A channel can be considered as a medium through which some information is transmitted, where

as a signal has a mathematical importance and it is, most of the times generated at the physical
layer itself.

reference signals is a special signal that exists only at PHY layer. This is not for

delivering any specific information. The purpose of this Reference Signal is to deliver the
reference point for the downlink power reference signal are carried by multiples of specific
Resource Elements in each slots and the location of the resource elements are specifically
determined by antenna configuration. As LTE gets evolved into higher version, we are
getting more and more reference signal which is mapped to a specific antenna port. And we
are getting more and more confused as a result -:
To implement this signal, you need to go through two steps - signal generation and resource
allocation. Signal generation is done by the following procedure. You would notice that Cell
ID is a key parameter for the sequence and you would guess the sequence will be unique for
each Cell ID. Reference Signals are used for various purpose and the type of reference
signal being used varies depending on transmission mode
Reference signals UL
Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) , Sounding reference signal (SRS)
Reference signals DL
Cell specific Reference Signal (C-RS) , UE-specific Reference Signal (UE-RS)
Positioning Reference Signal (P-RS) , Channel State Information Reference Signal(CSI-RS)

Multicast/Broadcast Single Frequency Network Reference Signal (MBSFN-RS)

Cell-specific RSs, UE-specific RSs, MBSFN-specific RSs, Positioning RSs, from Release 9 onwards , Channel
State Information (CSI) RSs, which are introduced in Release 10 . These RS are gold sequence based with
length of 31, where each RS in initialized differently Cell

specific reference signals are however still

transmitted for the transmission of common control signaling, mobility measurements and
downlink channel quality measurements. In order to save the resources occupied by UE
specific reference signals

RS
RS
RS
RS
RS

(Reference
(Reference
(Reference
(Reference
(Reference

Signal) - Cell Specific (Antenna port 0,1,2,3)

Signal ) - MBSFN (Antenna Port 4)
Signal ) - UE Specific (Antenna Port 5,7,8,9,10)
Signal ) - Positioning (Antenna Port 6)
Signal ) - CSI (Antenna Port 15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22)

Cell specific reference signals are available for all UEs in a cell. Cell specific signals enable the UE to
determine the phase reference for demodulating the downlink control channels and downlink data. Cell-specific
reference signals shall be transmitted in all downlink subframes in a cell supporting non-MBSFN transmission. Cellspecific RS (C-RS) was designed for use in channel estimation for up to 4-layer spatial multiplexing,
with separate C-RS sequences for each antenna port (0-3)

For cell specific refernce signal which all UE measures in the serving cell and neighbour cells, are
initialized with Cell id ( PCI- Physical cell id) at the start of each OFDM symbol. So cell specific RS carries
one of the 504 Cell ids , in other words scrambled with one of the unique 504 cell ids. In addition to above

there is a cell specific frequency shift is applied to the patterns of reference symbols given by NcellID
mod6. This shift helps to avoid time-frequency collisions between cell-specific RSs from up to six adjacent
cells Once UE knows the PCI for a given cell, it also knows the location of cell Reference signals as

shown in figure (red and black squares). Reference signals are used in channel estimation, cell
selection / reselection and handover procedures
UE specific reference signals which may be embedded in the data for specific UEs.. The UE-specific
RSs are embedded only in the RBs to which the PDSCH is mapped for those UEs. If UE specific
reference signals are transmitted, the UE is expected to use them to derive the channel estimate
for demodulating the data in the corresponding PDSCH RBs .A typical usage of the UE-specific RSs is to
enable beamforming of the data transmissions to specific UEs. One of the motivations for the UE specific reference
signals is the use of precoding wherein the UE specific reference signals are also precoded in the same manner as
the data UE shall receive UE specific reference signals in addition to cell specific reference signals if it is configured
by higher layers
Positioning RS is used to enhance UE geolocation accuracy. The P-RS is transmitted periodically in
certain frames and occupies certain resource elements within a rectangular area in the frame (RBs x
SFs) as defined by the P-RS parameters.
MBSFN-RS is used to compensate the downlink channel effects on the Physical Multicast Channel
(PMCH), which contains the multicast/broadcast data, and is only transmitted during MBSFN
subframes
CSI-RS is the Channel State Information Reference Signal and is used by the UE to estimate the
channel and report channel quality information (CQI) to the base station. 8-layer spatial
multiplexing in Release 10 came the need for 8-layer channel estimation. However, extending CRS to 8 layers would add more signaling overhead than was desired, so the CSI Reference Signal
was added. CSI-RS is transmitted on different antenna ports (15-22) than C-RS (although likely
sharing physical antennas with other antenna ports), and instead of using only time/frequency
orthogonality like C-RS, CSI-RS uses code-domain orthogonality as well.

