On UMTS-LTE Physical Uplink Shared and Control

Channels
Amir D. Dabbagh, Rapeepat Ratasuk, and Amitava Ghosh
Motorola Networks Advanced Technology
1501 West Shure Drive, Arlington Heights, IL 60004, USA
adabbagh@motorola.com, ratasuk@motorola.com, amitava.ghosh@motorola.com

Abstract The performance of the uplink physical channel

of the 3GPP LTE system is considered in this paper.
Assuming a single user spatial division multiple access
transmission scheme, where users signals are transmitted
over different subcarriers, a low complexity channel
estimation technique is proposed for the physical uplink
shared channel (PUSCH). The proposed channel estimation
technique is shown to have significant gains in performance
compared to other well known channel estimation
techniques such as the maximum-likelihood (ML) and the
inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) channel estimation
methods [5]. Simulation results for different channel
models and modulation and coding schemes (MCS) using
incremental redundancy (IR) based hybrid automatic
repeat request (HARQ) operation are also shown. Finally, a
robust detection scheme is proposed for the physical uplink
control channel (PUCCH) and simulation results are
summarized.
I.

INTRODUCTION

Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) is

aimed at commercial deployment around 2010 timeframe.
Long term goals for the system include support for high peak
data rates (>100 Mbps downlink and >50 Mbps uplink), low
latency (10ms round-trip delay), improved system capacity and
coverage, reduced operating costs, multi-antenna support,
efficient support for packet data transmission, flexible
bandwidth operations (up to 20 MHz) and seamless integration
with existing systems. To reach these goals, a new design for
the air interface is envisioned. Single-Carrier Frequency
Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is selected to efficiently
meet E-UTRA performance requirements for Uplink (UL). An
overview on the physical shared and control channels of the
UMTS long term evolution (LTE) system can be found in
[1,2].
The performance of the physical uplink shared channel
(PUSCH) depends heavily on the channel state information
(CSI) available at the receiver. The CSI is generally used for
demodulation and equalization that is especially needed when
SC-FDMA transmission scheme is employed. Different
channel estimation methods such as the maximum-likelihood
(ML) and the inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) can be
found in the literature [5]. However, the performance of these
channel estimation methods depends heavily on the signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) and the number of allocated sub-carriers or
equivalently resource blocks (RB) in the uplink. In this paper, a

978-1-4244-1722-3/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE.

channel estimation method that is based on the least squares

criterion is considered. It is shown that the proposed method
significantly improves over the performance of the IFFT based
channel estimation method especially for low number of RBs.
In addition, the considered channel estimation method offers a
large reduction in the overall computational complexity.
Simulation results to measure the performance of the PUSCH
are also provide under different channel models, modulation
and coding schemes (MCS), and different numbers of RB
allocations using incremental redundancy (IR) based hybrid
automatic repeat request (HARQ).
For the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), a simple
detection scheme is proposed and is shown to have a very
robust performance in terms of the achievable bit error rate
(BER). Simulation results are provided for performance
evaluation of Ack/Nack and channel quality information (CQI)
transmission over the PUCCH under various scenarios.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, an
overview of E-UTRA PUSCH and PUCCH is provided. In
Section III, a description of the proposed channel estimation
method for PUSCH is given with a set of simulation results. In
Section IV, the detection scheme and simulation results for the
PUCCH are provided. Finally, conclusions are drawn in
Section V.
II.

OVERVIEW OF PUSCH AND PUCCH

A. Physical Uplink Shared Channel

A block diagram of the SC-FDMA transmission scheme
used for data transmission over the E-UTRA PUSCH is given
in Figure 1 [6]. The SC-FDMA transmission scheme, also
known as discrete Fourier transform spread orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (DFT-SOFDM), is similar to
the OFDMA transmission scheme used on the downlink with
the main difference in that the constellation symbols are DFT
precoded before modulation of the different subcarriers. The
DFT spread operation aims at reducing the peak-to-average
power ratio (PAPR) thus improving the cell edge coverage and

Fig. 1. Block diagram for SC-FDMA.

user equipment (UE) battery life.

