LTE-U LINK ADAPTATION FOR NEXT

GENERATION WIRELESS NETWORKS

A PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

BHAVYA PATHAK [Reg No: 1041210438]

AYUSHI AGRAWAL [Reg No: 1041210455]

Under the guidance of

Mr. P. VIJAYAKUMAR
(Asst.Pr.(Sr.G), Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering)

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
in

ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

of

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

S.R.M. Nagar, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram District

MAY 2015
 SRM UNIVERSITY
(Under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956)

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this project report titled LTE-U LINK ADAPTATION

FOR NEXT GENERATION WIRELESS NETWORKS is the bonafide
work of BHAVYA PATHAK [Reg No: 1041210438], AYUSHI AGRAWAL
[Reg No: 1041210455], , , , who carried out the project work under
my supervision. Certified further, that to the best of my knowledge the
work reported herein does not form any other project report or disserta-
tion on the basis of which a degree or award was conferred on an earlier
occasion on this or any other candidate.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE

Mr. P. VIJAYAKUMAR
GUIDE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT
Asst.Pr.(Sr.G) Dept. of Electronics & Communica-
Dept. of Electronics & Communica- tion Engineering
tion Engineering

Signature of the Internal Examiner Signature of the External Examiner

 ABSTRACT

The motive behind the project is to employ link adaptation in Long Term

Evolution (LTE) waveform to improve the Bit Error Rate (BER) perfor-

mance and Spectral Efficiency by implementing in real time on Software

Defined Radio (SDR) Platform. There are evident rapid changes in the

wireless channel which will introduce the fading of signals and, thereby

affecting the communication system performances. Having single design

link or static link design will not provide better performance all the time

in rapidly changing wireless scenario, so there must be a dynamic link

waveform generation to provide a promising performance even in the

rapidly changing wireless channel. So, this project aims at implementing

an Adaptive Modulation Coding (AMC) and power allocation scheme

based on channel condition for the LTE Link. Hence, this project is fo-

cussed on LTE-U(Unlicensed) Link Adaptation concepts and its unique-

ness is its implementation in real time hardware. NI USRP-RIO 2943R

Software Defined Radio (SDR) will be used in this respect. Link Adapta-

tion or AMC is used in wireless systems for matching of the modulation,

signal power, coding, error control parameters (BER) to the conditions

on the radio link. To find out the channel condition at the given time

the performance of the link is analysed on the Receiver side in terms of

BER. This information is fed back to the Transmitter side. Based on

that transmitter will adopt the link by selecting appropriate modulation

coding scheme and transmit power.

Index Terms: Bit Error Rate, Channel Estimation, Link Adaptation

Algorithm, LTE, Real Time Hardware, SDR-USRP RIO 2943R, Unli-
censed (LTE-U),.

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my guide, Mr. P.VijayaKumar,for his

valuable guidance, consistent encouragement, personal caring, timely help and provid-
ing me with an excellent atmosphere for doing research. All through the work, in spite
of his busy schedule, he has extended cheerful and cordial support to me for completing
this research work.

v
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

ABBREVIATIONS x

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 LTE and LTE-A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 SCOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 LTE FOR 4G AND 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 LTE RESEARCH CHALLENGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 LINK ADAPTATION AND FEEDBACK COMPUTATION . . . . 5

2 LITERATURE SURVEY 7

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15
3.1 LTE APPLICATION FRAMEWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF LTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.1 Downlink (DL): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.2 eNodeB: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.3 UE: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3 LTE FRAME STRUCTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4 PHYSICAL DOWNLINK CHANNELS AND SIGNALS IN LTE . 18
3.5 HOST IMPLEMENTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5.1 Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5.2 Configure Rx-TX & Baseband Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

vi
 3.5.3 Updated Graphs And Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.5.4 Rate Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.5.5 Receive UDP Data/Send UDP Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4 DESIGN METHODOLOGY 21
4.1 LINK ADAPTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.1.1 Rate Control Via Adaptative Modulation Coding(AMC) . . . 22
4.1.2 Channel State Information (CSI) Feedback . . . . . . . . . 23
4.1.3 Power Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 UDP VIDEO STREAMING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.2.1 UDP vs. TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.2.2 UDP Video Streaming using single USRP RIO 2943 . . . . 25
4.2.3 UDP Video streaming using two USRP RIO 2943 . . . . . . 26

5 IMPLEMENTATION FOR LTE LINK ADAPTATION 29

5.1 HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.1.1 USRP RIO 2943 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.1.2 NI USRP Software Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.1.3 Typical Streaming Application NI-USRP RIO . . . . . . . . 31
5.2 SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 36

7 CONCLUSION 41
 LIST OF TABLES

5.1 CONFIGURATIONS FOR eNodeB & UE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

viii
 LIST OF FIGURES

3.1 System Configurations (Host and Associated FPGA Code) . . . 16

3.2 Subframe types for TDD and FDD Frame Structure . . . . . . . 17
3.3 Host Block Diagram(Schematic Overview) . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4.1 Link Adaptation in LTE Wireless Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.2 Flow chart for AMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3 Flow chart for UDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4 UDP Coding in LabVIEW Communication System Design Suite 27
4.5 UDP Video Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.6 Modified Link Adapted LTE Application framework . . . . . . 28

5.1 NI USRP RIO 2943R Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

5.2 Typical Streaming Application using NI-USRP RIO driver (Host
and FPGA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.3 Sample of LTE Application Framework in LabVIEW Communica-
tion Design suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.4 Read RX/TX baseband data values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.5 Compute throughput and block error rate, Receive UDP data and
send it to specified port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

6.1 Transmitter Power Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6.2 Receiver Power Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.3 BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) without link adaptation . . . . . 37
6.4 BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) for adaptive modulation coding
scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6.5 BER vs. RB allocation for -10 dBm power level . . . . . . . . . 39
6.6 BER vs. RB allocation for +10 dBm power level . . . . . . . . . 39
6.7 Throughput vs. Power Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

ix
 ABBREVIATIONS

LTE Long Term Evolution

LTE-A Long Term Evolution-Advanced

FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

eNodeB extension node base station

CSI Channel State estimation

BLER Block Error Rate

UDP User Datagram Protocol

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

FEC Forward Error Correction

AMC Adaptive Modulation Coding

SDR Software Defined Radio

x
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 LTE and LTE-A

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless communication of high speed
data for mobile phones. It is based on GSMand UMTSnetwork technologies. LTE is a
LTE is a 4G wireless broadband technology developed by 3rd Generation Partnership
Project(3GPP) body of standards that evolves the 3G universal mobile telecommunica-
tions system (UMTS) radio access technology to enable a high-data-rate, low-latency
and packet-optimized radio-access technology. LTE supports for inter-operation and
co-existence with legacy standard. LTE is changing how we interact with mobile de-
vices, the internet and the world. The shift to the smartphones has made it so that
people have the internet with them all the time. The low latency, broad bandwidth and
low cost of LTE chipsets make it possible to connect a lot of devices which had not been
connected before. LTE-U extends LTE to the unlicensed spectrum and aggregates the
unlicensed spectrum with the licensed spectrum leveraging the existing CA technology.
It can provide better coverage and larger capacity than cellular/Wi-Fi interworking. For
wireless users, LTE-U means enhanced user experience; that is, higher data rates, seam-
less service continuity between licensed and unlicensed bands, ubiquitous mobility, and
improved reliability. LTE-Advanced features Wider bandwidths, enabled by carrier ag-
gregation, Higher efficiency, enabled by enhanced uplink multiple access and enhanced
multiple antenna transmission.

