CDMA System Aspects

CDMA System Aspects

Contents
1 Power Control in CDMA 2
1.1 Introduction 2
1.1.1 Effect of No Power Control 2
1.1.2 The NEAR – FAR Problem 2
1.2 Classification of Power Control Techniques 4
1.2.1 According to update strategies 4
1.2.2 According to direction of transmission 6
1.2.3 According to techniques 8
2 Rake Receiver 9
2.1 Rake Receiver Theory and Structure 9
3 Handoff Versus Handover 11
3.1 Handoff Versus Handover 11
3.2 Soft Handover 11
3.2.1 The Importance Of Soft Handoff 11
3.3 Softer Handover 12
4 Multiuser Detection 14
4

1
 CDMA System Aspects

1 Power Control in CDMA

1.1 Introduction
Power control is one of the most important system requirement, and it is analyzed for
cellular networks based on FDMA and TDMA, and for DS-CDMA cellular networks, In most
modern systems, both base stations and mobiles have the capability of real-time (dynamic)
adjustment of their transmit powers.

1.1.1 Effect of NO Power Control:

In case of no power control, if a mobile station signal is received at the base station with
a too low level of received power [MS is far from the cell site, or in an unusual high
attenuation channel], High level of interference is experienced by this mobile and its
performance (BER) will be degraded.
On the other hand, if the received power level is too high, the performance of this mobile
is acceptable, but increases interference to all other mobile stations that are using the same
channel.
Fast power control greatly optimizes the system capacity,but since many subscribers
transmit in the same frequency band and the same frequency can be used in each cell
(re-use = 1), each user can cause interference for the others.
The power control is used to solve the called “NEAR-FAR” problem.

1.1.2 The (NEAR – FAR) Problem

In ideal cases, the power received at the BTS is identical for all UE served by the BTS
(assuming the transfer rates are identical). This ideal situation also represents the
maximum capacity of the cell.
Genuine fast power control is necessary because of the mobility of the UE. This mobility
causes rapid variation in the attenuation of the power of the UE. Let us consider the shown
example:
If the mobiles are permitted to transmit the same power from two different distances, the
ratio of the received signals at the base station will be not equal. Therefore, the objective of
the mobile power control is to produce a nominal received power from all mobiles in a given
cell or a sector. Because of that, well-defined power control is essential for proper
functioning of the DS-CDMA system. In the absence of power control the capacity of the
DS-CDMA mobile system is very low, even lower than that of mobile systems based on
FDMA.
One of the reasons for the use of power control both in FDMA/TDMA and in DS-CDMA
networks is to prolong battery life by using a minimum of transmitter power to achieve the
required transmission quality. According to the above-mentioned facts, for proper operation
of a modern high-capacity cellular radio system, power control is an essential feature.

2
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.1

Fig.2

3
 CDMA System Aspects

1.2 Classification of Power Control Techniques

According to what is measured to determine power control command, power
control techniques can be classified into:
1. Strength-based.
2. SIR-based.
3. BER-based.
1. Strength-based.
The strength of a signal arriving at the base station from a mobile is measured to
determine whether it is higher or lower than the desired strength and then it is adjusted so it
is considered the easiest method.
2. SIR-based.
The measured quantity is the Signal to Interference Ratio where interference consists of
channel noise and multi-user interference. SIR-based power control reflects better system
performance such as QoS and capacity. A serious problem associated with SIR-based
power control is the potential to get positive feedback to endanger the stability of the
system.
3. BER-based.
Bit Error Rate is defined as an average number of erroneous bits compared to the
original sequence of bits. If the signal and interference powers are constant, the BER will
be a function of the SIR, and in this case the QoS is equivalent. However, in reality the SIR
is time-variant and thus the average SIR will not correspond to the average BER. In this
case the BER is a better quality measure.

1.2.1 According to update strategies, power control

algorithms can be classified as follows:
1. Fixed step size algorithm
2. Adaptive step size to the channel variation
1. Fixed step size algorithm
Power control command in fixed step size algorithms is a simple 1-bit command. It has
been shown that the inverse algorithm is superior to the fixed step size algorithm. However,
the fixed step size algorithm is easier to implement because the inverse algorithm needs
additional bandwidth on the return channel to carry the power control step size instead of
the1-bit control command as in fixed step size algorithm. A compromise would be to use an
adaptive delta-modulation algorithm.
2. Adaptive step size to the channel variation
A specific example of the adaptive step size approach is the inverse update algorithm,
which increases or decreases the mobile users' transmit power by the actual difference
between the received signal power and the desired received signal power.

