Using a design-to-test capability for LTE MIMO (Part 1 of 2)

System-level simulation helps engineers gain valuable insight into the design
sensitivities of Long Term Evolution (LTE) Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
(MIMO) systems
By Greg Jue and Dingqing Lu, Agilent Technologies
Long Term Evolution (LTE) Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology has the
potential to increase data rates for a single user. It does this by using multiple antenna
techniques to transmit multiple and different streams of data.
Consider, for example, that for 2x2 downlink Frequency-Division-Duplex (FDD) MIMO
with a 64QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) modulation depth, a potential peakdata rate of up to 172.8 Mbps can be achieved. Increasing the number of antennas for 4x4
downlink FDD MIMO with 64QAM increases the potential peak downlink data rate to
326.4 Mbps [Reference 1]. These data rates represent the upper boundary of what might
be achieved with perfect radio conditions.
In practice, however, MIMO performance is impacted by baseband and RF signal
impairments from the system implementation, as well as MIMO channel conditions.
MIMO system performance may vary as a function of baseband algorithm performance
for receiver channel estimation, RF crosstalk coupling between antennas, RF/IF receiver
phase noise, or RF/digital receiver analog/digital (ADC) clock jitter.
Given the design complexities of LTE MIMO, it is a challenging task for the system
engineer to partition RF and baseband system-design requirements (e.g., error and power
budgets) to meet LTE specifications without over-designing. Re-working designs late in
the testing phase can be costly in terms of both development cost and time-to-market.
To help mitigate risk, it is critical that the engineer have visibility into potential issues as
early as possible in the product development lifecycle. As the design cycle transitions
from the design phase to early R&D hardware testing, it is useful to test R&D hardware
Device-Under-Test (DUT) prototypes under various conditions. This allows the engineer
to determine a prototypes sensitivity to different types of impairments (e.g. bit error rate
(BER) versus bias or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)).
System-level simulation can be especially useful in helping the system engineer gain
valuable insight into the impact of various RF and baseband impairments on MIMO
system performance, thereby enabling design requirements to be evaluated. It can also be
combined with test equipment for MIMO R&D hardware testing.

Baseband design
Baseband coding and decoding algorithms are key to LTE system BER and Block-Errorrate (BLER) performance. The performance of the receiver-channel estimation algorithm
can drive MIMO system performance. One of the primary challenges associated with
designing to an emerging standard such as LTE is that the standards are rapidly evolving
and, as a result, are subject to interpretation. FPGA engineers, for example, must
typically study the LTE specification and interpret the pseudo-code algorithms as
functional or behavioral design requirements for their FPGA HDL code.
While their HDL code may be optimized for performance, it can be useful to compare the
FPGA and HDL 0s and 1s, or vectors, against an independent reference to check for
any misinterpretation of the LTE specification. Sometimes, FPGA engineers create their
own test-vector references, in addition to writing their own HDL code. This is analogous
to a writer creating their own spell checker—any spelling misinterpretation may
also be present in the spell checker. When writing algorithm code for an FPGA or DSP
implementation by hand, LTE algorithm reference vectors, such as the one discussed in
Reference 2, can be useful as an independent check of the LTE specification.
Alternatively, the system engineer may want to evaluate the fixed-point precision needed
for an LTE MIMO design for baseband-RF requirements partitioning. Consider the
example in Figure 1. Here, the effective fixed word length of Finite-Impulse-Response
(FIR) Root Raised Cosine (RRC) filters is varied to determine the fixed-point precision
needed to achieve a MIMO Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) system design metric. EVM
provides a convenient, single number metric to measure waveform quality and is
typically specified for transmitter performance.

Figure 1. The results of a MIMO, fixed-point IQ modulator simulation that was

accomplished using the Agilent VSA software. (Note that VSA software, version 11 or
higher, can be used for the LTE MIMO analysis.)
The simulation in Figure 1 consists of a MIMO downlink source which outputs complex
MIMO data streams for 2x2 MIMO. The MIMO data is upsampled, RRC filtered and
digitally modulated on a digital IF carrier using a Fs/4 carrier-multiplexing technique.
The two streams of data are then fed into an Agilent 89601A VSA software simulation
element to perform the simulation analysis.
Simulation results show the effect of varying FIR RRC word length on system
performance. The VSA display on the upper right shows the results with the effective
FIR word length set to 10. The 64QAM constellation looks good and EVM is
approximately 0.5 percent. The spectrum and EVM spectrum (EVM vs. subcarrier) also
look good.
The VSA display on the lower right, however, shows significant degradation to the
system performance as a result of reducing the effective FIR word length to 7. The
64QAM constellation also shows distortion, which is reflected in the EVM increasing to
2.9 percent. The spectrum and EVM spectrum are impaired as a result of the fixed-point
impairments in the IQ modulator design. With baseband impairments from the fixedpoint design impacting RF performance such as EVM and spectrum, design visibility can
be especially useful in helping the engineer to perform system-level design trade-offs
when partitioning baseband and RF design requirements.

For fixed-point baseband designs, it can also be useful to prototype the design with an
FPGA development board. The engineer can then physically test the rapid prototype with
test equipment. For the rapid prototype in this example, a modified version of the fixedpoint IQ modulator design was implemented (Figure 2).
The MIMO IQ data was stored in Look Up Tables (LUTs) on the FPGA prior to
upsampling, FIR RRC filtering and digital modulation of the IF carrier. HDL was then
generated from the system simulation tool and FPGA synthesis was performed on it using
a synthesis tool.

