriers allocated to other users or set to zero

SC-FDMA Principles
Adjusting the data rate in SC-FDMA
If the data rate increases more bandwidth is needed to transmit more modulation symbols (when data rate is doubled the resource allocation in the frequency domain is also doubled). The individual transmission is now shorter in time but wider in the frequency domain. For double data rate the amount of inputs in transmitter doubles and the subsymbol duration (Time) is halved. Note that the SC-FDMA is still 67 s

Double the data rate SC-FDMA subsymbol duration

Halved SC-FDMA sub-symbol duration

Initial bandwidth
SC-FDMA symbol 67s

Doubled bandwidth

SC-FDMA symbol 67s

In the example 6 modulation symbols are sent initially and 12 modulations for double data rate

SC-FDMA: Multiplexing
One user always continuous in frequency
Smallest uplink bandwidth, 12 subcarriers: 180 kHz (same for OFDMA in downlink) Largest uplink bandwidth: 20 MHz (same for OFDMA in downlink)

In time domain the granularity for resource allocation is 1 ms

for one user (same for OFDMA in downlink)

Receiver User 1 f

User 1 User 2 f

User 2

Bandwidth Distribution
Carrier Number of Bandwidth SubCarriers (MHz)

1.4 3 5 10 15 20

72 198 330 660 990 1320

Resource: Element, Block, Grid

LTE Reference Signals (R)are Interspersed Among Resource Elements

[source: 3GPP TR 25.814]

The Usage of RE
One subframe (1ms)

Resource elements reserved for reference symbols

Frequency

12 subcarriers

Control Channel Region (1-3 OFDM symbols)

Data Region

Time

Duplexing FDD/TDD

FDD

..

Frequency band 1..

..
TDD

Frequency band 2..

..

Single frequency band

..

Downlink

Uplink

Frame Structure: Generic

Radio Frame Type 1 - FDD

subframe 1 msec

Type 1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

radio frame 10 msec 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 OFDM symbols (short CP)

Radio Frame Type 2 - TDD

radio frame 10 ms f
DwPTS DwPTS

UL/DL carrier

GP

subframe 0 subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe 3 subframe 4 subframe 5 subframe 6 subframe 7 subframe 8 subframe 9

half frame

GP

Slot

UpPTS

UpPTS

half frame

time radio frame 10 ms f

DwPTS

UL/DL carrier

subframe 0 subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe 3 subframe 4 subframe 5 subframe 6 subframe 7 subframe 8 subframe 9

GP

Slot

UpPTS

half frame

half frame

time Downlink Slot

Uplink Slot

Uplink or Downlink

Special Slot

Special Subframe
DwPTS (Downlink Pilot Timeslot Channel)
Can contain synchronization, PDSCH and PDCCH. The DwPTS is used for downlink synchronization. Primary synchronization signal transmitted in the first OFDM symbol of the DwPTS. Secondary synchronization signal transmitted in the last OFDM symbol of subframe 0 (immediately preceding to the DwPTS). Resources not used for synchronization signals can be used for data, reference signals and control signaling.

UpPTS (Uplink Pilot Timeslot Channel)

Used by eNB to determine the received power level and the received timing from the UE. Resources not used for reference signals(sounding and/or demodulation reference signals) can be used for random access. No PUCCH is transmitted in UpPTS.

GP (Guard Period)
The guard period between DwPTS and UpPTS determines the maximum cell size.

TDD Frame Configurations

Configuration1 DL:UL=2:2 (or 3:2) Configuration2 DL:UL=3:1 (or 4:1)
Uplinkdownlink configuration 0 1 2 Downlink-to-Uplink Switch-point periodicity 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms Subframe number

0
D D D

1
S S S

2
U U U

3
U U D

4
U D D

5
D D D

6
S S S

7
U U U

8
U U D

9
U D D

3
4 5 6

10 ms
10 ms 10 ms 5 ms

D
D D D

S
S S S

U
U U U

U
U D U

U
D D U

D
D D D

D
D D S

D
D D U

D
D D U

D
D D D

Downlink

Special

Uplink

Different Methods for OFDMA

Plain OFDM
time ... ... ... subcarrier ... subcarrier 1 1 1 . . . 2 2 2 . . . 3 3 3 . . . 1 1 1 2 2 Time Division Multiple Access on OFDM time ... ... ... ... subcarrier 1 2 2 . . . 1 3 1 2 2 . . . 1 3 1 2 2 . . . 1 3 1 2 2 1 2 Plain Orthogonal Frequency Multiple Access OFDMA time ... ... ... ... subcarrier 1 1 1 . . . 1 1 3 1 1 1 . . . 1 1 3 1 1 1 . . . 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 Orthogonal Frequency Multiple Access OFDMA time ... ... ... ...

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .
... ... ... ... ...

. . .

. . .
... ...

. . .

. . .
... ... ... ... ...

. . .

. . .
... ... ... ... ...

1 3

1 3

... ... ...

1
1

2
2

3
3

1
1

2
2

1
3

1
3

1
3

1
3

1
3

3
3

3
3

3
3

3
3

3
3

UE 1

UE 2

UE 3

common info (may be addressed via HL)

Resource Block (RB)

OFDMA is registered trademark of Runcom Technologies Ltd.

Summary
Understand LTE Duplexing
Single Transmitter FDMA Principle Multi carrier principle OFDMA and SC FDMA Principle

Multipath Propagation Cyclic Prefix OFDMA and SC FDMA

Transmitter Receiver

OFDM and SC FDMA Key Parameters Resource Block

HAPPY LEARNING
MobileComm Professionals, Inc.
www.mcpsinc.com