For signal demodulation, one out of seven OFDM symbols
per 0.5ms slot is used as a reference symbol. A Zadoff-Chu
(ZC) sequence is used (without DFT precoding) for
modulation of the different subcarriers of the middle OFDM
symbol in each slot with inter-slot frequency hopping enabled
for frequency diversity. More details on the PUSCH can be
found in [6].
B. Physical Uplink Control Channel
The PUCCH transmission scheme is given in Figure 2 [2].
The block diagram of Figure 2 is mainly used for the
transmission of Ack/Nack. The Ack/Nack for each user is
defined by, a) 1 shift of a CAZAC sequence, b) 1 orthogonal
cover (data) and c) 1 orthogonal cover (reference signal).
Using either BPSK or QPSK type modulation, one modulation
symbol (per subframe) is multiplied by a ZC spreading
sequence and spread over four OFDM symbols per slot. This
structure allows 18 Ack/Nack users to be multiplexed in one
RB. The middle three OFDM symbols are used for signal
demodulation. The CQI transmission scheme is similar in its
general structure to the Ack/Nack transmission scheme with
the exception that in each slot the second and sixth OFDM
symbols are used as reference, and the information bits

Fig. 2. Block diagram for Ack/Nack transmission over PUCCH

are first encoded using Reed-Muller block code with 20 output

coded bits per subframe. The 20 coded bits are mapped into 10
QPSK modulation symbols and transmitted using a scheme
similar to the one in Figure 2. The CQI structure can support
up to a maximum of 6 users per one control resource. The
scheduling request (SR) indicator channel uses the Ack/Nack
structure but using On/Off keying.
III. CHANNEL ESTIMATION FOR PUSCH
In this section, channel estimation method for the PUSCH is
proposed, and link level simulation results are presented.
The proposed channel estimation method is based on the leastsquares optimization criterion applied in the frequency domain.
Under the assumption that the frequency response of the
channel does not change significantly across a relatively small
number of contiguous subcarriers, a model based least-squares
[3,4] minimization criterion is constructed to obtain the
channel estimate directly in the frequency domain. It is
assumed that the frequency response across a set of L

th

order polynomial
contiguous subcarriers follow an N
function. The number L and the polynomial order generally
depend on the coherence bandwidth and can be estimated using
techniques found in the literature (e.g. [8]).
In the proposed channel estimation technique, the ML based
channel estimate

~
hk = y k p k* = hk + nk p k* , k = 1,2,, N sc
y k is the received signal at the k th
subcarrier after cyclic prefix removal and FFT, hk is the true
channel response, n k is the additive noise, p k is the
transmitted pilot symbol, and N sc is the total number of

is obtained first, where

subcarriers allocated for one user. Assuming a polynomial

model based approach

~
hk = a N k N + a N 1 k N 1 +
where the set of parameters

+ a1k + a0 + nk p k* ,

a 0 , a1 , , a N is estimated using

the least squares criterion. For all data OFDM symbols the
channel estimate is obtained by linear interpolation and
extrapolation of the two pilot based channel estimates when
frequency hopping is not enabled between slots otherwise the
channel estimate is fixed across the OFDM symbols within
each slot. Compared to the IFFT based channel estimation
technique, this channel estimation method offers a factor of
three to four reduction in computational complexity.
In Figure 3, the performance of the proposed channel
estimation method is compared with the ML and the IFFT
based methods for the 5MHz PedB-3 channel model with one
RB allocation and a first order model based polynomial
with L equal to 12. In this simulation, one transmit and two
receive antennas were assumed and the MCS is QAM16 rate
3/4 LTE turbo code with IR HARQ. As can be seen from the
figure, at 10% frame error rate a 3dB gain in SNR is achieved
with the proposed channel estimation method and the
performance gap increases with the SNR. The performance
gap, however, is significantly reduced when a larger number of
RBs are allocated for a user and eventually with full RB
channel allocation the results in Figure 4 show that the IFFT
based estimation technique is marginally better than the first
order polynomial channel estimation method. At 10% FER a
gain of 0.3dB in SNR can be achieved with the IFFT technique
but at the expense of a much higher computational complexity.
Finally, we note that the case of one RB allocation is very
important since it should be the typical type of allocation for
low data rate applications such as VoIP.
In Figure 5, the achievable throughput of PUSCH as a
function of the SNR is shown for a system operating at 10MHz
channel bandwidth with full RB allocation and 2GHz carrier
frequency. In this simulation, MMSE based equalization with
true noise variance estimation is performed for the detection of

