Understanding LTE with MATLAB

an overview

By:
Houman Zarrinkoub PhD.

Motivations
Why LTE?
Delivers global broadband mobile communications for 21st century
Features innovative new air interface technologies
OFDMA, MIMO, Fast link adaptations

Achieves remarkable performance

Basis of 4G wireless technology
Has staying power for even 5G technologies and beyond

Every communications engineer should know something about it

My favorite reason:
Puts Fourier analysis and in general Math back in
telecommunications

Motivations
Why LTE with MATLAB?
Underlying transmission technologies has deep mathematical roots
Dynamic nature of LTE transceiver system is best understood and
revealed through simulation
MATLAB provides a natural language and environment for
mathematical modeling and simulation
Area of authors expertise

Overview of chapter 1
Introduction

Evolution of wireless standards

*Although ETSI the European standardization body started GSM, later ETSI and other standard bodies formed 3GPP
and 3G and 4G standards were developed globally by 3GPP. For a while a standard body known as 3GPP2 competed
with 3GPP and developed North American 3G CDMA standards based on IS-95 but 3GPP2 finally dissolved in 2005

LTE Requirements

Improved system capacity and coverage

High peak data rates
Low latency (both User-plane and Control-plane)
Reduced operating costs
Multi-antenna support
Flexible bandwidth operations
Seamless integration with existing systems (3G, WiFi, etc.)

Evolution of LTE
LTE (Release 8) was completed in 2008
LTE (Release 9) released in 2009
with minor modifications to Rel. 8

LTE-Advanced = LTE-A = LTE Release 10

A maximum peak data rate of 1 Gbps
approved by the ITU as an IMT-Advanced technology

History of peak data rates

Technology

Theoretical peak data rate

(at low mobility)

WCDMA (UMTS)

1.92 Mb/s

HSDPA (Rel 5)

14 Mb/s

HSPA+ (Rel 6)

84 Mb/s

WiMAX (802.16e)

26 Mb/s

LTE (Rel 8)

300 Mb/s

WiMAX (802.16m)

303 Mb/s

LTE-Advanced (Rel 10)

1 Gb/s

LTE enabling technologies

Air interface
Downlink: OFDMA
Uplink: SC-FDMA

Multi-antenna (MIMO) techniques

Defining multiple transmission modes

Link adaptation

Adaptive modulation & coding

Adaptive precoding
Adaptive MIMO (ranks or number of layers)
Flexible bandwidth allocation

Computationally efficient Turbo Coding

LTE Downlink transmitter

processing chain

Organization of the book

Chapter 2: Overview of the LTE Physical Layer

Chapter 3: MATLAB for Communications System Design
Chapter 4: Modulation and Coding
Chapter 5: OFDM
Chapter 6: MIMO
Chapter 7: Link Adaptation
Chapter 8: System-Level Specification
Chapter 9: Simulation
Chapter 10: Prototyping as C/C++ Code
Chapter 11: Summary

Overview of chapter 2
LTE physical layer specification

Uplink and Downlink nomenclature

eNB
= eNodeB
= enhanced Node
Base station

eNB

Downlink

Uplink
UE
UE
= User Equipment
= Mobile unit

FDD & TDD

H(f)

FDD: Frequency Division

Duplex
frequency bands are paired
simultaneous transmission on
two frequencies (one for downlink
and the other for uplink)

Fc(UL)

Fc(DL)

(0,0)

TDD: Time Division Duplex

frequency bands are unpaired
uplink and downlink
transmissions share the same
channel and carrier frequency
The transmissions in uplink and
downlink directions are timemultiplexed

Uplink (UL)
Operating band

H(f)

Fc(UL)=Fc(DL)

(0,0)

Downlink (DL) &

Uplink (UL)
Operating band

Downlink (DL)
Operating band

Data transfer Hierarchy

Logical channels connect Layer 3 (IP RRC) to Layer 2 (MAC)

Transport channels connect layer 2 (MAC) to Layer 1 (PHY)
Physical channels constitute the signal to be transmitted

Mapping Downlink channels

Traffic
channel

Control
channels

Control
channel

Traffic
channel

L2/L1
Control
channels

Unicast
Mode of transmission

Multicast/Broadcast
Mode of transmission

LTE time framing

LTE frequency structure

OFDM subcarrier
spacing = 15 kHz
Number of subcarriers
per resource block =
12
resource block = unit
of frequency
scheduling = 12 x 15 =
180 kHz
Transmission
bandwidth = a multiple
of number of resource
blocks

Chanel

Number

Bandwidths

Resource

(MHz)