LTE Release 8 is one of the primary broadband technologies based on OFDM,

which is currently being commercialized. LTE Release 8, which is mainly deployed
in a macro/microcell layout, provides improved system capacity and coverage, high
peak data rates, low latency, reduced operating costs, multi-antenna support, flexible
bandwidth operation and seamless integration with existing systems. LTE-Advanced
(also known as LTE Release 10) significantly enhances the existing LTE Release 8 and
supports much higher peak rates, higher throughput and coverage, and lower laten-
cies, resulting in a better user experience. Additionally, LTE Release 10 will support
heterogeneous deployments where low-power nodes comprising picocells, femtocells,
relays, remote radio heads, and so on are placed in a macrocell layout. The Long Term
Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) features enable one to meet or exceed IMT-Advanced re-
quirements. It may also be noted that LTE Release 9 provides some minor enhancement
to LTE Release 8 with respect to the air interface, and includes features like dual-layer
beamforming and time-difference-of-arrival-based location techniques.

1.2 SCOPE

LTE represents an emerging and promising technology for providing broadband ubiq-
uitous internet access. For this reason, several research groups are trying to optimize
its performance. LTE is already implemented in 4G platforms and is considered for
future use as well. Starting from this premise, it is clear that the optimization of all LTE
aspects is a topic worth of investigation for both industry and academia communities.
So, any work related to LTE is appreciable for future generation. At the present time,
a complete system level simulator is not available for these communities. Day by day
there is a rapid increase in number of subscribers leading to an increase in network size.
Hence, to bridge this gap, herein, LTE-U must be used to frame LTE links which will
give options to use unlicensed spectrum and finally, link adaptation shall be performed
to provide a complete performance verification of LTE systems. The motivation for
LTE included the desire for a reduction in the cost per bit, the addition of lower cost
services with better user experience, the flexible use of new and existing frequency
bands, a simplified and lower cost network with open interfaces, and a reduction in
terminal complexity with an allowance for reasonable power consumption. These high
level goals led to further expectations for LTE, including reduced latency for packets,
and spectral efficiency improvements.

2
1.3 LTE FOR 4G AND 5G

LTE and 5G services extends the segmentation of LTE mobile devices and related chips
to reflect on the evolution of LTE across various paths, including FDD LTE, TDD LTE,
multimode FDD-TDD LTE, and network generations including LTE classic and LTE
advanced. The technology migration to LTE-A and to 5G in the future will not come
without a price.

Before 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) started working in the real 4G
wireless technology, minor changes were introduced in LTE through Release 9. In par-
ticular, femtocells and dual-layer beamforming, predecessors of future LTE-Advanced
technologies, have been added to the standard. The formal definition of the fourth
generation wireless, known as the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced
(IMT-Advanced) project, was finally published by ITU-R with a candidate radio in-
terface technologies. In October 2009, six technologies were submitted seeking for
Zs
approval as international 4G communications standard. 3GPPA candidate is LTE-

Advanced, the backward-compatible enhancement of LTE Release 8 that will be fully

specified in 3GPP Release 10. By backward compatibility, it is meant that it should
be possible to deploy LTE-Advanced in a spectrum already occupied by LTE with no
impact on the existing LTE terminals. Other important requirements are the already
mentioned backward compatibility of LTE-Advanced with LTE and the spectrum flex-
ibility, i.e., the capacity of LTE-Advanced to be deployed in different allocated spectra
since each region or country has different regulations. The main issue now is to develop
the appropriate technologies that allow LTE-Advanced to meet the proposed targets.
From a link performance perspective, LTE already achieves data rates very close to
the Shannon limit, which means that the main effort must be made in the direction of
improving the Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) experienced by the users
and hence provide data rates over a larger portion of the cell.

3
1.4 LTE RESEARCH CHALLENGES

The mobile phone has evolved rapidly over the past decade. This transformation cou-
pled with an expanding cache of bandwidth hungry applications have triggered demands
for higher data rates. For this, heterogeneous networks are used.

Challenges for heterogeneous Networks:

Inter-cell Interference

Distributed Interference co-ordination

Efficient medium access control

As the dust around 4G begins to settle, attention is now slowly turning towards fu-
ture 5G technologies. A key feature of 4G, is its ability to support high data rate (up to 1
Gbit/s) on the downlink. However, while 5G will no doubt continue to up the ante on the
data rate, we believe that the focus will also be on coverage and user experience. There
are already simmering interests in beyond 4G technologies, and the industry is starting
to fund projects looking into such technologies. However, the industrys view of the fu-
ture wireless standard is mostly focused on data rates and efficiency, with heavyweights
such as Qualcomm and Nokia Siemens Networks looking at technologies which will
cope with traffic growth of 1000 times.

While there is no industry consensus on what 5G will ultimately be, apart from the
usual higher data rate and energy efficiency, there are some emerging signs of things
to come. For example, in the new IEEE 802.11ax task group, there is a pronounced
increase in the presence of cellular operators, something not previously seen. This
indicates growing interests to amalgamate different technologies to support future con-
nectivity and data rates. Therefore, we believe that 5G will consist of multiple inter-
connected communication standards, ranging from wireless metropolitan area networks
down to wireless personal networks, providing the required throughput and connectiv-
ity. In this article, we identify several technologies, ranked in perceived importance,
which will be crucial in future wireless standards. These may improve capacity, cover-
age, or energy efficiency.

4
1.5 LINK ADAPTATION AND FEEDBACK COMPU-
TATION

Link adaptation or adaptive modulation is a term used in wireless communication which

decides the matching of the modulation, coding, signal parameters and protocol param-
eters to the conditions on the radio link. The principle of link adaptation is fundamental
to the design of a radio interface which is efficient for packet-switched data traffic. Un-
like the early versions of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), which
used fast closed-loop power control to support circuit-switched services with a roughly
constant data rate, link adaptation in HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) and LTE ad-
justs the transmitted information data rate (modulation scheme and channel coding rate)
dynamically to match the prevailing radio channel capacity for each user. AMC con-
trols and changes transmission parameters to achieve a defined Transport Block Error
Rate (BLER) of below 10 percent, in order to keep retransmissions in a suitable range.
This is done by adapting the modulation scheme, in LTE on the shared channels be-
tween QPSK and 64QAM, and the Forward Error Correction (FEC) .

