GSM - RADIO INTERFACE

GSM - RADIO INTERFACE

IN THIS PRESENTATION

Radio Interface Frequency Bands & Specifications

Multiple Access Method FDMA & TDMA

FDMA /TDMA Frame Representation

Logical Channels : Traffic & Control Operational Concepts Other Salient Features of RF I/F- DTX, Time Alignment Diversity, Fr. Hopping, Power Control.
2

Communication - Mobile

Subscriber Line (2W)

Inter-Exchange Junction

BSC BTS
Telephone Exchange Mobile Switching Centre (MSC)

MS

GSM RADIO INTERFACE

Most Important Interface

Full Compatibility between mobile stations of various Manufacturers & Networks of different vendors to help roaming To increase spectral efficiency -- Large number of simultaneous calls in a given bandwidth -- Frequency Reuse -- Interference -- Use of Interference Reduction Techniques
4

GSM Uplink & Downlink

Frequency Bands GSM 900 Mhz DCS 1800 MHz

B T S

GSM Specifications
RF Spectrum :
GSM 900 Mobile to BS (UP-LINK) 890 to 915 MHz BS to Mobile (DOWN -LINK) - 935 to 960 MHz Bandwidth - 25 MHz

GSM 1800 ( DCS ) :

Mobile to Cell (UP-LINK) 1710 to 1785 MHz Cell to Mobile (DOWN -LINK) - 1805 to 1880 MHz Bandwidth - 75 MHz
6

GSM Specifications
Carrier Separation Duplex Distance No. of RF Carriers - 200 kHz - 45 MHz - 124

Access Method
Modulation Method Transmission Rate Speech Coding

- TDMA/FDMA
- GMSK - 270.833 Kbps - Full rate 13 Kbps Half rate 6.5 Kbps
7

GSM - MULTIPLE ACCESS

GSM uses both FDMA & TDMA FDMA Access along Frequency axis Each RF carrier 200khz apart

Total 124 RF Channels available.

One or more carrier assigned to each base station 1 2 3 4 5 6 124

...
Freq
890.2 890.4 890.6 890.8 891.0 914.8

Mhz. 8

GSM - MULTIPLE ACCESS

Absolute Radio Freq Carrier Number (ARFCN) 1 and 124 not used until it is co-ordinated with Non -GSM operators in adjacent freq. bands. Thus for practical purposes only 122 RF Carriers are available.

Frequency for any ARFCN ( n) can be calculated from :

F up-link (n) = 890.2 +0.2* ( n-1 ) MHz F down-link (n) = 935.2 +0.2* ( n-1 ) MHz Here 124.
9

GSM FDMA
890
25 MHz
0

915
1 Mobile to Base
890.2 890.4 890.6
(MHz)

935
25 MHz
0 1 Base to Mobile
935.2 935.4

960
2

935.6

200 kHz

45MHz

200 kHz

Channel layout and frequency bands of operation

10

GSM TDMA
Amplitude

45 MHz
7 8 5 6 2 1 3 4 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 8

Frequency

F1 (Cell Rx)

F2

F1 F2 (Cell transmit)

Typical TDMA/ FDMA frame structure

11

GSM Digital Voice Transmission

Speech Coding
- In GSM speech coding a block of 20 ms is encoded in one set of 260 bits.
- This calculates as 50X 260 = 13 kbps. Thus GSM speech coder produces a bit rate of 13 kbps per subscriber. - This provides speech quality which is acceptable for mobile telephony and comparable with wire-line PSTN phones.

12

Speech Coding

Speech Signal 20 ms 01100011000111110011100 Speech Code

Parameters like tone,length of tone,pitch are transmitted Sampling=50 times/sec instead of 8000 of 260 bits each overall bitrate= 50x260x8 subs=104kbps
13

Channel Coding
3 parity bits
Very important bits Block coder 53 bits 1:2 Convolutional Coder 4 Tail bits 378 bits 456

260 bits
50

132 Important bits

78

Not so important bits

Detection & correction of errors

14

GSM Digital Voice Transmission

Channel Coding
- It uses 260 bits from speech coding as input and outputs 456 encoded bits.

Interleaving
- These 456 bits for every 20 ms of speech are interleaved forming eight blocks of 57 bits each.

- In one burst one block of 57 bits from one sample and another block from another sample are sent together.

