The Design and Implementation of the RUA Protocol

in the Home Node B

Shin-Tsung Yang

Chai-Hien Gan

Information and Communications Research Laboratories,

Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI)
Hsinchu 31040, Taiwan, ROC
kevinyang@itri.org.tw

Information and Communications Research Laboratories,

Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI)
Hsinchu 31040, Taiwan, ROC.
chgan@itri.org.tw

AbstractFemtocell is an effective solution to improve indoor

coverage for mobile/cellular network and to enhance the system
capacity. 3GPP has proposed Femtocell Network Architecture
(FNA) to integrate Home Node B (HNB) and Node B with Radio
Network Controller (RNC). In this paper, we describe 3GPP
FNA and its related Iuh protocols. Specifically, we focus on the
RANAP User Adaptation (RUA) protocol, which is a lightweight
mechanism to replace the SCCP and M3UA protocols in RNC.
We describe the design and implementation of the RUA protocol
through Message Queue (MQ) method and primitive flow model,
which can work on different platforms. We also develop
simulation experiments to investigate performance improvement
with SCCP/M3UA protocols. This study indicates that the RUA
protocol can improve the processing time by 20-40%.
Keywords- Femtocell, RANAP User Adpatation, Home Node B

I.

Figure 2 depicts the Iuh protocol stacks for HNB, which

consists of the Radio Access Network Application Part
(RANAP; Figure 2 (1)) [3], RANAP User Adaption (RUA;
Figure 2 (2)) [4], Stream Control Transmission Protocol
(SCTP; Figure 2 (3)) [5], and Home Node B Application Part
(HNBAP; Figure 2 (4)) [6] protocol stacks. The RANAP
protocol provides the signaling service between HNB and CN
that is required to fulfill the following functions: Radio Access
Network Relocation, Radio Access Bearer (RAB)
Management, Paging, and transport of signaling between a UE
and the CN. The HNBAP protocol is used to conduct HNB
GW discovery, HNB registration, and UE registration [6]. The
RUA protocol is a lightweight mechanism to transport RANAP
messages between HNBs and HNB GW. The SCTP is a
reliable transport protocol operating on top of a connectionless
packet network such as Internet Protocol (IP; Figure 2 (5)).

INTRODUCTION

Femtocell is proposed to extend the mobile network

coverage in environments such as deep building and to enhance
the system capacity [1]. 3GPP has proposed Femtocell network
architecture (as shown in Figure 1) to integrate Home Node B
(HNB or Femtocell; Figure 1 (1)) and Node B (Figure 1 (2))
with Radio Network Controller (RNC) [2]. The HNB is
deployed in the indoor environment (e.g., home), which is a
short-range, low-cost, and low-power wireless access point that
operates in the same licensed spectrum as the Node B. The
HNB connects standard User Equipments (UEs; Figure 1 (3))
to UMTS Core Network (CN; Figure 1 (4)) in Mobile
Telecommunication Network (Figure 1 (5)) through a HNB
Gateway (HNB GW; Figure 1 (6)). The interface between
HNB and HNB GW is named as Iuh (Figure 1 (7)).

Figure 2. The Iuh Protocol Stacks

In the paper, we focus on the design and implementation of

the RUA protocol. The design of the RUA protocol is
described in the next section. Then we describe how to
implement the RUA protocol based on the Message Queue
(MQ) method and the primitive flow model [7]. Simulation
experiments are provided to investigate the performance of the
RUA protocol. Finally, we provide a conclusion remark.
II.

Figure 1. The Femtocell Network Architecture

THE DESIGN OF THE RUA PROTOCOL

In this section, we describe the functionality of the RUA

protocol. As mentioned in Section 1, the RUA protocol
provides a lightweight mechanism to transport RANAP
messages between HNBs and HNB GW, which includes five
procedures.

978-1-4244-2519-8/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Connect: this procedure is used to carry the RANAP

INITIAL UE message defined in [2] from the HNB to
the HNB GW.

Direct Transfer: this procedure is initiated by either the

HNB or the HNB GW to transport a RANAP message
between two nodes.

Disconnect: this procedure is initiated by either the

HNB or the HNB GW to terminate the connection
between these nodes.

Connectionless: this procedure is initiated by either the

HNB or the HNB GW to transfer connectionless
RANAP messages between these nodes.

Error Indication: this procedure is initiated by either

HNB or HNB-GW to report detected errors in one
incoming message.

The RUA protocol is an entity between the RANAP

protocol and the SCTP protocol. We use the primitive flow
model [7] to design the interfaces of the RUA protocol. Figure
3 shows the primitive flow model for the RUA protocol. Four
types of primitives are used in RUA: RUA REQ, RUA IND,
SCTP REQ, and STCP IND. The RUA REQ/IND primitives
(Figure 3 (1) and (2)) are used to exchange messages between
RANAP and RUA, which include Connect, Direct-Transfer,
Disconnect, Connectionless, and Error-Indication. These
primitives are derived from the procedures of RUA. The SCTP
REQ/IND (Figure 3 (3) and (4)) consists of the SCTP-MSGREQ and SCTP-MSG-IND primitives, which is used to
send/receive message to/from the RUA protocol in the peer site.

platform, the RUA protocol stack can be implemented to

handle the messages delivered from/to the RANAP protocol
and the SCTP protocol by using the four primitive types
defined in Section 2.