The receiver can periodically update the channel state information at the transmitter.
The information fed back to the transmitter is simply the number of independently
fading blocks so that the inner code can be suitably designed. The gains of individual
subcarriers need not be transmitted. The feedback rate is also kept at a minimum with
this design. It is also assumed that the channels are slow fading (large coherence times)
as is typical on indoor LAN environments. The channel state information fed back to
the transmitter is valid for several LTE frames before it is updated again.

In LTE, link adaptation is based on the Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC).
AMC can adapt modulation scheme and code rate in the following way:

Modulation scheme: if the SINR (Signal-to-Interference plus Noise Ratio) is suf-

ficiently high, higher-order modulation schemes with higher spectral efficiency
(hence with higher bit rates) like 64QAM are used. In the case of poor SINR a
lower-order modulation scheme like QPSK, which is more robust against trans-
mission errors but has a lower spectral efficiency, is used.

Code rate: for a given modulation scheme, an appropriate code rate can be chosen
depending on the channel quality. The better the channel quality, the higher the

5
 code rate is used and of course the higher the data rate.

In LTE for data channels a Turbo encoder with a mother code rate of 1/3 is used.
There is a Rate Matching (RM) module following the Turbo encoder, which makes it
possible to get other code rates, if desired. Increasing and decreasing the code rate is
done via puncturing and repetition, respectively. Both, puncturing and repetition are
integrated in the Rate Matching module.

6
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE SURVEY

[1] Mr.P.Vijayakumar, SDR based MIMO link Adaptation for cog-

nitive Radio Application

Link adaptation and performance improvement is one of the approaches in cognitive

radio. This adaptation in Cognitive radio improves the performance of the wireless
link by applying intelligence machine learning techniques. Even though many methods
proposed for adaptation techniques they are very few real time implementation analyses.
In this paper an adaptive parameter adjustment technique based on genetic algorithm
is going to be used. Under this approach bit error rate, power, bandwidth, data rate
parameters are going to optimized to provide better performance. Even though many
methods proposed for adaptation techniques they are very few real time implementation
analyses. As such,this paper helps to understand the implementation of link adaptation
in real time Software Defined Radio (SDR).

[2] Francesco Capozzim et al.,IEEE, Simulating LTE Cellular Sys-

tems:an open source framework

Generating design LTE-Sim framework open source platform to evaluate LTE design.
This open source LTE-Sim will help us to compare research works of different re-
searchers on a single platform. This LTE simulation open source system helps to simu-
late uplink and downlink scheduling strategies in multi cell or multi user environment.
It also accounts user mobility, radio resource optimization, frequency reuse techniques
to simulate the uplink and downlink . It has different AMC modules.

[3] Mr. P. Vijayakumar, Experimental Study of Adaptive Power and

Modulation-A Cognitive Radio Application.
Link adaptation is one of the key research area in cognitive radio. In link adaptation
the main element is the real time channel estimation and modelling based on that only
link is adapted for target performance. Hence, with this knowledge a target threshold
BER can be achieved. There are many research activities in the spectrum sensing and
dynamic spectral access .Link adaptation is one of the key research area in cognitive
radio. In link adaptation the main element is the real time channel estimation and mod-
elling based on that only link is adapted for target performance .Channel estimation is
also used for the accurate decoding of symbol, equalization. The adaptive transmission
can be implemented by adapting the modulation schemes, and transmit power etc. So
the accurate real time measurement of channel response is important one especially in
the indoor environment where the scattering and multi path components much distort
the signal and the channel is very dynamic time varying one .In order to increase the
accuracy of channel estimation an efficient training sequence design is used that will
minimize the estimation error. The receiver is designed to capture only if the received
signal is above some threshold i.e. input power trigger mode in order to avoid the signal
reception during non-signal transmission instant which will pick up noise signal alone
and result in wrong channel co-efficient. We used synch bits to find the boundary of
start of message and the transmitter is operated in burst mode such that only the fixed
size of training information is repeated again and again with fixed duration of transmis-
sion. This arrangement ensures that the estimation of the channel is carried out only
during the training bits available time. The estimated channel co-efficient are used to
compute the real time capacity of the transmission schemes in the indoor on real time.
Changing adaptive transmission power in hardware involve much overhead that require
to change the hardware from generation state to configure state, then commit state and
generation state .This time overhead will reduces the spectral efficiency of the system
and results in reduction of the throughput .This practical difficulty is rectified by the
designed quantizer for the adaptive transmit power .

[4] RAN ZHANG, LTE-UNLICENSED: THE FUTURE OF SPEC-

TRUM AGGREGATION FOR CELLULAR NETWORKS.

The phenomenal growth of mobile data demand has brought about increasing scarcity
in available radio spectrum. Meanwhile, mobile customers pay more attention to their

8
experience, especially in communication reliability and service continuity on the move.
To address these issues, LTE-Unlicensed, or LTE U, is considered one of the latest
groundbreaking innovations to provide high performance and seamless user experience
under a unified radio technology by extending LTE to the readily available unlicensed
spectrum. In this paper, we offer a comprehensive overview of the LTE-U technology
from both operator and user perspectives, and examine its impact on the incumbent un-
licensed systems. Specifically, we first introduce the implementation regulations, prin-
ciples, and typical deployment scenarios of LTE-U. Potential benefits for both operators
and users are then discussed. We further identify three key challenges in bringing LTE-
U into reality together with related research directions. The unlicensed spectrum has
enabled many low cost wireless services from medical monitors to walkie-talkies and
WiFi. In particular, the most critical issue of LTE-U is coexistence with other unlicensed
systems, such as widely deployed Wi-Fi. As the unlicensed spectrum is bandwidth-rich,
the large number of available unlicensed channels offers high probability for an LTE-
U small cell to find an unused channel with very low-level interference.By enabling
small cells to choose the cleanest channel based on the LTE and WiFi measurements,
the interference can be avoided not only among small cells but also between the LTE
and WiFi devices. The LTE/Wi-Fi coexistence mechanisms are elaborated in time, fre-
quency, and power aspects, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate that LTE-U can
provide better user experience to LTE users while well protecting the incumbent Wi-Fi
Z performance compared to two existing advanced technologies: cellular/Wi-Fi
usersA
interworking and licensed-only heterogeneous networks (Het-Nets).

