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Physical Channel Types of Lte
Physical Channel Types of Lte
Physical Channel Types of Lte
16QAM or 64QAM modulation form. Physical channels determine how data is processed and then mapped via dynamical scheduling onto resource blocks. Thus physical channels also in EUTRAN represent the available physical resources. Like transport channels, also physical channels are unidirectional. There is usually a fixed linkage between transport channel types and physical channel type used to transmit the transport blocks. Next to the physical channels that are used to carry transport channels, there are also physical channels that carry physical layer control data and physical signals that are mainly used for synchronization and measurement purposes. On the downlink side we have the following: PBCH (Physical Broadcast Channel): The PBCH is the physical channel used to carry BCH (BCCH), in other words on this channel the system information can be found. It will use a fixed mapping onto resource blocks. There will be one PBCH per cell. PDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel): The PDSCH can carry DL-SCH or PCH. Thus this channel type will allocate most of the capacity in a cell. It is still under investigation how many PDSCHs a cell can have and how many PCH and DL-SCH a single PDSCH can carry. PMCH (Physical Multicast Channel): This channel type is used to carry MCH. It implements the option of MBSFN where a UE receives the PMCH from several cells operating in the same area on the same frequency band. All the PMCH will be jointly decoded by the UE. This would allow a UE to do cell re-selection without interrupting MBMS services. PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel): This is a pure physical layer control channel. It contains the scheduler signaling to inform the UEs about the coming downlink (and maybe also uplink) resource block assignments to PDSCH. The PDCCH will be sent in each subframe shortly before PDSCH starts. PCFICH (Physical Control Format Indicator Channel): The PCFICH is like the PDCCH a pure physical layer control channel. It indicates how many OFDM symbols are used to encode the PDCCH. So the order of decoding for a UE is to read first the PCFICH to get the PDCCH format. Then the PDCCH is decoded to find out which resource blocks to the PDSCH of interest for the UE. DL Synchronization Signal: There are two DL synchronization signals a primary and a secondary one. Both consist of predefined code sequence to be used for cell detection and initial time and frequency synchronization. Both synchronization sequences are transmitted within slot 0 and slot 10 of each
radio frame (frame type 1). The synchronization signals always use 2 subcarrier centered around the DC subcarrier. For the primary synchronization signal there will be three distinct code sequences defined, which one is applicable for a cell is determined by the cell identity. This can be used as some form of cell color code to distinguish direct neighbors. DL Reference Signal: Reference signals allow coherent decoding and permanently repeated channel estimation. Therefore in each slot (and each resource block) some OFDM symbols are reserved for reference signals and cannot be used for data transmission. The reference signals itself are created from an orthogonal and a pseudo-noise sequence. This allows efficient channel and phase detection at the receiver side. In the uplink there some less physical channels defined: PUSCH (Physical Uplink Shared Channel): The PUSCH is the major uplink channel, because on it we will find the transport blocks of UL-SCH on which all radio bearers uplink occur. Like PDSCH also the PUSCH is dynamically assigned to uplink resource blocks. This happens via so called UL Assignments which are not completely specified yet. The PUSCH supports DTX, HARQ and at least QPSK and 16QAM. 64QAM is under investigation for this channel. PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel): This is a pure physical layer control channel. One idea is to use this channel for UL capacity requests and HARQ ACK/NACK indications by the UE as well as CQI (Carrier Quality Indication) feedback information to optimize CDS and MIMO. PRACH (Physical Random Access Channel): The PRACH carries the RACH. Currently this means, that the PRACH simply transmits preamble sequences that act as initial access request for UL and DL resources when the UE is RRC_IDLE. Demodulation Reference Signal: Some OFDM symbols of the resource block assigned to PUCCH/PUSCH are reserved for the demodulation reference signal. Like in downlink also here the reference signal is a predefined code sequence that allows the eNB coherent decoding of the transmitted SC-FDMA signal. The eNB derives from it phase and frequency correction, channel estimation and time synchronization. Sounding Reference Signal: The sounding reference signal is a very long reference sequence that is transmitted by the UE only on explicit request by the network. It is used for a very detailed channel estimation especially when MIMO is in use. This information is required for efficient decoding, but also for efficient channel dependent scheduling (CDS). TRANSPORT CHANNEL TYPES OF LTE