Figure 4. The Software Architecture of the Iuh Protocol Stacks

Figure 5 depicts the execution flow of RUA, which is

described as the following steps.
Step 1. Suppose that a primitive is invoked by the RANAP
protocol. The message of the primitive will be delivered to
RUA through CSPL. Upon receipt of the message, RANAP
Message Handler (see Figure 5 (1)) in RUA will verify whether
the message header is valid according to the RUA parameter
definition [4]. If so, the flow proceeds to Step 2. Otherwise, the
flow proceeds to Step 4.
Step 2. RUA Encoder encodes the RANAP message as a RUA
message by using ASN.1 encoder [9]. If the message content is
valid, the flow proceeds to Step 3. Otherwise, the flow
proceeds to Step 4.
Step 3. The SCTP Message Sender (Figure 5 (3)) delivers the
encoded RUA message to SCTP by using the SCTP-MSGREQ primitive through CSPL. This message will be delivered
to RUA in the peer site.
Step 4. Suppose that the content is invalid. An error indication
is replied to RANAP by using the RUA_ERROR_IND
primitive through RANAP Message Error Handler (Figure 5
(4)).

Figure 3. The Primitive Flow Model of the RUA Protocol

By using the primitive flow model, the interfaces of RUA

can be well-defined. Therefore, we can independently
implement the RUA without involving other protocols. In the
next section, we describe how to implement the RUA protocol
by using a message queue (MQ) framework.
III.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RUA PROTOCOL

Figure 4 shows the software architecture of the Iuh protocol

stacks. In this architecture, we use a MQ platform called
Common Stack Porting Library (CSPL)[8]. The CSPL is an
MQ based platform that can easily integrate developed protocol
modules to different embedded platforms. Base on the CSPL

Step 5. Upon receive of the message from SCTP through SCTP

IND primitive, SCTP Message Handler (Figure 5 (5)) in RUA
will verify the message content by checking the parameters in
order. If the content is invalid, flow proceeds to Step 8.
Step 6. RUA Decoder (Figure 5 (6)) decodes the RUA message
(received from SCTP) as a RANAP message by using ASN.1
decoder [9]. Then the message is delivered to RANAP.
Step 7. RANAP Message Sender (Figure 5 (7)) in RUA sends
the RANAP message (generated from Step 6) to RANAP by
using a RUA IND primitive through CSPL.
Step 8. Suppose that the content is invalid. SCTP Message
Error Handler (Figure 5 (8)) in RUA informs SCTP about the
error. This message will be delivered to the peer site through
SCTP.

100
90
80
Process Time 70
60
(s)
50
40
30
20

RUA
SCCP/M3UA

InitialUE-Message

SecurityModeControl

Iu_ReleaseComplete

Paging

RANAP Message Type

(A) Transmission

Figure 5. The Execution Flow of the RUA Protocol

IV.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

In this section, we compare the performance of the RUA

protocol and the SCCP over M3UA (SCCP/M3UA) protocol.
In RUA and SCCP/M3UA, four message types are defined to
deliver the RANAP messages. Table I lists the four message
types in both RUA and SCCP/M3UA. In each simulation
experiment, more than 100,000 trials are executed to ensure the
result stable.
TABLE I.
RUA

MESSAGE TABLE FOR RAU AND SCCP/M3UA

SCCP / M3UA

100
90
80
Process Time 70
60
(s)
50
40
30
20

RUA
SCCP/M3UA

InitialUE-Message

Iu_ReleaseComplete

Paging

RANAP Message Type

(B) Reception

Figure 6. The average process time of RUA and SCCP/M3UA transfer and
receive different RANAP message types

Figure 7 plots the Process Time as the functions of payload

sizes. In this experiment, we consider the DirectTransfer (Data
Form 1/Payload Data) message with payload sizes as 50, 100,
150, 200, and 250 bytes. The results shows that RUA improves
29.26% (33.78%), 29.56% (33.43%), 27.75% (33.34%),
27.63% (33.15%), and 27.88% (32.87%) of performance over
SCCP/M3UA.

Connect

Connection Request/Payload Data

DirectTransfer

Data Form 1/Payload Data

90

Disconnect

Release Complete/Payload Data

80

Connectionless

Long Unit Data/Payload Data

Figure 6 plots the Process Time as the functions of the

RANAP message types, which include Initial UE Message,
Security Mode Control, Iu Release Complete, and Paging.
These messages are delivered by using Connect (Connection
Request/Payload Data), DirectTransfer (Data Form 1/Payload
Data), Disconnect (Release Complete/Payload Data), and
Connectionless (Long Unit Data/Payload Data) in RUA
(SCCP/M3UA). The results show that RUA improves 22.88%
(28.94%), 31.77% (33.98%), 26.73% (28.22%), 39.31%
(39.29%) of performance over SCCP/M3UA in transmission
(reception) phase.

SecurityModeControl

RUA
SCCP/M3UA

Process Time 70
(s)
60
50
40
50

100

150

200

250

Message Size(Unit: Byte)

(A) Transmission
90
RUA

80

SCCP/M3UA

Process Time 70
(s)
60
50
40
50

100

150

200

250

Message Size (Unit: Byte)

(B) Reception

Figure 7. The average process time of RUA and the SCCP/M3UA transfer
and receive different size messages

V.

CONCLUSION

This paper designed and implemented the RANAP User

Adaptation (RUA) protocol for Home Node B (HNB). We
described how to use a message queue (MQ) framework called
Common Stack Porting Library (CSPL) to implement the
RUA protocol. We use the standardized RUA primitives to
achieve the modularity goal. The simulation results show that
the RUA software can improve more than 30% of
performance over SCCP/M3UA in most cases. The developed
RUA software in this paper will be transferred to Arcadyan
Technologies, Taiwan.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Prof. Yi-Bing Lin for his
comment on this paper. We also thank the editor and the three
anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Their
efforts have significantly improved the quality of our paper.
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