[5] Gwanmo Ku, IEEE and John Mac Laren Walsh, IEEE, Re-
source Allocation and Link Adaptation in LTE and LTE Ad-
vanced: A Tutorial.

Resource allocation and link adaptation in Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE Ad-
vanced are discussed with focus on the location and formatting of the pertinent reference
and control signals, as well as the decisions they enable. In this paper, we review how
these dual problems of resource allocation and link adaptation are enabled in the LTE
and LTE Advanced standards under the broad heading of dynamic scheduling. Con-

9
sistent with the type of information that is provided in the standards, we focus on the
location, format, and encoding of the possible control decisions for resource allocation
and link adaptation that the standards enable. Additionally, we review the location, for-
mat, and encoding of the feedback measurement information that is salient for making
these control decisions. In particular, after reviewing the units for resource allocation
and the time-frequency resource grid, the enabled resource-allocation modes and their
purposes are reviewed. A detailed description of the way the resource allocations are en-
coded under these different modes is also given. Similarly, the various methods of link
adaptation, including power control and rate control, both through the use of adaptive
modulation and coding and hybrid automatic repeat request, are reviewed. Naturally the
duties in administering the network are split between the eNB and EPC. The extension
node base station (eNodeB) covers the radio resource management duties including the
scheduling (CP) is utilized. For UL transmission from UEs to an eNB, DFT (Discrete
TOFDMA
Fourier Transformation) spreadA Tfrequency
(also called as single carrierA

division multiple access(SC-FDMA)) with a CP is utilized The control signaling encod-

ing for link adaptation is provided in detail, as is the encoding of channel state feedback
for the purposes of link adaptation and resource allocation.

[6] Klaus Ingemann Pedersen, Nokia Siemens Networks Hung Nguyen,

and Yuanye Wang, Aalborg University, Carrier Aggregation for
LTE-Advanced: Functionality and Performance Aspects.

Carrier aggregation is one of the key features for LTE-Advanced. By means of CA,
users gain access to a total bandwidth of up to 100 MHz in order to meet the re-
quirements. The system bandwidth may be contiguous, or composed of several non-
contiguous bandwidth chunks that are aggregated. This paper presents a summary of
the supported CA scenarios as well as an overview of the CA functionality for LTE-
Advanced with special emphasis on the basic concept, control mechanisms, and per-
formance aspects. Additionally, we discuss the potential of CA as an enabler for new
frequency domain interference management schemes, providing attractive gains for het-
erogeneous environments with dense deployment of small base station nodes(e.g., pico
or home base stations). For example, a fully distributed interference management con-

10
cept with a CC resolution, called autonomous component carrier selection (ACCS), has
been proposed in.A set of system-level performance results are presented in order to
demonstrate the benefits of CA. In particular, we focus on comparing the performance
of N separate LTE Rel-8 carriers vs. using CA of N carriers. The performance com-
parison is presented for a dynamic birth death traffic model to illustrate how the per-
formance varies with the offered traffic per cell. Performance results for heterogeneous
networks with dense deployment of small base station there are multiple downlink CCs
configured for a unit of user equipment (UE) and only one uplink CC. The linking
between uplink and downlink configured CCs is signaled to the UE with higher-layer
signaling.

[7] S. Nagaraj, M. Bell, Coding techniques for link adaptation in

multicarrier systems.

A novel technique for improving coding and diversity gains in OFDM! (OFDM!) sys-
tems is proposed. Multidimensional symbol design based on complex field codes with
inter leaving across frequency has been known for some time now. However, such sym-
bols cannot be concatenated to convolutional codes owing to the prohibitive complexity
of decoding. Simulations show that the proposed coding scheme provides significant
performance and/or complexity improvements over existing alternatives and also pro-
vides more degrees of freedom for channel-based link adaptation. In this paper, an
alternative coding technique to those mentioned above is presented, wherein the mul-
tidimensional symbol is obtained by using tail biting convolutional instead of complex
field codes. The trellis structure of these codes allows to obtain MAP estimates of the
bits. This allows these multi dimensional symbols to be concatenated readily to outer
convolutional codes to improve diversity/coding gains. The receiver can periodically
update the channel state information at the transmitter. The information fed back to the
transmitter is simply the number of independently fading blocks so that the inner code
can be suitably designed. The gains of individual subcarriers need not be transmitted.
The feedback rate is also kept at a minimum with this design. It is also assumed that
the channels are slow fading (large coherence times) as is typical on indoor LAN envi-
ronments. The channel state information fedback to the transmitter is valid for several
OFDM frames before it is updated again.

11
 [8] Lorenzo Caponi, IEEE, Francesco Chiti, IEEE, and Romano
Fantacci, IEEE, Performance Evaluation of a Link Adaptation
Technique for High Speed Wireless Communication Systems.

This paper deals with the performance evaluation of an efficient Medium Access Con-
trol (MAC) technique based on the use of an Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)
scheme that significantly improves the downstream data rate and guarantees specific
Quality of Service (QoS) requirements in wireless communication systems. Basically,
the access scheme considered in this paper relies on physical channel monitoring and
state mapping into a variable rate packet format. In particular, a suitable analytical
model is proposed herein in order to predict the system performance, i.e., the average
packet queuing delay in the case of a non-stationary transmission channel. Compar-
isons between analytical predictions and simulation results are provided to validate our
model and highlight the improvement of the AMC technique with respect to a static
rate allocation scheme, especially in the case of heavy tailed traffic conditions. This
paper deals with the performance evaluation of an adaptive radio resources allocation
scheme suitable for application in an HSDPA system. In particular, it is considered here
a combination of both link layer and physical layer procedures based on the Adaptive
Modulation Coding (AMC) principle in order to adapt the main transmission param-
eters (modulation order and code rate)to channel conditions, thus matching the maxi-
mum channel capacity. According to the proposed scheme, the channel monitoring is
performed at the beginning of each slot, whose duration is named Transmission Time
Interval (TTI), and, hence, the best transmission format - i.e., Modulation and Coding
Scheme(MCS) - is selected in order to optimize the system performance, as suggested
in [11]. In particular, this implies that the packet transmission rate might be varied slot
by slot in order to optimize the network throughput.

[9] Sebastien de la Kethulle de Ryhove, IEEE, and Lars Lundheim,

IEEE, An Efficient Design Methodology for Constant Power
Link Adaptation Schemes in Short-Range Scenarios.