Transport channels are used as the basic transmission service offered by layer 1 to MAC. MAC will use transport channels to multiplex and demultiplex logical channels onto and from them. In contrast to logical channel types, referring to the type of information transmitted, transport channel types are used to indicate the transport characteristics. This means that certain transport channel type is associated with certain bit rates (transport block sizes, number of blocks), a transmission time interval (the time it takes to send one transport block set), delay, support for HARQ, support for beam-forming, support for DRX/DTX, and so on. Transport channels are always unidirectional, in the downlink List as the following: BCH (Broadcast Channel): The BCH is a transport channel with fixed transport format. It is used to transmit the BCCH in the entire cell. It will only support QPSK modulation and no HARQ or beam-forming is allowed. PCH (Paging Channel): The PCH is used to carry the PCCH. In contrast to BCH there might be beam-forming applied to PCH, but still no HARQ is available. Also the channel supports at least QPSK and 16QAM as modulation scheme and DRX. DL-SCH (DL Shared Channel): This is the major transport channel in the downlink direction. It is used to carry mainly DCCH and DTCH. But also BCCH, MCCH and if required MTCH can be sent on it. The channel supports HARQ, beam-forming and all modulation schemes QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM. The DLSCH will support DRX and DTX on UE side to reduce power consumption of end terminals. MCH (Multicast Channel): The MCH is used for broadcast and multicast MBMS services. It thus carries MTCH and MCCH. It will allow at least QPSK and 16QAM as modulation scheme, 64QAM is under investigation. Obviously HARQ cannot be supported as MTCH/MCCH are point-to-multipoint channels. This channel has a unique special property, as UEs are able to combine MCH signals from different cells using the same frequency (MBSFN= Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Networks). In this case all MBSFN cells must use the same MCH configuration and must be synchronized with each other. In the uplink there are only two transport channel defined: RACH (Random Access Channel): The RACH is used as initial access request by the UE to the network. Currently it does not contain logical information, rather the RACH is formed by a special layer 1 preamble that acts as a channel request message. It is under investigation whether the RACH should be able to carry logical channel information. UL-SCH (UL Shared Channel): The UL-SCH is the only uplink transport channel able to carry logical channel data. Thus CCCH, DTCH and DCCH run over this channel. It supports HARQ and at least QPKS and 16QAM.
Logical channels are in a one-to-one fashion associated with radio bearers. Logical channel types are used to distinguish the type of information transmitted within the attached radio bearer. The two major groups of logical channel types are therefore control channels for signaling and traffic channels for IP user data. Currently the following logical channel types are defined for EUTRAN signaling: BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel): The BCCH is used to transmit system information regarding access and non-access stratum. It allows the UE to retrieve cell and network configuration parameters (e.g. PLMN code, cell identity, cell reselection parameters, etc.) required for normal operation within EUTRAN. PCCH (Paging Control Channel): The PCCH is used to transmit the paging messages from RRC. Hence it is a downlink point-to-multipoint channel a UE is using when it is in LTE_IDLE mode. CCCH (Common Control Channel): The CCCH is an uplink (NOTE: DL is under investigation.) RRC signaling channel used by UEs to do the initial access signaling when it is in RRC_IDLE state and wants to enter RRC_CONNECTED state. The UE will send only one message (RRC CONNECTION REQUEST) and the rest of the communication takes place on DCCH. DCCH (Dedicated Control Channel): The DCCH is a bidirectional RRC signaling channel used for point-to-point (dedicated) RRC and NAS signaling procedures. It is the main signaling channel to be used by RRC_CONNECTED UEs. MCCH (Multicast Control Channel): The MCCH is associated with MBMS. It allows the eNB to inform UEs that want to listen to broadcast or multicast service traffic about availability of such services and about the associated MBMS radio bearer (point-to-multipoint) radio bearers. On the traffic channel side we have currently only two types defined: DTCH (Dedicated Traffic Channel): The DTCH is used for user radio bearers carrying IP traffic. The eNB connects DTCHs with their associated S1-U tunnel to the SAE GW. DTCH can be bidirectional, uplink only or downlink only. DTCH are of course point-to-point. MTCH (Multicast Traffic Channel): The MTCH is a point-to-multipoint traffic channel for MBMS. It carries IP traffic for broadcast or multicast services driven by the MBMS feature.