the transmitted symbols. The same MCS with IR HARQ

show a degraded performance compared to the other two

4

PedB-3, 5MHz, 1 RB, QAM16 rate 3/4

10

2.2

QAM16 Rate 3/4 with 50-RB Allocation

x 10

EPA-5
EVA-5
EVA-70
ETU-70

2
1.8
1.6

-1

FER

Throughput (Kbps)

10

-2

10

1.4
1.2
1
0.8

-3

10

0.6

IFFT
LS
ML
0

0.4

10
12
SNR (dB)

14

16

18

0.2

20

Fig. 3. Performance of the proposed channel estimation method for

PUSCH. A 3 dB gain in SNR is achieved at 10% FER.

10
12
SNR (dB)

14

16

18

20

Fig. 5. PUSCH achievable throughput as a function of the SNR

assuming a 10MHz channel bandwidth with full RB allocation.

is used also here, and the results are shown for different

QAM64 Rate 5/6 with 50-RB Allocation

40

PedB-3, 5MHz, 25 RBs, QAM16 Rate 3/4

10

35
-1

Throughput [Mbps]

FER

10

-2

10

30

25

20

-3

10

IFFT
LS

-4

10

EPA-5
EVA-5
EVA-70
ETU-70

15

10
4

8
10
SNR (dB)

12

14

16

18

Fig. 4. Performance of the proposed channel estimation method for

PUSCH with full RB allocation.

E-UTRA channel models [7]. These channel models are

defined in the 3GPP LTE standard and in general they contain
extended channel delay profiles. The number attached to each
channel model indicates the Doppler spread in Hz. It can be
seen from the figure that at high SNR the higher frequency
selective channels like the EVA and ETU channel models
achieve better throughput due to frequency diversity. However,
at low to average SNR levels the EPA channel model achieves
a better performance. We note that the areas of approximate
flatness in the throughput-SNR curves result from HARQ
operating in the IR mode.
In Figure 6, a plot of the achievable throughput as a
function of the SNR is provided again for a 10MHz channel
bandwidth, however, the MCS is QAM64 rate 5/6. The
maximal achievable throughput is 36Mbps. It can be seen from
the figure that the EVA-70 and the ETU-70 channel models

10

12

14

16
18
SNR (dB)

20

22

24

26

Fig. 6. PUSCH achievable throughput as a function of the SNR with

QAM 64 rate 5/6. 10MHz channel bandwidth with full RB allocation.

channel models. This results mainly from the higher sensitivity

to channel state information when higher modulation orders
are used. This result might change depending on the
considered channel estimation method.
IV. DETECTION OF ACK/NACK AND CQI IN PUCCH
In this section, a detection scheme for the PUCCH is
proposed and simulation results for Ack/Nack and CQI
transmissions are provided. The detection scheme proposed for
PUCCH is designed under the assumption of a low SNR
operating point (for coverage purposes). In the low SNR
regime, the capability of obtaining a good estimate of the
channel response is very limited and a direct usage of channel
estimation methods such as those mentioned previously would
result in a significant loss in performance.
In the PUCCH case, it is proposed again to start with the
ML channel estimate after the derotation of the pilot symbols.

