Long Term Evolution

Author: Badal Mishra

Content:
• LTE Frame Structure

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LTE Frame Structure:

• Frame:
It is a digital data unit, which consists of data samples in form of bits & symbols.

• Requirement of Frame in LTE:

LTE data is carried in frames and subframes.
Using frames and subframes enables the data to be synchronized enabling the radio network to be able to
handle the data correctly.
The frames and subframes varies between the FDD and TDD versions of LTE because there are different
requirements for segregating data on the two schemes.

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LTE Frame Structure's..
• LTE Frame Structure:
In LTE, DL and UL transmissions are organized into radio frames of 10 milliseconds each.
Each frame is divided into ten equally sized subframes.
The duration of each subframe is 1 milliseconds.
Moreover, each subframe is further divided into two equally sized time slots, that is, each slot is 0.5 milliseconds.

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LTE Frame Structure's..
• Types of units in Radio frame structure:
- Largest unit is called Frame = 10 ms
- Second largest unit is called Half Frame = 5 ms
- Third largest unit is called Sub Frame = 1 ms
- If a sub frame is divided into two halves, the fourth largest unit is called Time slot = 0.5 ms
- One Time slot = 12 Sub carriers, with a Spacing of 15 kHz and 07 OFDMA Symbols in Normal/Cyclic/Short
Prefix
- One Time slot = 12 Sub carriers, with a Spacing of 15 kHz and 06 OFDMA Symbols in Extended/Long
Prefix
- The smallest modulation structure in LTE is the Resource Element.
- A Resource Element is one 15 kHz subcarrier by one symbol.
- A Resource Block has dimensions of subcarriers by symbols.
- Twelve consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain and six or seven symbols in the time domain.
form each Resource Block.

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Cyclic Prefix:
The cyclic prefix acts as a buffer region or guard interval to protect the OFDM signals from ISI (inter symbol
interference).
[ISI: Due to the signal propagation phenomena, such as reflection, diffraction or multipath, a receiver can receive
several delayed versions of the same signal. At the receiver, all these “multipath” components are summed. And
the practical result is that we have multiple symbols being received “simultaneously” (Symbols “Overlap”) – this is
the inter symbol interference.]
Solution to ISI is copying or duplicating an initial part of the symbol, and inserting the end of it. And it acts as Cyclic
Prefix. CP copy a small part of the initial information (hence the name prefix) to the end of each symbol (hence the
name cyclic).Thus, the receiver can identify the end points of each symbol and correctly correlate the information,
thereby eliminating the interference problem.

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Normal Cyclic & Extended Cyclic
Prefix:
• In LTE, two types of CPs are defined by 3GPP.
- Normal CP
- Extended CP

• Normal CP: with a duration of 4.7 microseconds equivalent to 7 symbols per slot. Note: In Normal CP, we
have a different case, where we have 160 time slots for the first symbol (5.2 micro seconds) and 144 for the
others (4.7 microseconds). Normal CP Setting we have 7 symbols, or 4.7 micro seconds.

• Extended CP: with a duration of 16.67 microseconds equivalent to 6 symbols per slot (or 16.7
microseconds).

Note: in general, the ranges of CP in OFDM systems ranges from 1/4 to 1/32 of the symbol period.

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Resource Block & Resource Elements:

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UL Slot Structure:

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DL Slot Structure

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Types of Frame Structure in LTE:
• Types of Frame structure in LTE:
3GPP defines two types of frames based on the duplexing scheme used. These are;
- Type 1 FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing)
- Type 2 TDD (Time Division Duplexing)
Type 1:
It is designed for frequency division duplex, and is valid for both half duplex, and full duplex FDD modes.
Type 1 radio frame has a duration 10 ms and consists of equally sized 20 slots each of 0.5 ms.
A subframe comprises two slots, thus one radio frame has 10 sub‐frames.
In FDD mode, half of the subframes are available for downlink, and the other half are available for uplink
transmission in each 10 ms interval, where downlink and uplink transmission are separated in the frequency
domain.

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Type 1 FDD(Frequency Division
Duplexing):

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Type 1 FDD(Frequency Division
Duplexing):

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• Type 2:
This frame structure is relevant for TDD
The radio frame is composed of two identical half ‐frames, each one having a duration of 5 ms
Each half‐frame is further divided into 5 subframes having a duration of 1ms
Two slots of length 0.5 ms constitute a subframe which is not a special subframe.
The special types of subframes are composed of three fields:
- Downlink Pilot Timeslot (DwPTS),
- GP (Guard Period)
- Uplink Pilot Timeslot (UpPTS).
Seven uplink-downlink configurations are supported with both types (10 ms and 5 ms) of downlink ‐to ‐uplink switch ‐
point periodicity.
In 5m downlink‐to‐uplink switch‐point periodicity, special type of sub‐frames is used in both half ‐frames, but it is
not the case in 10 ms downlink‐to‐uplink switch ‐point periodicity, special frame are used only in first half ‐frame.
For downlink transmission sub‐frames 0, 5 and DwPTS are always reserved.
UpPTS and the sub‐frame next to the special sub‐frame are always reserved for uplink communication.

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Type 2 TDD(Time Division Duplexing):

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Type 2 TDD(Time Division Duplexing):
Cont..
• One frame is divided into 10 subframes (1ms each), and that subframe can be either downlink, uplink or special
subframe.
• 3GPP decides the TDD Frame Configurations. There are fixed patterns of these configurations and network
operator has to choose out of these defined patters.
• There are total 7 TDD configurations as shown below:

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Type 2 TDD(Time Division Duplexing):
Cont..
• Special subframe which comes when there is transition from downlink subframe to uplink subframe.
• It has three parts –  DwPTS(Downlink Pilot Time Slot),GP (Guard Period) and UpPTS (Uplink Pilot Time Slot)
and all of these have configurable lengths, which depends upon Special subframe configuration.
• Special subframe configuration as shown below:

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Type 2 TDD(Time Division Duplexing):
Cont..
• DwPTS is considered as a “normal” DL subframe and carries reference signals and control information as
well as data for those cases when sufficient duration is configured. It also carries PSS.

• GP is used to control the switching between the UL and DL transmission. Switching between transmission
directions has a small hardware delay for both UE and eNodeB and needs to be compensated by GP. GP
has to be large enough to cover the propagation delay of DL interferes. Its length determines the
maximum supportable cell size.

• UpPTS is primarily intended for sounding reference signals (SRS) transmission from UE. Mainly used for
RACH transmission.

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Difference Between FDD & TDD:
• LTE is defined to support both the paired spectrum for Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and unpaired spectrum
for Time Division Duplex (TDD). LTE FDD uses a paired spectrum that comes from a migration path of the 3G
network, whereas TDD LTE uses an unpaired spectrum that evolved from TD-SCDMA.
• TD-LTE does not require a paired spectrum since transmission and reception occurs in the same channel. In
FD-LTE, it requires a paired spectrum with different frequencies with a guard band.
• TD-LTE is cheaper than FD-LTE since in TD-LTE there is no need for a diplexer to isolate transmission and
receptions.
• In TD-LTE, it’s possible to change the uplink and downlink capacity ratio dynamically according to the needs. In
FD-LTE, capacity is determined by frequency allocation by regulatory authorities, making it difficult to make a
dynamic change.
• In TD-LTE, a larger guard period is necessary to maintain the uplink and downlink separation that will affect the
capacity. In FD-LTE, the same concept is referred to as a guard band for isolation of uplink and downlink, which
will not affect capacity.
• Cross slot interference exists in TD-LTE, which is not applicable to FD-LTE.

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