channel state information (CSI) refers to known channel properties of a communication link. This
information describes how a signalpropagates from the transmitter to the receiver and represents the
combined effect of, for example, scattering, fading, and power decay with distance. The CSI makes it
possible to adapt transmissions to current channel conditions,
channel state information (CSI) refers to known channel properties of a communication link. This
information describes how a signal propagates from the transmitter to the receiver and represents
the combined effect of, for example, scattering, fading, and power decay with distance. The CSI
makes it possible to adapt transmissions to current channel conditions, which is crucial for
achievingreliable communication with high data rates in multiantenna systems
A closed-loop MIMO system utilizes Channel State Information (CSI) at the transmitter

Demodulation Reference Signal is used by the base station to equalize and demodulate the UE's
transmissions. Each uplink user transmits a Demodulation Reference Signal during certain

symbols in each resource block allocated to the user. DMRS is transmitted on all subcarriers
allocated to the user during the symbols
The PUSCH demodulation reference signal is a Zadoff-Chu sequence, which results in
constellation points on a circle centered about the origin.
The PUCCH demodulation reference signal, however, is a reference sequence transmitted on a
rotated QPSK constellation. The amount of rotation is determined by cyclic shift () as defined in
the standard.
sounding reference signal (SRS) is transmitted separately from PUCCH and PUSCH. SRS can be
transmitted on any number of subcarriers in the last symbol in an uplink subframe whether or
not the subcarriers are assigned to another channel. The exception is that PRACH transmissions
and PUCCH Format 1 and 2/2a/2b transmissions take precedence over SRS transmissions.
SRS is transmitted by a UE to give the base station an idea of the channel characteristics for that
UE. The base station can use the information to assign good uplink allocations for the UE to
transmit on. Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) in uplink comes in support of this feature as its main purpose
is to allow the LTE Base Station (eNodeB) estimating the UL channel of the users across the scheduling
bandwidth. Therefore, SRS channel and channel gain estimators are important functions that can drive the
overall performance of the system.

LTE defines an optional sounding reference signal (SRS) in the UL. What is it for? UL channel
quality, timing advance, and more. SRS is transmitted by the UE using a known sequence,
similar to UL demodulation reference signal (DM RS), so the eNB can use it to estimate the UL
channel quality. You may have a question: UL DM RS is already there and the eNB can decode
the UL information with its assistance, what's special about SRS? Well, UL DM RS is
transmitted together with the UL data and both locate exactly in the same RBs, so the channel
quality information the eNB extracts from the UL DM RS is for that transmission. In terms of
SRS, it may be transmitted periodically in a wider bandwidth (beyond PUSCH RBs allocated for

UL data transmission) and when there is no UL data transmission, so the channel information
obtained from SRS is a good input to UL scheduler. It's like CQI report from UE for DL
scheduler. Also, since SRS can be transmitted periodically, the eNB can use it to check the UE
timing alignment status and send time alignment command to the UE accordingly.
Where is SRS located in a UL PHY frame? It is transmitted in the last symbol of a subframe
if scheduled

UE measures the DL channel through measurement reference signals and feeds back the
channel state information (CSI) in the form of recommended transmission formats.