However, this time it is proposed to average the obtained

channel response over the different subcarriers and the pilot
symbols. This is equivalent to the assumption of a flat fading
channel response with a coherence time significantly larger
than the slot duration. As a result, for each slot only one
channel estimate coefficient

1
12

12

l
k

+ nkl p k* wl*

-1

-2

10

l k =1

is obtained and coherent detection is performed based on this

knowledge. Here denotes the set of pilot position indices
within a slot,

Ack/Nack/DTX Performance with Proposed Detection Method

10

Pe

h=

10

-3

10

denotes the cardinality of the set, and

wl denotes the orthogonal cover value at the l th position.

Figure 7 shows the simulated performance of the Ack/Nack

transmission scheme with DTX. A 1.4MHz ETU-5 channel
model operating with one transmit and two receive antennas is
simulated. The figure shows the performance of the proposed
detection scheme where the Ack miss detection and Nack to
Ack detection error rates are shown. In the same figure the
DTX to Ack error rate is also shown. This error rate is
supposed to be fixed at 1% according to the target quality
values defined in Table 1. For comparison, the same detection
scheme is used with the polynomial based channel estimation
approach described in the previous section. As can be seen
from the figure, around 2dB gain in SNR is achieved with the
averaging based approach. We note that the Ack misdetection
target error rate is already achieved at an SNR level of -7.7dB.
This shows the robust performance of the Ack/Nack
transmission scheme.
In Figure 8, a multi-user Ack/Nack simulation is provided with the
same DTX to Ack error rate. A total of four users sharing the same RB

is considered with signals received with different power and

timing offsets. In this figure, a 1.4MHz ETU-70 channel model
is simulated. A plot of the user of interest Ack miss detection
error rate is given for the case when the three interfering users

10
-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

SNR

Fig. 7. PUCCH Ack/Nack and DTX error rates as a function of the

SNR assuming a 1.4 MHz ETU-5 channel model
0

Probability of Ack Miss Detection vs. SNR at 1% DTX to Ack Error Rate

10

-1

10

Pe

For the Ack/Nack transmission scheme, a single statistics is

formed by multiplying each of the subcarriers received signals
with the conjugate of the corresponding channel response and
the spreading sequence, and finally summing over the
subcarriers and the data OFDM symbols. In this case, there is
also a need to detect silent periods (DTX) when no data is
transmitted by the user. In the single user case, this can be done
by estimating the ambient noise at the receiver and choosing a
threshold that is usually determined by the required DTX to
Ack error rate. In the multi-user case, more complicated
techniques need to be used in order to estimate the variance of
the noise plus interference. Similar detection scheme can be
used for the case of CQI transmission. However, in this case
the summation is performed over the different subcarriers only
and 10 detection statistics are formed in each subframe.
Furthermore, decoding of the transmitted control information
is needed based on the available soft information.

-4

Ack Misdetect
Nack->Ack
DTX->Ack
Ack Misdetect w/LS
Nack->Ack w/LS
DTX->Ack w/LS

-2

10

-3

10

-4

10
-16

Zero power offset

Zero power offset with 1us timing offset
3dB power offset
3dB power offset with 1us timing offset
One user
-14

-12

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

SNR

Fig. 8. PUCCH Ack/Nack multi-user case with users power

imbalances and timing offsets.

signals are received with 0dB and 3dB increased power offsets.
Furthermore, simulation results are shown for the case when
there are timing misalignments between the received users
signals. From the simulation results, it can be seen that a
performance degradation of up to 3dB in SNR is present with
three interfering users when 3dB power offset is present. The
system shows robust performance for up to 1us of timing
offsets.
Table 1. Uplink control signaling target quality.