The energy-efficient design of short-distance wireless communication systems requires

12
 Zs
the inclusion of circuit energy consumption in the systemA total energy budget.

We consider the design of constant power link adaptation schemes in which circuit
Zs
energy consumption is included in the total energy budget and in which the systemA

instantaneous bit error rate (BER) must never exceed a predefined threshold. In this
Tthe
paper it is shown that the numerous cases of practical importanceA dimensionality
of the associated nonlinear optimization problem can be reduced from N + 1 to 1,where
N denotes the number of available transmission schemes. The underlying concept is
adaptation to a time-varying channel through variation of channel codes, modulation
constellations, and transmitted power .We will exclusively consider the design of link
adaptation schemes in which the average power of every transmitted symbol frame
is kept constant . Such schemes are referred to in the literature using terms such as

AIJconstant I or AIJconstant
power signalingA I .It is,
power transmission schemeA
however, imperative to bear in mind that when using such a phrase, it is the average
Trather
power of every transmitted symbol frameA than the power of each one of the
Twhich
symbols withina frameA is constrained to remain constant.

[10] Kevin L. Baum, IEEE, Theresa A. Kostas, Philippe J. Sartori,

IEEE, and Brian K. Classon, IEEE, Performance Characteris-
tics of Cellular Systems With Different Link Adaptation Strate-
gies.

In this paper, the theoretical performance of cellular systems with different types of link
adaptation is analyzed. A general link and system performance analysis framework is
developed to enable the system-level performance characteristics of the various link
adaptation strategies to be studied and compared. More specifically, this framework is
used to compare the downlink performance of fully loaded cellular systems with fixed
power and modulation/coding, adaptive modulation/coding (AMC), adaptive power al-
location (APA) with system-level AMC, and water-filling(WF). Performance is studied
first for idealized methods, and then for cases where some practical constraints are im-
posed. Finally, a hybrid link adaptation scheme is introduced and studied. The hybrid
scheme is shown to overcome most of the performance loss caused by the practical
constraints. Moreover, the hybrid scheme, as opposed to WF, enables the system to be

13
tuned to meet the most important performance objective for the system under consid-
eration,such as coverage reliability, capacity, or data rate distribution. The algorithms
and the framework presented in this paper can be used to improve the link adaptation
performance of modern cellular systems such as HSDPA. Comparisons of different link
adaptation methods have been made in various published works. In this paper, authors
study AMC with power control techniques at the link level that are subject to an average
power constraint. For a specified bit error rate, the authors determine that there exists
a constant gap between performance of their adaptation techniques and the Shannon
limit. In this paper, the authors investigate the performance of adaptive modulation, and
of power control algorithms that are distributed across multiple cells, using one active
user per cell. Adaptive modulation is shown to be attractive for its simplicity and high
performance.

[11] Kin K. Leung, IEEE, and Li-Chun Wang, IEEE, Integrated

Link Adaptation and Power Control to Improve Error and Through-
put Performance in Broadband Wireless Packet Networks.

In this paper, it is proved that the problem of maximizing data throughput by adaptive
modulation and power control while meeting packet error requirements is NP-complete.
A heuristic algorithm for integrated link adaptation and power control is, thus, pro-
posed to achieve specified error rates and to improve overall throughput for real-time
applications in broad band wireless packet networks. The algorithm divides terminals
into groups according to their signal path gains and periodically adapts transmissions
based on the required error rates, actual error statistics, and average transmission power
of each terminal group. Transmission power is adjusted by enhanced Kalman-filter
method to ensure successful reception. Extensive simulation results reveal that the al-
gorithm consistently delivers the specified error performance and attempts to maximize
network throughput for a wide range of parameter settings.

14
 CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 LTE APPLICATION FRAMEWORK

This application framework provides a substantial starting point to improve the LTE
standard by exploring brand-new algorithms and architectures .The LTE application
framework is comprised of modular PHY and MAC blocks implemented using Lab-
VIEW Communications. It is designed to run on the powerful Xilinx Kintex-7 Field
Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and an Intel x64 general purpose processor, which
are tightly integrated with the RF and analog front ends of the NI software-defined radio
(SDR) hardware. The framework is designed from the ground up for easy modifiability,
while adhering to the main specifications of the LTE standard. This design helps to
quickly get the real-time prototyping laboratory set up and running based on the LTE
standard. Thus, we can easily modify the design and introduce innovations based on
LTE standards.

3.2 FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF LTE

The LTE Application Framework provides the functional elements of the physical (PHY)
layer as well as medium access control (MAC) layer of both base station (eNodeB) and
user equipment (UE). This code includes the following elements:

Downlink transmission (DL TX) and reception (DL RX)

Uplink transmission (UL TX) and reception (UL RX)

Figure 3.1 shows the operation modes of the LTE. These three operation modes are
provided by the following pairs of top-level host and top-level FPGA implementations:
 Figure 3.1: System Configurations (Host and Associated FPGA Code)

3.2.1 Downlink (DL):

Downlink can be used to establish a downlink link in either a single-device setup or a

double-device setup. It implements the downlink transmitter (DL TX) of a base station
(eNodeB) and the downlink receiver (DL RX) of a user equipment (UE) including the
basic DL TX and DL RX MAC functionalities.

3.2.2 eNodeB:

eNodeB provides the base station (eNodeB) side in a double-device setup. It imple-
ments the downlink transmitter (DL TX) and the uplink receiver (UL RX) of an eNodeB
including the basic eNB MAC functionalities.

3.2.3 UE:

UE provides the user equipment (UE) side in a double-device setup. It implements the
downlink receiver (DL RX) and the uplink transmitter (UL TX) of a UE including the

16
basic UE MAC functionalities.

3.3 LTE FRAME STRUCTURE

The LTE Application framework supports the following frame types:

Type1 :Frequency Division Duplex(FDD)

Type2 :Time Division Duplex(TDD)

Figure 3.3 shows the detailed radio frame structure for both frame structure types is
shown in the figure below. Each radio frame is 10 ms long and consists of 10 subframes.
Each subframe has a length of 1 ms, which comprises 30,720 complex time-domain
baseband samples sampled at a rate of 30.72 MS/s, which is valid for the 20 MHz LTE
bandwidth mode. Downlink subframes (D) are reserved for downlink transmissions;
uplink subframes (U) are reserved for uplink transmissions. Special subframes (S) are
used with frame structure type 2 (TDD) only.

Figure 3.2: Subframe types for TDD and FDD Frame Structure

17
3.4 PHYSICAL DOWNLINK CHANNELS AND SIG-
NALS IN LTE

The downlink transmitter and receiver each include FPGA implementations of the fol-
lowing channels:

Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS)

Cell-Specific Reference Signals (CRS)

UE-Specific Reference Signals (UERS)

Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)

Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH)

3.5 HOST IMPLEMENTATIONS

The LTE Application Framework provides a sample host implementation which covers
all important features of the LTE Application Framework. Each host implementation
interfaces with the bit file that was built from the corresponding FPGA implementation.
It demonstrates the main functionalities for each implementation. This functionality
includes configuration of the FPGA target, exchanging payload data, and monitoring
the system status. Figure ?? shows the Host Block Diagram/Higher Abstraction Model.
The functions of various processing block chains are below:

3.5.1 Initialization

The code begins with the initialization block. It sets controls and indicators to default
values. Then, it creates the session cluster by starting the necessary queues and loading
the FPGA bit file to the RIO device that is configured. The processing loops in this
framework use this session cluster while the code is running to exchange data or to
access the FPGA resources. All loops are implemented using while loops which run
parallely during the execution of the host VI.