The rank

(of the channel matrix) defines the number of linearly independent

rows or columns in H. It indicates how many independent data streams (layers) can
be transmitted simultaneously

Rank indicator (RI): UE indicates to eNB, the number of layers that should be used for downlink

transmission to the UE. number of layers recommended for SU-MIMO transmission RI

defines, how many spatial layers the UE is able to decode in SU-MIMO mode (rank 2, 3, 4) or to
switch between SU-MIMO (rank 2 or larger) and TxDiversity/SISO (rank 1). Rank Indication value 1
to eNB, eNB will start sending the data in Tx diversity mode to UE . If UE report Rank Indication 2 ,
eNB will start sending the downlink data in MIMO mode (Transmission Mode
Why we need this RI in LTE concept? When UE experience bad SNR and it would be difficult (error
prone) to decode transmitted downlink data it gives early warning to eNB by stating Rank Indication
value as 1. When UE experience good SNR it pass this information to eNB by indicating rank value as 2

Precoding matrix indicator (PMI):

index of the recommended SU-MIMO precoding matrix in the

feedback/precoding codebook, corresponding to the RI , PMI indicates the best-matched

precoding matrix to be used by the eNB from the predefined codebook for a current transmission in
case of SU-MIMO or MU-MIMO. The precoding matrix determines how the individual
data streams (called layers in LTE) are mapped to the antennas. Skillfully selecting
this matrix yields a maximum number of data bits, which the UE can receive
together across all layers. However, this requires knowledge of the channel quality
for

each antenna in the downlink, which the UE can determine through measurements.
If the UE knows what the allowed precoding matrices are, it can send a PMI report to
the BS and suggest a suitable matrix. The UE can use the PMI reporting to
recommend a downlink precoding matrix to the BS that will achieve the highest
data throughput for the given channel state. T

Channel quality indicator (CQI ): indication of the channel quality corresponding to the reported RI/PMI

in LTE, CQI is defined as a set of transport block sizes, each of which translates to a maximum code rate
and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) order that can be received by the UE at a certain block
error rate (BLER). CQI (Channel Quality Indicator), reported by UE to eNB. UE indicates modulation
scheme and coding scheme to eNB , if used I would be able to demodulate and decode the transmitted
downlink data with maximum block error rate 10%. To predict the downlink channel condition, CQI
feedback by the UE is an input. CQI reporting can be based on PMI and RI. Higher the CQI value (from 0
to 15) reported by UE, higher the modulation scheme (from QPSK to 64QAM ) and higher the coding
rate will be used by eNB to achieve higher efficiency.

PMI and RI jointly represent the spatial directions of the MIMO channel, while CQI
indicates the strength of the corresponding spatial directions.
As a criterion for testing the CQI report accuracy, when the reported code ra te and QAM order is used for
actual data transmission, the UE must be able to decode the data with a BLER below 10 percent.

BeamForming

is a technic that constuct the antenna radation pattern signal

strength of the radiation pattern ('beam') is specially 'formed' in such a way that
the radiated energy in direction to UEs are much stroger than the other parts which
is not directed to UEs.

The beam-forming weight vector should increase the antenna gain in the direction of the
desired user while simultaneously minimizing the gain in the directions of interferers.
Beamforming is made possible by weighting the magnitude and/or phase of the signal
at the individual antennas: where w is the weight vector. The signals are weighted so that they
can be added constructively in the direction of an intended transmitter/receiver, and
destructively in the direction of interferers Beamforming uses multiple antennas to
control the direction of a wavefront by appropriately weighting the magnitude and
phase of individual antenna signals (transmit beamforming). For example this
makes it possible to provide better coverage to specific areas along the edges of
cells. Because every single antenna in the array makes a contribution to the steered
signal, an array gain (also called beamforming
gain) is achieved.
This technique is used to control the shape and direction of transmitted or received
signals. It combines signals in antenna elements in such a way, that constructive
interference happens in a certain direction and destructive interference happens in
other directions. Beamforming can be used to extend the range of signals in a
certain direction, such as towards a highway, where density of mobile users is more
compared to other directions. In other words, the beam can be steered in the
desired direction.

There are several different ways to implement the beamforming Switched Array Antenna , DSP Based
Phase Manipulation , Beamforming by Precoding

Beamforming by Precoding : This is the technique that change the beam pattern (radiation form) by
applying a specific precoding matrix. This is the technique used in LTE. In LTE, following transmission
mode is implemeting 'BeamForming' implictely or explicitely.