Blocks

of Transmission
Bandwidths

1.4

6 x 12 x 15 kHz = 1.080 MHz

15

15 x 12 x 15 kHz = 2.7 MHz

25

25 x 12 x 15 kHz = 4.5 MHz

10

50

50 x 12 x 15 kHz = 9.0 MHz

15

75

75 x 12 x 15 kHz = 13.5 MHz

20

100

100 x 12 x 15 kHz = 18.0 MHz

LTE time-frequency paradigm

Resource grid

LTE Multi-antenna transmission

space

frequency
Antenna port 3

Subcarrier 3
Antenna port 2
Subcarrier 2
Antenna port 1

Subcarrier 1

time
OFDM
symbol 1

OFDM
symbol 2

OFDM
symbol 3

Multiple resource grids on each

antenna port
Resource grid on
Antenna port 4

Resource grid on
Antenna port 3

X
Resource grid on
Antenna port 2

Resource grid on
Antenna port 1

LTE Downlink transmission modes

Depend on MIMO techniques used
LTE transmission modes

Description

Mode 1

Single-antenna transmission

Mode 2

Transmit diversity

Mode 3

Open-loop codebook-based precoding

Mode 4

Closed-loop codebook-based precoding

Mode 5

Multi-user-MIMO version of transmission mode 4

Mode 6

Single-layer special case of closed-loop codebook-based precoding

Mode 7

Release-8 non-codebook-based precoding supporting only single-layer based on beamforming

Mode 8

Release-9 non-codebook-based precoding supporting up to two layers.

Mode 9

Release-10 non-codebook-based precoding supporting up to eight layers

Transmission Mode 1 (SIMO):

Receive Diversity
Receive diversity

Tx

Rx

2
+

3
4

Maximum
Ratio
Combining

Transmission Mode 2:
Transmit Diversity

x1

Transmit diversity

h11

x2

x3
x4

-x*2
x1
-x*4

x3

h21

h12

h22

Transmit
Diversity
Combiner

Transmission Mode 4:
Closed-loop Spatial Multiplexing
Spatial multiplexing

2
=

11
21

12

22

Transmission Mode 5:
Multi-user MIMO
MU-MIMO
UE3

UE4
UE1

MU=MIMO pair

eNB

UE2
MU=MIMO pair

Transmission Mode 7:
UE-specific beamforming
Beamforming

Rx

1
2
3
4

Overview of chapter 3
MATLAB for Communications
System Design

From specification to
implementation

Elaborate specifications in a
model as a blue-print for
implementation
Introduce innovative
proprietary algorithms
Assess system-level
performance
Accelerate simulation for large
data sets
Fill gaps from computer model
to implementation

Where does MATLAB fit?

MATLAB and Communications System
Toolbox for algorithm and system design
MATLAB and Simulink for dynamic &
large scale simulations
Accelerate simulation with a variety of
options in MATLAB
Connect system design to
implementation with
C and HDL code generation

Overview of chapter 4
Modulation and coding

Description & MATLAB programs for:

LTE Modulation schemes

Scrambling/descrambling
Turbo coding
Early-termination algorithms
Rate matching
Transport block processing

Overview of chapter 5
OFDM

Description & MATLAB programs for:

Fading channel models

OFDM and frequency-domain
equalization
Resource grid content
OFDM transmitter & receiver
Transmission mode 1 (SISO,
SIMO)

Overview of chapter 6
MIMO

Description & MATLAB programs for:

MIMO Fading channel models

MIMO channel estimation
MIMO receivers (ZF, MMSE, SD)
MIMO techniques: Transmit
diversity (TD) spatial multiplexing
(SM)
Transmission modes 2 (TD), 3
(open-loop SM) & 4 (closed-loop
SM)

Overview of chapter 7
Link Adaptations

Description & MATLAB programs for:

Channel Quality Estimation (CQI)

Precoder Matrix Estimation (PMI)

Rank Estimation (RI)

Adaptive modulation and
coding based on CQI
Adaptive precoding based on
PMI
Adaptive MIMO based on RI

Overview of chapter 8
System-level specifications

System model: Transmitter

Mode
Mode

System model: MIMO fading

channel
1

+
2

2
(1) , (2) , , ()

+
3

1
2
3

+
4

+
MIMO
channel

AWGN
channel

(1) , (2) , , ()

System model: Receiver

Mode

Mode

Overview of chapter 9
Simulation

Simulation acceleration techniques

Better MATLAB
code

System objects

MATLAB test
cases:

Users Code
MATLAB to C

Parallel
Computing

GPU
processing

LTE PDCCH
processing chain
Turbo coding
algorithm

Overview of chapter 10
Prototyping as C/C++ Code

From MATLAB to C

MATLAB test
cases:

LTE PDCCH
processing chain
Adaptive
modulation
CSR interpolation
Equalization
OFDM & FFT
implementation

Overview of chapter 11
Summary