Frame Structure and Downlink Physical Channels of LTE

One slot is reprsented as a resource block consisting of 7 symbols by 12 subcarriers or 84 resource elements(RE) per RB LTE Frame consists of 20 slots . Space between a subcarrier and the next sub carrier is 15 Khz the number of channels(sub carriers) for 20 Mhz LTE band is 1200 sub carriers. the number of channels(sub carriers) for 10 Mhz LTE band is 600 sub carriers. the number of channels(sub carriers) for 5 Mhz LTE band is 300 sub carriers

 Ts is the basic time unit for LTE. Time domain fields are typically defined in terms of Ts. Ts is defined as Ts = 1/(15000 x 2048) seconds or about 32.6 nanoseconds. Downlink and uplink transmissions are organized into frames of duration Tf= 307200 Ts. Each subframe consists of two equally sized slots of 0.5 ms in length (Tslot = 15360 Ts). Two frame types are defined for LTE: Type 1, used in Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) and Type 2, used in Time Division Duplexing (TDD).

 The useful symbol time is Tu = 2048 Ts 66.7 s. For the normal mode, the first symbol has a cyclic prefix of length TCP = 160 Ts 5.2 s. The remaining six symbols have a cyclic prefix of length TCP = 144 Ts 4.7 s.
The reason for different CP length of the first symbol is to make the overall slot length in terms of time units divisible by 15360. For the extended mode, the cyclic prefix is TCP = 512 Ts 16.7 s. The CP is longer than the typical delay spread of a few microseconds. The normal cyclic prefixs used in urban cells and high data rate applications while the extended cyclic prefix is used in special cases like multi-cell broadcast and in very large cells (e.g. rural areas, low data rate applications).

 Fdd divides the available frequency spectrum in a frequency range dedicated to UL transmission and separate range of the spectrum for the downlink spectrum A guard band is used between uplink and downlink transmission so that interference between them does not exist

 TDD make use of same frequency for both uplink and downlink transmission. But time domain is divided into slots.
A Guard interval is implemented to avoid downlink and uplink transmission.

Downlink Reference Signal

 To enable channel estimation in OFDM transmission, known reference symbols are inserted into the OFDM time-frequency grid.
Three types of reference signals are defined for the LTE downlink: Cell-specific downlink reference signals:->transmitted in every downlink subframe, and span the entire downlink cell bandwidth. UE-specific reference signal:->only transmitted within the resource blocks assigned for DL-SCH transmission to that specific terminal. The UE is informed by higher layers whether the UE specific signals is present and is valid reference for PDSCH demodulation. MBSFN reference signals

Downlink Reference Signal

To allow for coherent demodulation at the user equipment, reference symbols (or pilot symbols) are inserted in the OFDM time-frequency grid to allow for channel estimation. Downlink reference symbols are inserted within the first and third last OFDM symbol of each slot with a frequency domain spacing of six sub-carriers. The user equipment will interpolate over multiple reference symbols to estimate the channel. In case of two transmit antennas, reference signals are inserted from each antenna where the reference signals on the second antenna are offset in the frequency domain by three subcarriers.

SYNCHRONIZATION SEQUENCES
There are 2 Synchronization signals a)Primary Synchronization Sequence b) Secondary Synchronization Sequence
The detection of these signals allows the UE to complete time and frequency synchronization and to acquire useful system parameters such as cell identity, cyclic prefix length, and access mode (FDD/TDD). The UE would be able to determine the CP length by checking the absolute position of the SSS. The UE would also be able to determine the position of the 10 ms frame boundary as the SSS signal alternates in a specific manner between two transmissions.

Downlink Channels
Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) Downlink system bandwidth, System Frame Number. PHICH configuration System information such as RACH Parameter required for initial network access and UE uplink time synchronization with ENB Modulation used is QPSK

 The coded PBCH transport block is mapped to four subframes(slot #1 in subframe#0) within a 40ms interval
PBCH mapped to 4 OFDM symbols within a subframe

 Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH): It basically used to carry user data and some control information User Data depends on the resource blocks assigned to a particular user The base station allocates resource blocks based on channel quality indicator. Modulation scheme is 64QAM,16QAM ,QPSK

Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH):

PCFICH carries Information about the number of OFDM symbols (1~4) used for transmission of PDCCHs in a subframe

Cell-specific scrambling prior to modulation 2info bits->Coding rate of 1/16 Number of bits = 32bits Modulation: QPSK

PDDCH: Physical Downlink Control Channel The PDDCH is also used to indicate in which resource blocks the broadcast information not transmitted on the PBCH which include System Information Blocks (SIB) is found in PDSCH. PDDCH is used for transferring control information such Downlink and Uplink resource assignments Uplink Power Control Commands UE obtains resource allocations for uplink and downlink through this channel. Modulation and coding schemes used for downlink data. HARQ Process number. Carry scheduling information. Modulation scheme used is QPSK

LTE INITIAL ACCESS

CELL SEARCH
Mobile terminal acquires time and frequency synchronization with a cell and detects the cell ID of that cell Cell Search Procedures a) Find Primary SCH Sequence b) Find Secondary SCH Sequence C) Find Reference Signals .

DERIVEING SYSTEM INFORMATION

After cell search procedure UE try to find PBCH Channel which contains following information 1)Master Information Block After receiving the PBCH channel UE finds PDSCH channel to find 1)System Information Block Scheduling information of other System Information Blocks(SIB2, SIB3, SIB4.).

But most important of them all is SIB2 Block UE try to find the corresponding SIB block 2) System Information Block2
Random Access Channel Information used in Random Access Procedure Random Access Preamble Info HARQ info

RANDOM ACCESS PROCEDURE

In LTE all the UE uses the same shared resources to get the initial access. So Random Access Procedure is always contention based. In this procedure UE get the initial UL grant to transmit UE specific UL packets for first time. Random Access Preamble: UE selects a P-RACH configuration ID(out of 64) to be used in transmission of RA Preamble. If there is no response from the network, the UE re attempts with higher transmission power. This configuration ID is configured from higher layers. Random Access Response: eNB sends a Radom Access Response on the PDSCH to the UE , using the ID sent by the UE earlier. It sends the Timing Advance Info, UL grant for the UE on UL-SCH and a temporary C-RNTI. temp C-RNTI is used by the UE for UL-SCH scheduled transmission. RRC Connection Request The UE uses the UL grant on UL-SCH to transmit the Access Stratum Message(e.g. RRC Connection Setup Request) along with the temp C-RNTI to identify itself. The UE can indicate if it requires more resources in the UL using the MAC-Buffer Status Report(BSR). MAC Contention Resolution the eNB sends the Contention Resolution message on the PDSCH using the temp C-RNTI. This message contains the C-RNTI for the UE. After the UE receives the contention Resolution, it replaces temp-CRNTI with this CRNTI and uses it for all future UL transmissions.

User Downlink / Uplink Data TX