TM 6 - Closed loop spatial multiplexing using a single transmission layer.

TM 7 - Beamforming (Antenna port 5)
TM 8 - Dual Layer Beamforming (Antenna ports 7 and 8)

transport block -> one codeword -> one or two layers -> one or more antenna ports

Transport Blocks to Codewords

Codewords to Layers
Layers to Antenna Ports

The main task of the rate-matching is to extract the exact set of bits to be transmitted
within a given TTI. The rate-matching for Turbo coded transport channels is defined for each code block: there
are three basic steps composing a rate-matching. Namely, sub-block interleaver, bit collection and bit selection.
Finally, after the rate-matching, each individually processed code block has to be concatenated and transferred to a
modulation block (a mapper). The sub-block interleaver is defined for each output stream from Turbo coding. The
streams include a systematic bit stream, a parity bit stream and an interleaved parity stream. The bit collection step
concatenates the three bit streams (the systematic bit stream, parity bit stream and interleaved parity stream)

OFDMA Mapping
After layer data for the physical-layer channels is precoded to create C-RS antenna port data, the
OFDMA mapper combines the precoded values from physical-layer channels together with the
reference signal and sync signals and places the subcarrier values into the appropriate locations
in an OFDM symbol.

This OFDMA symbol mapping is performed separately for each antenna port. For more
information about antenna ports and their respective contents, see the Antenna Ports and
Transmit-Receive Pathstopic.
OFDM Modulation
After values have been assigned for all subcarriers in an OFDM symbol for an antenna port
(including the reference signal and control channels), the symbol is sent through an IFFT,
which converts the symbol into time data. A cyclic prefix is appended and the time data is
transmitted.

Antenna mapping is the combination of layer mapping and pre-coding, which process the modulation symbols
for one or two codewords to transmit them on different antenna ports

MAC PDU (Protocol Data Unit) that PHY receives from MAC as "data". To PHY, it's just a string of bits anyway.
This will be our transport block.

Transport Blocks to Codewords

What does PHY do with a transport block? First, it converts the transport block into a codeword. There are a number
of steps involved in this process, depending on the length of the transport block:

Append a 24 bit checksum (CRC) to the transport block. This CRC is used to determine whether the
transmission was successful or not, and triggers Hybrid ARQ to send an ACK or NACK, as appropriate

Segment the transport block into code blocks. A code block must be between 40 and 6144 bits long. If the
transport block is too small, it is padded up to 40 bits; if the TB is too big, it is divided into smaller pieces,
each of which gets an additional 24 bit CRC.

Process each code block with a 1/3 turbo coder

Reassemble the resulting code blocks into a single codeword

A codeword, then, is essentially a transport block with error protection. Note that a UE may be configured to receive
one or two transport blocks (and hence one or two codewords) in a single transmission interval.

Code words to Layers

PHY then converts each codeword into modulation symbols. For each codeword, PHY must:

Scramble the contents of each codeword, using a sequence based on the UE's C-RNTI and the cell's
Physical Cell ID (PCI)

Convert the bit sequences into the corresponding modulation symbols (using QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM)

Assign the modulation symbols to one or more layers, depending on the specific transmission scheme being
used

In the case of a single transmit antenna, the last step is pretty simple: the contents of the codeword are mapped to a
single layer. For transmit diversity, it's almost as easy: the symbols from the codeword are distributed evenly across
the 2 or 4 layers in a round-robin fashion.

In spatial multiplexing situations, things get a little more complicated, since one or two codewords may be distributed
across 1, 2, 3 or 4 layers. In brief, here's how the mapping is handled:

Layers to Antenna Ports

The final steps apply any required precoding adjustments and assign the modulation symbols to the physical
resources:

Apply the required precoding factors to the modulation symbols in each layer

Map the precoded symbols to the appropriate antenna ports

Assign the modulation symbols to be transmitted on each antenna port to specific resource elements (the
subcarriers and symbols within the resource blocks)

Generate the final time-domain OFDM signal for each antenna port

Note that the number of layers is always less than or equal to the number of antenna ports (transmit antennas). If
there's only one antenna port, then it carries just a single layer. In multiple (2 or 4) antenna situations, though, each
antenna port may end up carrying a complicated combination of the symbols from multiple layers. Check out spec
36.211, section 6.3.4 if you really want to dig into the details.