1. Data is generated by either signaling control protocols (RRC, NAS) or by some application on the UEs IP stack. An associated chunk of bits is sent to layer 2 within the appropriate radio bearer. 2. The first protocol that handles the data frame is PDCP. For IP datagrams it will compress the IP (or IP/TCP, IP/UDP, IP/UDP/RTP) header according RFC 3095 (ROHC). Note that this is not applicable to signaling radio bearers. The second step within PDCP is encryption of the data packet. 3. Next comes RLC. For all radio bearers the associated RLC instance has to perform segmentation or concatenation or padding to generate bit frames (RLC PDU) that will fit into the transport channels. If the RLC entity of a radio bearer works in acknowledged mode (AM), then the data is sent through the ARQ function, which will buffer the packet in a retransmission buffer until the frame has been positively acknowledged. If the RLC entity is not in acknowledged mode, this step is obviously skipped. 4. RLC PDUs from all logical channels arrive then at the MAC protocol. Here the UEs uplink scheduler has to decide, which logical channel will be served and multiplexed onto a transport channel. It is possible to combine several data units from different logical channels in one transport block, a multiplexer handles this. 5. The lower part of the MAC entity is the HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Retransmission on reQuest) entity. Note that only certain transport channel types (UL-SCH) can have this unit. Here the assembled transport block from the multiplexer will be stored in one of the HARQs buffers and simultaneously sent to the physical layer. If the eNB receives the transport block correctly, it will send an ACK indication via a special physical channel. This would delete the transport channel from the buffer. If no indication or a NACK indication is received, the HARQ entity will retransmit the transport block. Each retransmission can be done with different encoding in the physical layer. Therefore MAC will tell the physical layer, whether a transport block is new or is the nth retransmission. 6. The physical layer takes the transport block and encodes it for transmission on air.
are within 10 ms, whereas RRC signaling usually takes something around 100 ms and more to complete an operation. The RRC functional list is of course quite long. System Information Broadcasting: The NAS and access stratum configuration of the network and the cell must be available to any UE camping on a cell. This information is coded as RRC message. Paging: To locate an LTE_IDLE UE within a tracking area the RRC protocol defines a paging signaling message and the associated UE behavior. RRC Connection Management: The UE can have two major radio states: RRC_CONNECTED or RRC_IDLE. To switch between the states an RRC connection establishment and release procedure is defined. With the state RRC_CONNECTED the existence of signaling radio bearers and UE identifiers (CRNTI) is associated. EUTRAN Security: Access layer security in EUTRAN consists of ciphering (PDCP) and integrity protection for RRC messages. Management of Point-to-Point Radio Bearers: Point-to-point radio bearers are signaling and user data radio bearers for SAE bearers. RRC is used to create, modify and delete such radio bearers including the associated lower layer configuration (logical channels, RLC mode, transport channels, multiplexing, ). Mobility Functions: When a UE is in state LTE_ACTIVE, the mobility control is at the eNB. This includes handover from one EUTRAN cell to another or also inter system changes. To assist handover decisions in the eNB RRC defines procedures for measurement control and reporting. In LTE_IDLE mode the UE performs automatic cell re-selection, RRC takes control over this process within the UE. MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service): RRC is used to inform UEs about available MBMS services in a cell and is also used to track UEs that registered for a certain multicast service. This allows the eNB to manage MBMS radio bearers which are usually point-to-multipoint. QoS Control: The RRC protocol will be QoS aware, allowing implementation of radio bearers with different QoS within the UE. Transfer of NAS Messages: NAS messages are sent and received through the EUTRAN protocol stack. RRC provides carrier services for such messages. RRC will use one or two radio bearers exclusively used for signaling (Signaling Radio Bearers). One will be for high, the other for low priority. The PDCP entities of these signaling radio bearers will be used for ciphering, but not for header compression. The RRC protocol in EUTRAN defines two state for a UE: RRC_IDLE and RRC_CONNECTED. In the first state, the UE is not attached to a eNB and does free cell re-selection. In the second state the UE is connected to a eNB and the eNB handles all mobility related aspects of the UE via handovers. There is of course a close relationship between LTE-states and RRC states.