18
 Figure 3.3: Host Block Diagram(Schematic Overview)

3.5.2 Configure Rx-TX & Baseband Data

This loop handles the configuration of the RF and the LTE processing chains. After
enabling RX or TX switches, some specific parameters are passed to the LTE FPGA
processing chain using the settings present on the front panel, e.g. the Modulation
and Coding Scheme (MCS) and the Resource Block Allocation are configured upon
enabling the downlink transmitter (DL TX).

3.5.3 Updated Graphs And Indicators

This loop reads and processes status information from the FPGA and updates the graphs
and indicators on the front panel. This loop also updates the constellation diagram.

19
3.5.4 Rate Adaptation

The rate adaptation which is present in DI and eNodeB host sets the Modulation and
Coding Scheme (MCS) depending on the achieved wideband SINR value. This value
is either read directly from the FPGA or received from the UE as part of the uplink
feedback.

3.5.5 Receive UDP Data/Send UDP Data

The processing loop handles incoming User Datagram Protocol (UDP) data used as
payload for DL TX in the DI and eNodeB host configuration. The data is provided by
an external source and read from the port number specified on the front panel. In the UE
and DL host variant, this processing loop also handles outgoing UDP data. This data
stream containing the payload data which was received and decoded from the DL RX.
After the data is transferred to the host using a target to host FIFO, the data is coded as
UDP stream and sent to some other application.

20
 CHAPTER 4

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

4.1 LINK ADAPTATION

Link adaptation makes the proper use of the channel capacity possible, matching the
transmission parameters, power spectrum, various modulation schemes and coding bit
error rate to the channel conditions. NI LTE Framework tool is used for this purpose. In
this work, we investigate the capacity, channel gain, Block Error Rate (BLER) by em-
ployment of various combinations of adaptive modulation schemes (QPSK/ QAM) and
adaptive power control in an LTE link established using NI USRP-RIO 2943. Based
on the feedback received from the receiver, the transmitter adapt the preferred modula-
tion order depending upon the BLER achieved i.e. whether it is higher or lower than
the threshold and transmitter power for the target performance. The adaptive module
is written with LabVIEW Communication Design Suite 1.0 software and put up on
controller of SDR platform. Figure 4.1represents the basic working block for the link
adaptation technique which will be introduced in the LTE application framework. In
the figure, left side is the transmitter and the right is receiver side where the channel
analysis is done and BER is calculated. After that, a feedback is sent to the transmitter
where the further process takes place.

The methodologies mentioned below should be implemented in order for achieving

the required adaptation in the wireless network:

Power Allocation Technique: To adapt the transmission the signal power in the
transmitter side right before the transmission based on channel condition.

Modulation schemes: The major modulation schemes used for link adaptations
are BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM, 256QAM. Out of these 256QAM offers the
highest data rate. But, BPSK is more reliable even though it offers lower data
rate because in the constellation diagram the two points are situated quite apart
i.e. only a higher noise level can make any changes to the waveform or introduce
any error.
 Figure 4.1: Link Adaptation in LTE Wireless Links

Selection of Coding Scheme: In LTE both block codes, turbo codes and con-
volutional codes are used. Depending on the SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio), a
combination of modulation coding scheme and code rate is selected to ensure
that the BER (Bit Error Rate) is less than 103 .

BER Measure: It can be calculated using the formula (No. of incorrect bits
received)/(total no. of bits transmitted).

4.1.1 Rate Control Via Adaptative Modulation Coding(AMC)

There are two mechanisms available for rate adaptation in LTE. The first of these which
is Adaptive Modulation Coding, AMC, changes the modulation order among QPSK
where,BER for QPSK is

p 
PQP SK = erf c Eb/2N o (4.1)

22
 and for 16/64 QAM,

3 p 
PQAM = erf c Eb/10N o (4.2)
2

and accordingly adjusts the rate of the channel code. The channel code rate is thus
adjusted according to the channel parameters analysed at the eNB. In the DL, both
the modulation order utilized for a given transmission are specified by the MCS index,
which is transmitted along with the PDCCH. The MCS index consists 28 other different
possibilities.
N 1
1 X j2ki
x(k) = X(i)e N (4.3)
N i=0

Figure 4.2 represents the flow chart for AMC. The receiver analysis of BER is done. If
the BER exceeds 0.5, the case is yes and so the program will move to the lower order
modulation schemes like QPSK. Otherwise, the case is no and the program will move
to the higher order modulation scheme. This modification is done at constant power
level. This entire concept is employed in the sample LTE application framework and it
is modified to achieve the link adaptation.

4.1.2 Channel State Information (CSI) Feedback

The Channel State estimation (CSI) that can be reported by a UE in the LTE standard
enables power control, channel dependent scheduling, and AMC. According to the LTE
standard, the CSI feedback should analyse the channel condition and helps in the appro-
priate selection of the MCS which could be sustained and is required under the present
channel conditions, while simultaneously maintaining a transport block error probabil-
ity not exceeding 0.001 which is the threshold that we have kept. In order to analyse
the channel conditions, a UE measures the channel using the DL reference signals.

4.1.3 Power Control

Power control is an important component in LTE link adaptation. Power control has
been widely used to counteract interference in wireless networks [4]. In LTE, power
control is performed in the DL via open loop procedure, and in the UL via closed loop

23
 Figure 4.2: Flow chart for AMC

procedure. Power control is important because, although different subcarriers in a given

cell are orthogonal, the UE might suffers due to inter cell interference between a UE
and neighbour cells at the cell edge in the Downlink transmission, and the eNB also
suffers from interferences due to the errors from the RF hardware impairments of UE.

4.2 UDP VIDEO STREAMING

4.2.1 UDP vs. TCP

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is the most commonly used protocol on the Inter-
net. The reason for this is because TCP offers error correction. When the TCP! (TCP!)
protocol is used there is a "guaranteed delivery." This is due largely in part to a method
called "flow control." Flow control determines when data needs to be re-sent, and stops
the flow of data until previous packets are successfully transferred. This works because

24
if a packet of data is sent, a collision may occur. When this happens, the client re-
requests the packet from the server until the whole packet is complete and is identical
to its original.

