Long Term Evolution (LTE)

Dr. Debabrata Das IIIT-Bangalore

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Overview
Introduction LTE Bearer Protocol Architecture of LTE
Control Plane User Plane

Layer-2 of LTE
Medium Access Control (MAC) Radio Link Control (RLC) Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
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Demand Drivers for LTE & WiMAX

Growth of Internet and Rich Multimedia Solution: Broadband Wireless Communication Growth in high bandwidth application Proliferation of Smart phones by 2013 25% phones will be smart phones Flat revenue due to competition
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3GPP Road Map

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Service Evolution: Mobile Telephony to Personalized Broadband Wireless Application

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LTE Bearers
LTE mainly a Packet Switched Network LTE uses a concept of Bearer a central element to control QoS (latency, PER, data rate etc.) for different IP applications Generally Bearers are divided in TWO
Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) bearers: minimum data rate guaranteed to UE Voice, Video, Video games, real time applications Non-GBR bearers: not defines minimum guarantee bit rate to UE web browsing, email, FTP, non-real time applications
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EPS Bearer Service Architecture

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Evolved Packet System (EPS) Architecture

Each EPS bearer between Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN-GW) and UE defined
Maps sets of QoS parameters: data rate, latency, packet error rate Different applications like voice and email are put in separate bearers End-to-end connectivity done by bearer service

S5/S8 interface transport EPS bearer between Serving-Gateway (S-GW) and PDN-GW
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9-QCI (QoS Class Identifier) for LTE:

Each bearer is associated with QoS Class Identifier (QCI) delay, PER, GBR and non-GBR classification priority,

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Protocol Architecture in LTE

Protocol architecture in LTE between UE and Core network is divided into
User Plane Protocol Stack Control Plane Protocol Stack

LTE Layer-2 Protocol Stack has following Sub-Layer

Medium Access Control (MAC) Radio Link Control (RLC) Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
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LTE Protocol Stack: User Plane

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User Plane
Responsible to carry IP packets from PDN-GW to UE According to the application IP-Packet encapsulated by Evolved Packet Core (EPC) specific protocol and tunneled by GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) from PDN-GW to eNodeB From eNodeB to UE the packets are transmitted by Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
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Control Plane Protocols

Control plane used to transport signaling between Mobility Management Entity (MME) and UE Types of signaling done over control plane
Bearer Management QoS Management Mobility Management

handover, Paging

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LTE Protocol Stack: Control Plane

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Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP):

supports Control and User plane

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PDCP function in User Plane

Header compression and decompression of IP Data flows by Robust Header Compression (ROHC) protocol Ciphering and deciphering of user plane data In sequence delivery and reordering of upperlayer PDUs at handover Buffering and forwarding upper-layer PDUs from serving eNodeB to target eNodeB during handover Timer based discarding of SDUs in the uplink
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PDCP function in Control Plane

Ciphering and deciphering of control plane Data Integrity protection and verification of control plane data Transfer of control plane data

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PDCP Header Compression

LTE is packet-based; 3GPP accepted IP-based packet switched Internet MOST COST EFFECTIVE mechanism for delivering high bandwidth data Large header due to = Network Layer header (IP) + Transport Layer (TCP/UDP) + Application Layer (RTP) many information in header redundant and repetitive consumes radio resources LTE uses Robust Header Compression (ROHC) for header compression Multiple compression thechniques called Profile in compressed header shows whether compressed or not, if compressed which mechanism of ROHC used

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Header Compression Profile-LTE

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PDCP Integrity and Ciphering

Integrity: No one changes the data during transmission PDCP PDU COUNT is maintained and used as input to security algorithm COUNT is 32 bits and two parts: Hyper Frame Number (HFN) & PDCP Serial Number (SN) SN is used for reordering and duplicate detection of RLC packet at receiving end Format of Count
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Ciphering and Deciphering Function

It is performed on Control and user plane Integrity and Ciphering is applied to PDCP Data PDU Control and User plane
It is NOT used for PDCP Control PDU

Ciphering is done by upper layer Ciphering stream generated by Ciphering algorithm based on Ciphering Keys, the radio bearer identity, COUNT Value, direction of transmission and length of key stream
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MAC/RLC

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RLC - Data Transfer Mode

Each RLC entity can be operated in Three different modes
Transparent Mode (TM):
Simplest, does not add any RLC header to PDU No data segmentation or concatenation Suitable for services that do NOT need retransmission or delivery in order RRC broad cast or paging uses TM Not used for plane data
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RLC - Data Transfer Mode (Contd.)

Unacknowledged Mode (UM)
In sequence delivery of data No retransmission of lost PDU Application uses: delay sensitive, real time (VoIP) Segments or concatenate RLC SDU according to MAC PDU Makes Duplicate Detection, reordering and reassembly of UM RLC PDU

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RLC - Data Transfer Mode (Contd.)

Acknowledged Mode (AM)
Most Complex mode ask retransmission of missing PDUs + all the functionalities of UM Application use it: Error sensitive and Delay tolerant Receiving AM RLC entity sends STATUS PDU to inform transmitting RLC regarding successful reception of RLC PDUs

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Functions of Radio Link Control (RLC)

Transferring/Receiving PDUs from layers Error correction through ARQ (when RLC operates in AM mode) Concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs (only for UM and AM data transfer) Re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs (only for AM data transfer) Duplicate detection (only UM and AM data) Protocol error detection and recovery RLC re-establishment
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Functions of Medium Access Control (MAC)

LTE defines two MAC Entities: In UE and Other one in eNodeB Main Functions of MAC:
Mapping between Logical channel and transport channel of Physical layer Multiplexing and De-multiplexing of MAC SDUs belonging to one or different logical channels int/from the same transport block Scheduling for Downlink and Uplink Transmission error correction by H-ARQ Priority scheduling
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RLC Data PDU Format

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RLC PDU Format (Contd.)

Framing Info (FI) RLC SDU segmented or not Length Indicator (LI) indicates lenghth in bytes of date field Extension bit (E) field whether next data follows or set of E or LI field follows SN field: Sequence number of PDU Data/Control (D/C): indicates whether RLC PDU is a data or control Re-segmentation Flag (RF): indicates whether RLC PDU or RLC PDU segment Polling bit (P): Transmitting side of AM RLC ask for STATUS report from receiving AM RLC
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MAC PDU Format

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MAC PDU (Contd.)

MAC receives data from RLC and map it on transport block of Physical layer MAC PDU Two parts: Header and Payload MAC Payload consists of: Zero or more control element, Zero or more MAC SDUs, and padding MAC PDU Header consists of one or multiple MAC PDU sub-header Each subheader corresponds to either a MAC SDU, a MAC Control element, or padding
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MAC Sub-header
R Field: currently reserved & always 0 E filed: shows the extension of subheader; if 1, shows set of R/R/E/LCID follows, if 0 then MAC SDU, Control or padding follows LCID (logical Channel ID): identifies logical channel instance of corresponding MAC SDU/Control/padding F field: indicates size of length field. If 0, size of MAC SDU/CONTROL less than 128 bytes; if 1 larger size L filed: indicates length of MAC PDU or Control in Bytes

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Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ)

If a packet loss or erroneous transmission happens then, LTE uses one of the two layer retransmission scheme
Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (H-ARQ) fast with low latency, for highly reliable acknowledgement one use second line of repeat request referred as ARQ ARQ for highly reliable and selective repeat request for any packet loss or erroneous transmission
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References
A. Ghosh, et.al., Fundamentals of LTE, Prentice Hall www.3gpp.org

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