4
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.3

5
 CDMA System Aspects

1.2.2 According to direction of transmission

, power control can be classified into:
1. Forward link (from mobiles to base stations).
2. Reverse link (from base stations to mobiles).
1. Forward link power control:
Forward link (base station to mobile) power control is a one step process .The base
station controls its transmitting power so that a given mobile receives extra power to
overcome fading, interference, BER, etc. In this mechanism, the cell site reduces its
transmitting power while the mobile computes the frame error rate (FER). Once the mobile
detects 1% FER, it sends a request to stop the power reduction.
2. Reverse Link Power Control
Power control for the reverse link is a combined technique consisting of closed-loop and
open-loop power controls. Also, it is a fixed step size algorithm and strength-based
distributed algorithm. The goal of open-loop power control is the estimation of a path loss
and a loss due to shadowing between the base and the mobile station. According to this
process, the mobiles transmit the initial power control signal.
However, multipath fading in a reverse and a forward DS-CDMA link is an independent
process since the frequency separation of these links is 45MHz and it greatly exceeds the
coherent bandwidth of the channel. Thus, closed-loop power control is used. Every cell site
demodulator measures the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from each mobile station.
The measured SNR is compared to the desired SNR for that mobile station and a power
adjustment command is sent to the mobile station. This power adjustment command is
combined with the mobile station open-loop estimate to obtain the final value of the mobile
station transmit power. The base station measures the signal quality (BER) and based on
that determines the desired SNR for specific mobile station. In previously described power
control technique, the subscribers are power controlled by the base station of their own cell.
However, the interference level from subscribers in other cells varies not only according to
the attenuation in the path to the subscriber's cell site, but also inversely to the attenuation
from the interfering user to his own cell site, which through power control by that cell site
may increase or decrease the interference to the desired cell site. It has been shown that
the maximal number of subscribers in the cell is the highest when there are no subscribers
in the neighboring cells. As the number of subscribers in the neighboring cells increases the
maximal number of subscribers in the cell decreases.
Power control for DS-CDMA reverse link is the single most important system
requirement because of the Near/ Far effect. In this case, it is necessary to have a dynamic
range for control. For the forward link, no power control is required in a single cell system,
since all signals are transmitted together and hence vary together. However in multiple cell
systems, interference from neighboring cell sites fades independently from the given cell
site and thereby degrades performance. Thus it is necessary to apply power control in this
case also, to reduce intercell interference.

6
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.4

7
 CDMA System Aspects

1.2.3 According to techniques, power control

can be classified as follows:
1. Open-loop power control.
2. Closed-loop power control.
3. Outer loop power control
1. Open-loop power control
Reverse link (mobile to base station) open loop power control is accomplished by
adjusting the mobile transmit power so that the received signal at the base station is
constant irrespective of the mobile distance; where each mobile computes the relative path
loss and compensates the loss by adjusting its transmitting power. The total received power
at the cell site is the sum of all powers, which determines the system capacity.

2. Closed-loop power control

Closed-loop power control is accomplished by means of power up or power down
command originating from the cell site. A single power control bit is inserted into the
forward encoded data stream, the mobile responds by adjusting the power. In order to
lower processing delay and to save bandwidth in the forward link, command bits for power
control from the base to the mobile station are not coded and they are susceptible to errors.

3. Outer Loop PC
Signal to interference ratio is varied, to guarantee QoS (BER,..)

Fig.5

8
CDMA System Aspects

2 RAKE Receiver

2.1 RAKE Receiver Theory and Structure

A spread-spectrum signal waveform is well matched to the multipath channel. In a
multipath channel, the original transmitted signal reflects from obstacles such as buildings,
and mountains, and the receiver receives several copies of the signal with different delays.
If the signals arrive more than one chip apart from each other, the receiver can resolve
them. Actually, from each multipath signal’s point of view, other multipath signals can be
regarded as interference and they are suppressed by the processing gain. However, a
further benefit is obtained if the resolved multipath signals are combined using RAKE
receiver. Thus, the signal waveform of CDMA signals facilitates utilization of multipath
diversity. Expressing the same phenomenon in the frequency domain means that the
bandwidth of the transmitted signal is larger than the coherence bandwidth of the channel
and the channel is frequency selective (i.e., only part of the signal is affected by the fading).
RAKE receiver consists of correlators, each receiving a multipath signal. After
despreading by correlators, the signals are combined using, for example, maximal ratio
combining. Since the received multipath signals are fading independently, diversity order
and thus performance are improved.
After spreading and modulation the signal is transmitted and it passes through a
multipath channel, which can be modeled by a tapped delay line (i.e., the reflected signals
are delayed and attenuated in the channel).
It is necessary to measure the tapped delay line profile and to reallocate RAKE fingers
whenever there is need. Small-scale changes, less than one chip, are taken care of by a
code-tracking loop, which tracks the time delay of each multipath signal.