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is another commonly used protocol on the Internet.
However, UDP is never used to send important data such as webpages, database infor-
mation, etc; UDP is commonly used for streaming audio and video. Streaming media
such as Windows Media audio files (.WMA) , Real Player (.RM), and others use UDP
because it offers speed! The reason UDP is faster than TCP is because there is no form
of flow control or error correction. The data sent over the Internet is affected by colli-
sions, and errors will be present. Remember that UDP is only concerned with speed.
This is the main reason why streaming media is not high quality.

At the Transport layer of the IP network stack, UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is
the preferred method for the delivery of live video streams. UDP offers reduced latency
over the reliability that TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) provides. It is a faster
protocol than TCP and where time sensitive applications are involved (i.e. live video
or VoIP), it is better to live with a video glitch caused by a dropped packet than to wait
for the retransmission which TCP guarantees (which in not very practical where live
video is concerned). However, as we will discuss later, TCP is definitely more firewall
friendly as some networks will block UDP video

4.2.2 UDP Video Streaming using single USRP RIO 2943

The diagram below represents the the entire mechanism for UDP streaming in an LTE
link. The UDP socket programming is firstly created in an operating system. The UDP
socket number 5000 is opened unto which the UDP streaming program is uploaded.
Further , data from VLC is read from the socket number 5000 of UDP i.e. UDP VLC
video is sent out of the port to air interface. In order to receive this video which is
streamed from the UDP socket 5000, Socket number 6000 in the USRP is opened and
the video is listened from the opened socket. After reading data from the socket , it is
sent to VLC player from which video is played . Hence, the UDP video streaming is
successful . After listening to the port number 5000, the video code is sent to transmitter.

25
The transmitter transmits the data to the air interface outside. The receiver receives the
video data from the air. The received video is listened from the socket number 6000
and sent to VLC player where it is played.

4.2.3 UDP Video streaming using two USRP RIO 2943

The above code is for a single USRP. The same can be applied to two USRPs i.e. the
video is sent from one USRP and received on another USRP. In the transmitter of the
first USRP, the socket 5000 is opened and the UDP socket programming is written.
After the transmitter has transmitted the video to air, the receiver of USRP receives it
and sends it to the socket number 6000 of the second USRP from which the video is
sent to VLC player where it is played. The flowchart is shown below for the entire
streaming process.

Figure 4.3 represents the mechanism for UDP streaming in the LTE Application
Framework. Figure 4.4 represents the UDP socket Programming in the LabVIEW com-
munication design suite. The receiver and transmitter port numbers are specified from
which the video is read and where the video is written. The entire code is run with
the USRP switched on. After the activation of the specified port numbers, the video
streaming is achieved through VLC and the UDP video streaming is successful.

Figure 4.5 shows the UDP video streaming done for the ananlysis of the LTE chan-
nel parameters, using UDP Ports.The transmitted as well as the received video can be
easily seen. Figure 4.6 represents the final modified LTE diagram to achieve link adap-
tation . The BER within bound is an indicator which indicates T or F condition about
whether BER PDCCH is less than or equal to target BER of 0.5. The signal after com-
parison is sent to the case structure where different MCS(modulation coding schemes)
are present out of which the correct i.e. higher or lower modulation scheme is selected.
This feedback is sent to the LTE CREATE TX CONFIGURE block where the selected
MCS is employed. Thus, Link adaptation is achieved.

26
 Figure 4.3: Flow chart for UDP

Figure 4.4: UDP Coding in LabVIEW Communication System Design Suite

27
 Figure 4.5: UDP Video Streaming

Figure 4.6: Modified Link Adapted LTE Application framework

28
 CHAPTER 5

IMPLEMENTATION FOR LTE LINK ADAPTATION

5.1 HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS

The following section discusses about various hardwares employed to create an LTE
waveform and to achieve LTE link adaptation.

5.1.1 USRP RIO 2943 Architecture

The NI USRP RIO software defined radio platform combines 2 full-duplex transmit and
receive channels with 40 MHz/channel of real-time bandwidth and a large DSP oriented
Kintex 7 FPGA in a half-1U rack mountable form factor. The analog RF front end
interfaces with the large Kintex 7 410T FPGA through dual ADCs and DACs clocked
at 120MS/s. Each RF channel includes a switch which allows us to use time division
duplex (TDD) operation on a single antenna using the TX 1 RX1 port, or frequency
division duplex (FDD) operation using two ports, TX1 and RX2. There are 6 different
USRP RIO devices with frequency options that span from 50 MHz to 6 GHz with user
programmable digital IO lines for controlling external devices. The Kintex 7 FPGA
is a reconfigurable LabVIEW FPGA target that incorporates DSP48 co-processing for
high-rate, low latency applications. PCIe Express x4 connection back to the system
controller allows up to 800MB/s of streaming data transfer back to your desktop or PXI
chassis, and 200 MB/s to your laptop. This connection allows up to 17 USRP RIO
devices to be cabled back to a single PXIe chassis, which can then be daisy-chained
together for high bandwidth, high channel count applications. Figure 5.1.1 represents
NI USRP RIO 2943R Architecture.
Figure 5.1: NI USRP RIO 2943R Architecture

30
5.1.2 NI USRP Software Driver

NI USRP RIO utilizes two complementary LabVIEW based software driver experi-
ences, a host based driver (NI-USRP) and a fully open and customizable LabVIEW
FPGA experience (NI-USRP RIO). Both driver interfaces support connectivity over
PCIe and use a similar driver approach allowing users to efficiently take their design
from the host computer to the FPGA. NI-USRP also supports connection over 1G or
10G Ethernet for USRP-294x/295x devices, but using LabVIEW FPGA is not sup-
ported in this configuration.

5.1.3 Typical Streaming Application NI-USRP RIO

Figure 5.2 presents Typical Streaming Application using NI-USRP RIO driver (Host
and FPGA).As applications require increased performance, users can utilize the large
Kintex 7 FPGA for co-processing by migrating their design using the NI USRP-RIO
driver. The NI USRP RIO driver provides a streaming sample project that includes
open host processor and FPGA design code written in LabVIEW and LabVIEW FPGA
respectively. The sample project can be configured so that the code runs only on the
host, and/or modify the FPGA personality to include custom processing. While the
entire FPGA reference design is customizable, will most often insert their code in the

signal chain near the DMA FIFO. The streaming sample project is based on the AIJIn-
I reference design common to NI FlexRIO SDR and the NI
strument Design LibraryA
Vector Signal Transceiver (VST).

5.2 SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

As the communications industry races to deliver solutions that can keep pace with the
demands for improved connectivity, there is a growing demand for building prototypes
that can assess the viability of new ideas. Despite the flexibility offered by software
defined radios (SDR), which are ideally suited for such rapid prototyping, current soft-
ware tools impose a disjointed and difficult path from concept to real-world signal.