Event

Target quality

ACK miss detection

(1e-2)

DTX to ACK error

(1e-2)

NACK to ACK error

(1e-4)

Finally, simulation results for the CQI transmission scheme

is provided in Figure 9. In this figure, four bits of wideband
0

CQI transmission Over PUCCH With Different Channel Bandwidths

10

-1

FER

10

REFERENCES

-2

10

-3

10

-4

10
-18

DTX transmission cases were provided and it was shown that

up to 2dB gain in SNR can be achieved with the proposed
detection method. Furthermore, simulation results for the
multi-user case were also provided assuming power
imbalances and timing offsets between the users. It was shown
that up to 3dB degradation in SNR compared to the single user
case is present. Finally simulation results for the CQI
transmission scheme for all different channel bandwidths were
also provided.

1.4MHz
3MHz
5MHz
10MHz
15MHz
20MHz
-16

-14

-12
-10
SNR (dB)

-8

-6

-4

Fig. 9. Four bits CQI FER as a function of the SNR with an LTE
Reed-Muller block code

CQI are transmitted over the PUCCH using an LTE ReedMuller block code. The four bits of data are encoded into 20
coded bits. The coded bits are then mapped into 10 QPSK
modulation symbols, and subsequently each modulation
symbol is spread using a length 12 ZC sequence which are then
mapped to a corresponding set of subcarriers for transmission.
At the receiver end, the averaging based channel estimation
method is used over the two pilot OFDM symbols of each slot
and the channel response is then fixed across the subcarriers
within a slot. After the derotation of the spreading sequences,
the 10 soft symbol estimates are finally generated by
correlating the received signal of each data OFDM symbol
with the corresponding channel response. Given the above soft
symbol estimates and the channel responses, the information
bits are detected using an ML detection technique since only
16 codewords are considered in this case and an ML based
detection is still possible with low computational complexity.
Figure 9, shows the performance of the CQI transmission
scheme for all different scalable channel bandwidths supported
in LTE. An ETU-70 channel model is simulated again with one
transmit and two receive antennas. From Figure 9 it can be
easily seen that on the average a 1% FER is achieved at an
SNR of -6.7dB. This shows the robustness of the CQI
transmission scheme under the proposed detection method.
V.

[1] B. Classon, K. Baum V. Nangia, R. Love, Y. Sun, R. Nory,

K. Stewart, A. Ghosh, R. Ratasuk, X. Weimin, and J. Tan,
Overview of UMTS Air-Interface Evolution, 64th IEEE
Vehicular Technology Conference, Montral, Sept. 2006.
[2] A. Ghosh, R. Ratasuk, X. Weimin, B. Classon, V. Nangia,
R. Love, D. Schwent, D. Wilson, Uplink Control Channel
Design for 3GPP LTE, PIMRC 2007.
[3] S. M. Kay, Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing,
Estimation Theory, Prentice Hall, 1993.
[4] H. V. Poor, An Introduction to Signal Detection and
Estimation, Springer-Verlag, 1988.
[5] T. Fukuhara, Y. Hao, Y. Takeuchi, and H. Kobayashi, A
novel channel estimation method for OFDM transmission
technique under fast time-variant fading channel, 57th
IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Jeju, Apr. 2003.
[6] 3GPP TS 36.211, Physical Channels and Modulation,
V8.2.0, March 2008.
[7] 3GPP TS 36.104, Base Station (BS) Radio Transmission
and Reception, V8.2.0, May 2008.
[8] Y. Selen and E. G. Larsson, Parameter estimation and
order selection for linear regression problems, in 14th
EUSIPCO, (Florence, Italy), September 4-8 2006.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, the link performance of the physical uplink

shared and control channels are evaluated. A low complexity
channel estimation method is also proposed. Compared to the
IFFT based channel estimation technique, it was shown that
the link level FER performance is significantly improved by
the proposed channel estimation technique especially when
low resource block allocations are considered.
For the uplink control channel it was shown that robust
performance can be achieved by the averaging of the ML based
channel estimate. Simulation results for the Ack/Nack and