9
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.6

10
CDMA System Aspects

3 Handoff Versus Handover

3.1 Handoff versus Handover

The act of transferring support of a mobile from one base station to another is termed
handover or Handoff. It occurs when a call has to be handed over or off from one cell to
another as the user moves between cells. In GSM system it is termed hard handoff or
Handover where the connection to the current cell is broken, and then the connection to the
new cell is made. This is known as a "break-before-make" handoff.
But in a CDMA system the same frequency band is shared between all the cells. Thus
there is well-defined efficient bandwidth utilization. Though there is frequency reuse, the
orthogonal nature of the waveforms serves to distinguish between the signals that occupy
the same frequency band so it is called soft Handover or Handoff.

3.2 Soft Handover

In soft handover a mobile station is connected to more than one base station
simultaneously. Soft handover is used in CDMA to reduce the interference into other cells
and to improve performance through macro diversity.

3.2.1 The Importance Of Soft Handover

In power controlled CDMA systems soft handoff is preferred over hard handoff
strategies. This is more pronounced when the IS -95 standard is considered wherein the
transmitter power is adjusted dynamically during the operation. Here the power control and
soft handoff are used as means of interference-reduction, which is the primary concern of
such an advanced communication system. The previous and the new wideband channels
occupy the same frequency band in order to make an efficient use of bandwidth, which
makes the use of soft handoff very important. The primary aim is to maintain a continuous
link with the strongest signal base station otherwise a positive power control feedback
would result in system problems. Soft handoff ensures a continuous link to the base station
from which the strongest signal is issued. Soft handoff requires less power, which reduces
interference and increases capacity.

11
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.7

3.3 Softer Handover

Is a soft handover between two sectors of a cell. As known that, in a cellular system
there is spatial separation between cells using the same frequencies). This is called the
frequency reuse concept.
Because of the processing gain, such spatial separation is not needed in CDMA, and
frequency reuse factor of one can be used. Usually, a mobile station performs a handover
when the signal strength of a neighboring cell exceeds the signal strength of the current cell
with a given threshold. Since in a CDMA system the neighboring cell frequencies are the
same as in the given cell, this type of approach would cause excessive interference into the
neighboring cells and thus a capacity degradation. In order to avoid this interference, an
instantaneous handover from the current cell to the new cell would be required when the
signal strength of the new cell exceeds the signal strength of the current cell. This is not,
however, feasible in practice. The handover mechanism should always allow the mobile
station to connect into a cell, which it receives with the highest power (i.e., with the lowest
pathloss).

12
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.8

13
CDMA System Aspects

4 Multiuser Detection

The current CDMA receivers are based on the RAKE receiver principle, which
considers other users’ signals as interference. However, in an optimum receiver all signals
would be detected jointly or interference from other signals would be removed by
subtracting them from the desired signal. This is possible because the correlation
properties between signals are known (i.e., the interference is deterministic not random).
The capacity of a direct sequence CDMA system using RAKE receiver is interference
limited. In practice this means that when a new user, or interferer, enters the network, other
users’ service quality will go below the acceptable level. The more the network can resist
interference the more users can be served. Multiple access interference that disturbs a
base or mobile station is a sum of both intra- and inter-cell interference. Multiuser detection
(MUD), also called joint detection and interference cancellation (IC), provides a means of
reducing the effect of multiple access interference, and hence increases the system
capacity.
In the first place MUD is considered to cancel only the intra-cell interference, meaning
that in a practical system the capacity will be limited by the efficiency of the algorithm and
the inter-cell interference. In addition to capacity improvement, MUD alleviates the near/far
problem typical to DS-CDMA systems. A mobile station close to a base station may block
the whole cell traffic by using too high a transmission power. If this user is detected first and
subtracted from the input signal, the other users do not see the interference. Since optimal
multiuser detection is very complex and in practice impossible to implement for any
reasonable number of users, a number of suboptimum multiuser and interference
cancellation receivers have been developed. The suboptimum receivers can be divided into
two main categories: linear detectors and interference cancellation. Linear detectors apply
a linear transform into the outputs of the matched filters that are trying to remove the
multiple access interference using too high a transmission power. If this user is detected
first and subtracted from the input signal, the other users do not see the interference. Since
optimal multiuser detection is very complex and in practice impossible to implement for any
reasonable number of users, a number of suboptimum multiuser and interference
cancellation receivers have been developed. The suboptimum receivers can be divided into
two main categories: linear detectors and interference cancellation. Linear detectors apply
a linear transform into the outputs of the matched filters that are trying to remove the
multiple access interference (i.e., the interference due to correlations between user codes).
Examples of linear detectors are decorrelator and linear minimum mean square error
(LMMSE) detectors. In interference cancellation multiple access interference is first
estimated and then subtracted from the received signal. Parallel interference cancellation
(PIC) and successive (serial) interference cancellation (SIC) are examples of interference
cancellation.

14
CDMA System Aspects

Fig.9

15