31
Figure 5.2: Typical Streaming Application using NI-USRP RIO driver (Host and
FPGA)

LabVIEW Communications integrates with NI SDR hardware for rapidly prototyping

communications systems. Paired with USRP RIO, LabVIEW Communications and the
available LTE and 802.11 application frameworks can help you jump-start research that
demands the performance of FPGA technology. To prototype new designs, communica-
tions designers have standardized on software-defined radio (SDR) platforms, as these
hardware devices offer tremendous flexibility. Unfortunately, programming the proces-
sor and FPGA on modern SDRs demands different specializations and different tools.
Design teams tend to be larger, design cycles are longer and costlier, and the overall pro-
Zt
totyping process isnA smooth or iterative. This fundamental inability to easily bring

new designs to modern SDRs accounts for the critical gap in prototyping. Read below to
see how LabVIEW Communications System Design Suite streamlines communications
prototyping. LabVIEW Communications single, cohesive environment enables users
to program both the processor and FPGA. It also scales across multiple SDR systems
so you can define and manage an entire prototype solution with a single design tool,
and rapidly deploy new algorithms to hardware. LabVIEW Communications delivers
unprecedented hardware integration with System Designer. System Designer provides
a graphical hardware representation of your SDR hardware, and can be used to vali-
date system setup, access system documentation, and partition and deploy algorithms.
With LabVIEW Communications, we can choose between a variety of approaches for
defining algorithms on the processor and on the FPGA. To ease the transition from ex-
isting algorithm design tools, LabVIEW Communications offers rich text nodes with
syntax highlighting, function completion, function documentation, and more for C and

32
Figure 5.3: Sample of LTE Application Framework in LabVIEW Communication
Design suite

.M. Developers can easily pull in existing work to further expedite the prototyping pro-
cess. LabVIEW Communications also enables you to create rich, custom user interfaces
on a drag-and-drop canvas to interact with your designs. Instead of relying solely on
command line interfaces, you can more intuitively understand the parameters to an al-
gorithm by easily creating custom graphical user interfaces.LabVIEW Communications
offers a more efficient, integrated approach to prototyping new designs with SDR hard-
ware. LabVIEW Communications provides the fastest path from design to prototype.
The hardware integration to NI SDR hardware combined with flexible software design
approaches and a workflow that is focused on traceable, iterative refinement make for a
remarkably productive tool that accelerates innovation.

Figure 5.3 represents Sample of LTE Application Framework in LabVIEW Com-

munication Design suite to configure eNodeB and UE.

Figure 5.4 shows the write TX and read RX baseband data values and Figure 5.5
Compute throughput and block error rate, Receive UDP data and send it to specified
port. Table. (5.1) represents configurations used for eNodeB and UE. Various param-
eters such as Transmitter Frequency, Resource Block Allocation, Port and power level

33
 Figure 5.4: Read RX/TX baseband data values

Figure 5.5: Compute throughput and block error rate, Receive UDP data and send
it to specified port

34
are mentioned in this table.

Parameters eNodeB UE
Transmitter Frequency 2.4 GHz 2.4 GHZ
Resource Block Allocation 4,8,16,32 ,8,16,32
Port TX1/RF0,RECEIVE PORT=50000 RX2/RF1,TRANSMIT PORT=60
Power Level(in dBm) (-10 to 10) (-10 to 10)

Table 5.1: CONFIGURATIONS FOR eNodeB & UE

35
 CHAPTER 6

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The required BER with a target threshold of 0.5 is achieved by the Adaptive Modulation
Coding(AMC) , including rate control power control mechanisms introduced as a mod-
ification in the LTE Application Framework sample using LabVIEW Communication
System Design Suite for link adaptation.

Figure 6.1 represents the Transmitter Power Spectrum for 2.4 GHz and Figure 6.2
represents the Receiver Power Spectrum for 2.4 GHz and the output BER graphs plotted
against varying transmitter power levels. For a moderate power level of 10 dBm, when
BER is below 0.5, selected modulation scheme is QPSK and when above 0.5, QAM is
selected.

Figure 6.3 represents the BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) without link adaptation
and Figure 6.4 represents BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) for QPSK & QAM adaptive
modulation coding scheme.The BER values obtained for varying values of power level
(from -20 dBm to +10 dBm) are obtained in the front panel . If BER obtained is below
0.5, then the selected coding scheme changes to QPSK, otherwise coding scheme will
be QAM. As it is clear from the diagram, BER diminishes as the power level increases.

Figure 6.1: Transmitter Power Spectrum

 Figure 6.2: Receiver Power Spectrum

Figure 6.3: BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) without link adaptation

37
Figure 6.4: BER vs. Power Level (in dBm) for adaptive modulation coding scheme

Figure 6.5 represents BER vs. RB allocation for -10 dBm power level and Figure
6.6 represents BER vs. RB allocation for +10 dBm power level In the resource block
allocation scheme used in LTE, for every 1 bit, 4 resource blocks are allocated. Hence,
an analysis of the changes in the BER values with the different resource block allocation
is important.

Figure 6.7 represents Throughput vs. power level for QAM & QPSK adaptive mod-
ulation scheme .A constant throughput value of 21.62 was obtained for varying power
levels for QAM & QPSK modulation coding schemes in adaptive manner .

38
Figure 6.5: BER vs. RB allocation for -10 dBm power level

Figure 6.6: BER vs. RB allocation for +10 dBm power level

39
Figure 6.7: Throughput vs. Power Level

40
 CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

Thus we have achieved link adaptation for LTE using LTE Application Framework pro-
vided by Communication System Design Suite 1.0 using USRP RIO 2943R. The neces-
sary modification introduced in LTE Application Framework is successful in achieving
the target BER of .0001 and various Adaptive Modulation Coding techniques pertinent
to LTE waveform. The graphs were plotted according to the BER values and through-
put values obtained after introducing the modification in the framework and analysis of
system performance is done.
 REFERENCES

[1]AMC and HARQ Using Frequency Domain Channel-Dependent Scheduling in

MIMO Channel Transmission, 3GPP Technical Specification Group Meeting Doc-
ument R1-050 942, Aug. 2005.

[2]Adaptive Modulation and Channel Coding Rate Control for Frequency Domain
Scheduling in Evolved UTRA Downlink, 3GPP Technical Specification Group
Meeting Document R1-051 149, Oct. 2005.

[3] Adaptive Modulation and Channel Coding Rate Control for Single-Antenna Trans-
mission in Frequency Domain Scheduling in E-UTRA Downlink, 3GPP Techni-
cal Specification Group Meeting Document R1-060 039, Jan. 2006.

[4] AS.Mindaudu, AM. Miyim. "BER Performance of MPSK and MQAM in 2x2 Al-
mouti MIMO system". International Journal of information Sciences and Tech-
niques (lJIST) Vol.2, No.5, September 2012.

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