Figure 2. This FDD MIMO FPGA implementation is a modified version of the fixed-point
IQ modulator design.
The FPGA development board contains two digital-to-analog converters (DACs) that
convert the digital FPGA MIMO signals to analog. The two analog MIMO signals are fed
into channels 1 and 3 of an oscilloscope and are demodulated by VSA software installed
in the oscilloscope. Note that this is the same VSA software which was also used in
simulation to design the fixed-point IQ modulator.
In simulation, the VSA software processes simulated, instead of measured, signals from
test equipment hardware. Using the software for both purposes ensures consistency in the
measurement algorithms between design and test. The signal source below the
oscilloscope provides a Continuous Wave (CW) clock signal to clock the FPGA board
DUT.

RF mixed-signal transmitter design

RF impairments such as antenna cross-talk, phase noise and power amplifier (PA) gain
compression can also impact MIMO system performance. The local oscillator (LO) phase
noise is of special interest in Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
systems because low phase is important in maintaining subcarrier orthogonality, although
it can be relatively expensive to achieve.
Because the LO phase noise can be set in terms of dBc/Hz at different frequency offsets,
it is easy to simulate the actual phase noise of different LO solutions. The PA
nonlinearity is evaluated by setting the 1-dB compression point on the two PAs at the
output of the MIMO transmitter.
To better understand the impact of RF impairments, consider the dual-channel RF
transmitter shown in Figure 3. To the right of the figure is an antenna cross-talk model
that was constructed to simulate the effective crosstalk coupling between channels 0 and
1. MIMO performance can vary as a function of the correlation between the multiple
streams of data. Typically with RF 2x2 MIMO design, coupling occurs between the two
antenna channels.

Figure 3. This dual-channel RF, mixed-signal transmitter shown is designed using

bandpass filters, mixers, LOs, and PAs to upconvert the IF from the fixed-point IQ
modulators to RF.
Figure 4 shows the simulation results with -80 dBc/Hz phase noise at a 10-kHz offset
and -20 dB of antenna crosstalk. The output 1-dB gain compression point is set on the
two power amplifiers.

Figure 4. Shown here are simulation results based on a -80 dBc/Hz phase noise, PA gain
compression and -20 dB of antenna crosstalk.
The VSA simulation result shows the composite EVM at 3.8 percent from the LO phase
noise, PA gain compression and antenna crosstalk being modeled. Composite EVM
includes Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) data, primary and secondary sync
channels and other control channels. The EVM spectrum (on the upper right of the VSA
display) shows significant frequency variation from the frequency response of the
coupled antenna path being modeled with the antenna crosstalk subnetwork.
The Reference Signal (RS) EVM is approximately 1.7 percent EVM and is lower than the
3.8 percent composite EVM previously discussed. MIMO reference signals are
orthogonal in both time and frequency, so RS EVM is typically not impacted by the
cross-coupling of the two antennas.
In contrast, the composite EVM is impacted by antenna cross coupling. By comparing
composite and RS EVM, the system engineer can gauge how much of the EVM budget is
being dictated by antenna crosstalk, versus other impairments present on the signal (e.g.,
phase noise and PA gain compression).
Impairments can be further isolated to see what their contribution is on EVM. Figure 5,
for example, shows the simulation results that occur when the LO phase noise and PA
gain compression are removed, further isolating the effects of standalone antenna
crosstalk on MIMO performance.

Figure 5. These simulation results occur with only -20 dB antenna crosstalk, no LO
phase noise and no PA gain compression.
The antenna crosstalk is left at -20 dB, but in the absence of phase noise and PA gain
compression, the RS EVM drops to 0.05 percent. Due to the orthogonality of the two
MIMO streams, the RS EVM is not sensitive to antenna crosstalk. The composite EVM
drops to 3.3 percent since there is no phase noise or gain compression, only crosstalk.
The close-up display of one of the constellation points on the right of Figure 5 helps the
engineer gain insight into this antenna crosstalk impairment. There is a Constellation of
Constellations resulting from a small 64QAM crosstalk signal being summed in with the
main through path. Previously, the phase noise and gain compression present on the
signal masked this cross-coupling effect.
System engineers can quickly and easily gain insight into various design sensitivities by
modeling different impairments in simulation and trying what-if scenarios. This
provides the engineer with a valuable tool to gain insight into design performance and
ensures that informed design trade-offs can be made when specifying design
requirements. As a result, the engineer is better able to mitigate risk and avoid overdesigning.
Part 2 will look at receiver RF/mixed-signal design, and R&D hardware DUT testing.

References
1. Agilent Technologies (publisher), LTE and the Evolution to 4G Wireless: Design and
Measurement Challenges, (2009). Edited by Moray Rumney,Table 1.4-1, ISBN 978-98817935-1-5
2. Agilent Technologies, White Paper on LTE PHY Design,
http://www.agilent.com/find/eesof-lte-whitepaper.
About the Authors
\Greg Jue is an applications development engineer/scientist with Agilent EEsof
Electronic Design Automation (EDA), specializing in SDR, LTE and
WiMAX applications. Greg wrote the design simulation section in Agilents
new LTE book, and has authored numerous articles, presentations and
application notes, including Agilents new LTE algorithm reference whitepaper
and Agilents new Cognitive Radio whitepaper. Greg pioneered combining design and
test solutions at Agilent Technologies, and authored the popular application notes 1394
and 1471 on combining simulation and test. Before joining Agilent in 1995, he worked
on system design for the Deep Space Network at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech
University.
Dingqing Lu has been with Agilent Technologies/Hewlett Packard
Company since 1989 and is a scientist in Westlake Village, CA, USA.
From 1981 to 1986 He was with University of Sichuan as Lecturer and
Assistant Professor. He was a Research Associate in EE Department of
UCLA, Los Angeles, USA from 1986 to 1989. He published about 20
papers in IEEE Trans, Journals and Conference proceedings. His research
interests include modeling, simulation and measurement techniques for systems.