HOW MANY DIFFERENT METHODS TO COMBINE OFDMA FOR HANDLE MULTIUSER SYSTEM?
hrere are four Different Methods to Combine OFDMA for handle Multiuser System. Plain OFDM: Normal OFDM has no built-in multiple-access mechanism. This is suitable for broadcast systems like DVB-T/H which transmit only broadcast and multicast signals and do not really need an uplink feedback channel (although such systems exist too). Packet Statistical Multiplexing: It is of course possible to combine a plain OFDM with some layer 2 protocol that takes over all addressing issues. In this case all receivers must listen to the same signal, decode it completely and then decide in higher layers whether to go on with it or to discard the packet. A typical example for such an approach is 802.11a/g/n, where the MAC layer on top of the physical layer (which is OFDM capable) puts MAC addresses in all frames to indicate source and destination. A problem of such systems is power saving to increase standby and
operation time. Normally all receivers have to listen to all packets and decode them. Power saving mode in such a system is difficult and usually not very efficient. Time Division Multiple Access via OFDM: The simplest model to implement multiple access handling is by putting a time multiplexing on top of OFDM. In other words all except some system specific subcarriers go to user 1 in the first symbol period, then come user 2, user 3 and so on. After some time we repeat this multiplexing scheme. The disadvantage of this simple mechanism is, that every user gets the same amount of capacity (subcarriers) and it is thus rather difficult to implement flexible high and low bit rate services. Furthermore it is nearly impossible to handle highly variable traffic (e.g. web traffic) efficiently without too much higher layer signaling and the resulting delay and signaling overhead. The 802.11 WirelessMAN-OFDM specification form selected time division multiplexing on the uplink direction as method. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access OFDMA: The term OFDMA is a registered trademark by Runcom Ltd. and was introduced with 802.16 (WiMAX) Wireless MAN-OFDMA for the downlink. The basic ideas is, to assign subcarriers to users and not time. This has the advantage that a single user can easily use multiple subcarriers to increase the bit rate. With this approach it is quite easy to handle high and low bit rate users simultaneously in a single system. But still it is difficult to run highly variable traffic efficiently. The solution to this problem is to assign to a single users so called resource blocks or scheduling blocks. Such block is simply a set of some subcarriers over some time efficiently it is a combination of TDMA with plain OFDMA. The blocks can be equal sized or not and a single user can use one or more blocks. 802.16d uses such a mechanism with variable block sizes. The first OFDM symbols in each frame are used to indicate which user gets which blocks with which size. EUTRAN will use a similar system, but with fixed block sizes and the assignment mechanism is not specified yet (2007-08).
arrive with a time offset, so that the start of the symbol of the earliest path falls in the cyclic prefixes of the delayed symbols. As the CP is simply a repetition of the end of the symbol this is not an inter-symbol interference and can be easily compensated by the following decoding based on discrete Fourier transform. Of course cyclic prefixes reduce the number of symbols one can transmit during a time interval. This method to deal with inter-symbol interference from multi-path propagation is theoretically sub-optimal. CDMA with RAKE receiver for instance provides a much better efficiency. On the other hand non-ideal implementations of RAKE receivers also degrade system performance drastically but still require a lot of hardware capacity for the basic implementation. The rectangular pulse with cyclic prefix requires far less hardware, so the free capacity can be used to implement other performance optimization techniques like MIMO.
distortion from phase offsets and from the channel propagation (multi-path propagation) on it. Thus the next step is to correct the data according to the known channel response. The channel estimation uses the pilot and reference signals that are interleaved with the normal data at predefined positions to estimate and permanently correct the channel state information. A nice thing of the frequency domain representation is, that a distortion coming from channel propagation and time offset are in first order simple correction factors to each subcarrier, so that no complex filtering is required here. After we have corrected our data symbols for each subcarrier, the symbol demapping can take place. Here we recover the original bit sequence either as hard decided bits or as soft decided bits. (Soft bits have some advantages in the further processing, namely in the channel decoding.)
