TTI Bundling in FDD and TD-

LTE
Abstract

TTI Bundling has been introduced in FDD and TD-LTE to improve Uplink coverage.
In this blog, we shall present the salient features of TTI Bundling with respect to FDD
and TD-LTE. We will first explore the motivation for TTI Bundling and then compare
it with other techniques. Finally, we shall address the implementation of TTI bundling
in FDD and TD-LTE .

Introduction

TTI bundling is a technique used to send a transport block multiple times in

consecutive subframes without waiting for HARQ ACK/NACK messages. Normally,
a transport block is converted to multiple redundancy versions after coding and the
first redundancy version is sent in a subframe. Subsequent transmissions of the
transport block are dependent on the HARQ ACK/NACK which is sent 4 subframe
durations later or more after the first transmission. In TTI bundling, the different
redundancy versions can all be sent in consecutive subframes without waiting for the
HARQ ACK/NACK feedback and a combined ACK/NACK can be sent after
processing all the transmissions of a transport block.

The motivation for TTI bundling which is illustrated in Figure 1 is the low transmission
power of some handsets, short TTI length, and the long RTT of the HARQ
transmissions. TTI bundling is expected to improve the UL coverage of applications
like VOIP over LTE wherein low power handsets are likely to be involved. This
feature has more relevance for TDD over FDD as coverage issues are likely to be
more challenging in TD-LTE. Simulation results reported in publications indicate a 4
dB gain due to TTI bundling on the UL.
Alternative Approach

The alternative to TTI bundling is RLC segmentation wherein a VOIP payload is split
into smaller size RLC PDUs as shown in Figure 2. The smaller RLC PDUs will result
in smaller transport blocks which can be decoded with better accuracy. One
drawback of this method is the potential overhead increase due to RLC
segmentation due to multiple RLC headers needed. For a typical VOIP payload, it
has been shown that as we increase the segmentation factor from 1 to 8, the
overhead increases from 14% to 55%. Each RLC PDU which is mapped into a
transport block will need a separate PDCCH assignment message which will
contribute to control signal overhead for such a scheme. There might be
retransmissions of each of those transport blocks which will also potentially increase
the control signaling overhead. In addition, since we are transmitting many small
transport blocks, the chances of interpreting a NACK as a ACK also increases
proportionately with the increase in the RLC segmentation size. Hence, RLC
segmentation has many disadvantages when we consider the transmission of a
VOIP like payload from a power limited terminal.
Overview of TTI Bundling

TTI bundling is used to achieve successful transmissions from power limited

terminals. The process as shown in Figure 3 is typically triggered by UE informing
the eNB about its power limitations at the present state. This could for example
happen at the edge of a cell when the terminal has to send high power but is limited
by the power capability of the terminal. This triggers the eNB to transmit the various
redundancy versions of the same transport block in consecutive subframes or TTIs
giving rise to the name TTI bundling. A single PDCCH allocation is sufficient for the
multiple transmissions thus saving control overhead as compared to the RLC
segmentation approach. A single HARQ ACK/NACK for the combined transmissions
is generated after processing the TTI bundle which can reduce the error rate of the
transport block as compared with processing a single redundancy version. This
approach can also reduce the delay in the HARQ process compared to
transmissions of the redundancy versions separated in time using the normal
approach.
TTI Bundling Operation

As shown in Figure 4, TTI bundling enables up to 4 redundancy versions of the same

transport block to be sent in 4 consecutive subframes. In TD-LTE systems, the TDD
configurations standardized allow only a maximum of 3 consecutive UL
subframes. A single RLC PDU is transmitted as multiple redundancy versions in
consecutive subframes using a single common allocation. The channel coding used
in LTE enables easy generation of the multiple redundancy versions from which the
transmissions in the TTI bundle are generated. A common RLC header is shared
across the TTI bundle and the same HARQ process identity is used for multiple
transmissions in the TTI bundle. Combined processing of the redundant
transmissions over multiple subframes leads to a better probability of detection of the
transport block. Thus, with limited power, the UE has a better chance of a
successful transmission with lesser latency using the TTI bundling method.
Summary: TTI bundling is a useful technique for improving coverage of VOIP
handsets in LTE systems. It is applicable to both FDD and TD-LTE deployments
and can improve the link budget by up to 4 dB. Differences in implementation exist
between FDD and TD-LTE systems. TTI bundling helps achieve good latency
performance for VOIP even at the edges of cells.