15

GSM Digital Voice Transmission

Burst Formatting To counteract the problems encountered in radio path:
- Additional bits as training sequence added to basic speech/data. - Total of 136 bits added, bringing overall total to 592 bits. - Each TS of TDMA frame is 0.577 ms long and during this time 156.25 bits are transmitted. - One burst contains only 148 bits. Rest of the space, 8.25 bits time, is empty and is called Guard Period ( GP ). - GP enables MS/BTS to ramp up and ramp down.
16

Interleaving & Burst Formatting

1st Sample of 20 ms speech 456 bits Sample 1
D D D D D D D D D D D

2nd Sample of 20 ms speech 456 bits Sample 2

D D D D D

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Stream of Time Slots

57

26

57

8.25

Normal Burst
17

GSM
Speech to Radio waves
Analog
Analog

Speech Coding Channel Coding

Speech Decoding Channel Decoding

Interleaving Burst formatting

De-interleaving Burst formatting

Ciphering
Modulation
200kHz BW

Deciphering
Demodulation
200kHz BW
19

TIME

FDMA/TDMA Scheme

BP2 BP1 BP8 BP7 BP6 BP5 BP4 BP3 BP2 BP1 890.0 890.2 890.4 890.6 890.8 891.0 891.2

BURST

F
R A M E FREQ MHz 915.8
20

3 CC SMS T CM

SS

142 Fixed Bits

8.25 GP

FCCH Burst

3 CC SMS SS 57 T CM Encrypted

1 S

26 Training

1 S

57 Encrypted

3 T

8.25 GP

Normal Burst
21

GSM RF INTERFACE Other Salient Features Of GSM RF INTERFACE:

- Control of Transmitted Power. - Discontinuous Transmission. - Timing Advance. - Diversity. - Frequency Hopping.

22

POWER CONTROL
To minimize co-channel interference and to conserve power, both the Mobile and BTS operate at the lowest power level that will maintain an acceptable signal quality. Mobile decides that power level is acceptable using bit errors ratio.

23

DISCONTINUOUS TRANSMISSION (DTX)

The idea is based on the fact that a person speaks less than 40% of time in normal conversation, so turning the transmitter off can save power. In order to distinguish voice and background noise, very accurate Voice Activity Detector should be used. While transmitter is off, the receiving end will hear a total silence, i.e. due to digital transmission. To avoid this, comfort noise is generated trying to match the characteristics of background noise.
24

DISCONTINUOUS RECEPTION (DRX)

While being in Idle Mobile Station has to listen only to Paging Channel, that uses almost no power.

25

DISCONTINUOUS TRANSMISSION (DTX)

Speech activity only 40% of time. Needs Voice activity detection. Determination of voice threshold vis--vis noise. Annoying clicks/inefficient DTX.

Generation of Comfort Noise at receiver to avoid the feeling of the set being dead.
26

GSM RF Interface
Timing Alignment :
- Large distance between BTS and MS causes the problem. - Each MS on call is allocated a timeslot on TDMA frame. - The problem occurs when the information transmitted by MS does not reach BTS on allocated timeslot.
TDMA Frame

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
TS3 TS2

B on TS2

A on TS3
27

BTS

GSM RF Interface Timing Advance : ( To counteract problem of Time Alignment )

- MS instructed to do its transmission certain bit-times earlier or later to reach its timeslot at BTS in right time. - In GSM systems maximum 63 bit-times can be used. - This limits the GSM cell size to 35 Km radius. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Time Start Sending

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

28

GSM RF Interface Antenna Diversity :

Space Diversity - Mounting two receiver antenna physically separated a distance. - Probability of both of them being affected by a deep fading dip at same time is low. - At 900 MHz with antenna spacing of 5-6 m we get 3 db gain.

Polarization Diversity - Dual polarized antenna vertical and horizontal arrays.

Tx Tx Rx Rx (A) Rx ( B)

29

No Diversity

Antenna Diversity

FREQUENCY HOPPING
Change of frequency after every frame in a pre-determined manner
SFH improves performance in multi-path fading Provides interference diversity

Decreases required C/I

Mandatory for MS when requested by BS FCCH ,SCH ,BCCH are not hopped Algorithm : Cyclic or pseudorandom

30

GSM - RADIO INTERFACE

SUMMARY Radio Interface Frequency Bands & Specifications Multiple Access Method FDMA & TDMA FDMA /TDMA Frame Representation

Logical Channels Traffic & Control

Operational Concepts Other Salient Features of RF I/F- DTX, Time Alignment Diversity, Fr. Hopping, Power Control.
31