LTE/EPC will be QoS aware from the very beginning on and not have QoS as an addon, which is usually not very efficient. Expected New Spectrum allocation: It is expected to get some new frequency bands assigned to 3G. LTE should be ready to use these bands. Flexible Bandwidth usage: LTE should be able to deal with frequency bands of different size. So a fixed bandwidth ultra-wideband system is not of big use. Rather LTE should be able to scale the frequency requirements dependent on the operators choice. Reduced Terminal Complexity: 3G terminals are very complex and thus suffer often from poor performance due to hardware limitations and very often also software limitations (or bugs). LTE terminals should have essentially lower complexity. This would also offer the possibility to implement other performance enhancement techniques later on. These points result in a long list of requirements for LTE/EPC. So 3GPP/ETSI demand to have downlink bit rates of greater than 100 Mbps and uplink bit rates of 50 Mbps. Of high importance is also to increase the cell edge bit rates compared to HSPA.
BENEFITS OF LTE/EPC
Fully packet-oriented mobile broadband network providing: - Peak data rates of 100 Mbps (DL) and 50 Mbps (UL) Very low latency Seamless and lossless handover - Sophisticated QoS to support important real time applications such as voice, video and interactive gaming - Support for terminal speeds of 150-500 Km/h and cell ranges of up to 100 Km. Reduced cost per bit: LTE/EPC deploys a simplified architecture and open interfaces. It is full IP-based and uses IP transport. In this way it utilizes low-cost equipment and infrastructure. Additionally this contributes to reduction of operational costs. Further sophisticated features like self-configuration / self-optimization capabilities are beneficial in this context. Maximized exploitation of frequency resources: LTE provides high throughput per cell and supports flexible frequency bandwidths and in particular allows for re-farming of existing and deployment of new frequency bands. Furthermore by means of OFDM, MIMO, HARQ etc. an outstanding spectrum efficiency can be achieved. Extended interworking functionality: LTE/EPC provides seamless mobility with other 3GPP access systems (UMTS, GPRS), with 3GPP2/cdma2000 and where possible with non-3GPP (e.g. WLAN). Reduced terminal complexity:
Due to the specific transmission schemes the complexity of the terminals is kept reasonable. Also the power consumption shall be minimized. Both contributes to cost reduction and makes it attractive for mass market deployment.
Broadcast Channel (BCH) o A fixed TF o Used for transmission of parts of BCCH, so called MIB Paging Channel (PCH) o Used for transmission of paging information from PCCH o Supports discontinuous reception (DRX) Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH) o Main transport channel used for transmission of downlink data in LTE o Used also for transmission of parts of BCCH, so called SIB o Supports discontinuous reception (DRX) Multicast Channel (MCH) o Used to support MBMS
Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH) o Uplink counterpart to the DL-SCH Random Access Channel(s) (RACH) o Transport channel which doesnt carry transport blocks o Collision risk
Control Channels o o o
o o
:used for transmission of system information from the network to all UEs in a cell. Paging Control Channel (PCCH) :used for paging of UEs whose location on cell level is not known to the network. Common Control Channel (CCCH) :used for transmission of control information in conjunction with random access, i.e., used for UEs having no RRC connection. Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH) :used for transmission of control information to/from a UE, i.e., used for UEs having RRC connection (e.g. handover messages). Multicast Control Channel (MCCH) :used for transmission of control information required for reception of MTCH.
Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH) :used
Traffic Channels o o
to/from a UE.
Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH)
GBR bearer: Guaranteed bit rate Non-GBR bearer: No guaranteed bit rate
Establishment time o o o o o o
Default bearer Established when UE connects to PDN Provides always-on connectivity Always non-GBR Dedicated bearer established later Can be GBR or non-GBR
QoS class identifier (QCI): This is a number which describes the error rate and delay that are associated with the service. Allocation and retention priority (ARP): This determines whether a bearer can be dropped if the network gets congested, or whether it can cause other bearers to be dropped. Emergency calls might be associated with a high ARP.
o o
High interference indicator The high-interference indicator provides information to neighboring cells about the part of the cell bandwidth upon which the cell intends to schedule its celledge users. Because cell-edge users are susceptible to inter-cell interference, upon receiving the high-interference indicator, a cell might want to avoid scheduling certain subsets of its own users on this part of the bandwidth. Overload indicator The overload indicator provides information on the uplink interference level experienced in each part of the cell bandwidth. A cell receiving the overload indicator may reduce the interference generated on some of these resource blocks by adjusting its scheduling strategy.
The availability of multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be utilized in different ways to achieve different aims:
o Multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be used to provide additional diversity against fading on the radio channel. In this case, the channels experienced by the different antennas should have low mutual correlation, implying the need for a sufficiently large interantenna distance (spatial diversity), or the use of different antenna polarization directions (polarization diversity).
Multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be used to shape the overall antenna beam (transmit beam and receive beam respectively) in a certain way for example, to maximize the overall antenna gain in the direction of the target receiver/transmitter or to suppress specific dominant interfering signals. Such beam-forming can be based either on high or low fading correlation between the antennas.
The simultaneous availability of multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver can be used to create what can be seen as multiple parallel communication channels over the radio interface. This provides the possibility for very high bandwidth utilization without a corresponding reduction in power efficiency or, in other words, the possibility for very high data rates within a limited bandwidth without a disproportionately large degradation in terms of coverage. Herein we will refer to this as spatial multiplexing. It is often also referred to as MIMO (Multi-Input Multi- Output) antenna processing.
Physical Downlink Shared Channel ( PDSCH) o This channel is used for unicastand paging functions. o Carries the DL-SCH and PCH. o QPSK,16-QAM,and 64-QAM Modulation.
Physical Downlink Control Channel (PCSCH) o o o
Informs the UE about the resource allocation of PCH and DL-SCH, and Hybrid ARQ information related to DL-SCH. Carries the uplink scheduling grant. QPSK Modulation.
LTE Uplink Physical Channel Physical HARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) o o o o o Used to report the Hybrid ARQ status Carries Hybrid ARQ ACK/NAKs in response to uplink transmissions. QPSK Modulation This physical channel carries system information for UEs requiring to access the network. QPSK Modulation.
Supports UE discontinuous reception (DRX) to enable UE power saving. Broadcasts in the entire coverage area of the cell. Mapped to physical resources which can be used dynamically also for traffic/other control channels. The LTE transport channel maps to Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH).
o o o o o
Fixed, pre-defined transport format. Broadcast in the entire coverage area of the cell. Broadcasts in the entire coverage area of the cell. Supports MBSFN combining of MBMS transmission on multiple cells. Supports semi-static resource allocation e.g.with a time frame of along cyclic prefix. Main channel for downlink data transfer. It is used by many logical channels. Supports Hybrid ARQ. Supports dynamic link adaptation by varying the modulation, coding and transmit power. Optionally supports broadcast in the entire cell. Optionally supports beam forming. Supports both dynamic and semi-static resource allocation. Supports UE discontinuous reception (DRX) to enable UE power saving. Supports MBMS transmission.
o o
Role of Radio Access Network (RAN), namely NodeB and RNC is replaced with ENB, so as to reduce operational and maintenance cost of the device other than the simpler network architecture E-nodeB functions: all radio protocols, mobility management, header compression and all packet retransmissions As a network,E-UTRAN is simply a mesh of eNodeBs connected to neighboring eNodeBs with the X2 interface.