Antenna Port antenna ports do not correspond to physical antennas, but rather are
logical entities distinguished by their reference signal sequences LTE symbols that are

transmitted via identical antenna ports are subject to the same channel conditions. In
order to determine the characteristic channel for an antenna port, a UE must carry
out a separate channel estimation for each antenna port. Separate reference signals (pilot
signals) that are suitable for estimating the respective channel are defined in the LTE
standard for each antenna port.

Antenna port is logical concept, not a physical concept (meaning 'Antenna port' is not
the same as 'Physical Antenna')
Each Antenna port represents a specific channel model

The channel that is transmitted by a specific antenna port can be done by using the
reference signal assinged fort the port (This is why each antenna port has its
own reference signal

Multiple antenna port signals can be transmitted on a single transmit antenna (CRS port 0 and UE-RS port 5, for example). Correspondingly, a single antenna port can
be spread across multiple transmit antennas (UE-RS port 5, for example).
LTE demodulator supported only analysis of PDSCH transmitted on Antenna
Ports 0, (0 and 1), (0, 1, 2), or (0, 1, 2, 3). These ports are considered C-RS
antenna ports, and each port has a different arrangement of C-RS resource
elements. Various configurations are defined that use these C-RS antenna ports,
including 2- or 4-port Tx Diversity and 2-, 3-, or 4-port Spatial Multiplexing.
Then beamforming support was added and single-layer PDSCH allocations
transmitted on Port 5 could be analyzed. The LTE demodulator has since been
enhanced to support the LTE Release 9 which added Transmission Mode 8--DualLayer Beamforming (i.e. beamforming + spatial multiplexing)--where PDSCH is
transmitted on Antenna Ports 7 and 8 (note that single-layer beamforming in Rel
9 can also use port 7 or port 8 in addition to port 5). In Rel 10 of the standard,
the new transmission mode 9 (TM9) added up to 8-layer transmissions using
Ports 7-14. TM9 is supported by the LTE-Advanced demodulator.

Open Loop Transmissions are configured with minimal feedback from the UE
Rank Equal to the number of layers in an LTE spatial multiplexing
transmission
RI Rank Indicator indication of the number of layers that can be supported
on a given channel

1. SM Spatial Multiplexing transmission scheme in which different spatial paths carry

different data streams, Spatial multiplexing (seen abbreviated SM or SMX) is a transmission

technique in MIMO wireless communication to transmit independent and separately encoded
data signals, so-called streams, from each of the multiple transmit antennas. Therefore, the
space dimension is reused, or multiplexed, more than one time.
2. If the transmitter is equipped with

antennas and the receiver has

antennas, the

maximum spatial multiplexing order (the number of streams) is,

3.
4. if a linear receiver is used. This means that
leading to an

streams can be transmitted in parallel, ideally

increase of the spectral efficiency (the number of bits per second and per Hz

that can be transmitted over the wireless channel). The practical multiplexing gain can be limited
by spatial correlation, which means that some of the parallel streams may have very weak
channel gains.

enabling multi-ayer ransmissions

Closed Loop Transmissions are configured with detailed feedback from the UE
Channel correlation The degree to which transmissions on the same channel
appear to the Rx to be the same. Low channel correlation indicates the
transmissions can be distinguished, allowing multi-layer transmission.
Spatial multiplexing works by creating separate data streams on
multiple antennas. In spatial multiplexing, the eNodeB divides the
data to be sent to a given UE on a given sub-channel into data
streams, called layers. The number of layers is the same as the rank
of the transmission. Transmission rank is determined according to channel
conditions at the UE, as well as other considerations such as available
resources at the eNodeB. In the simplest case for spatial multiplexing, a
rank-2 spatial multiplexing transmission on a 2x2 MIMO antenna
configuration will transmit one layer from each Tx. In this case, the paths 1-1
and 1-2 shown in Figure 1
represent Layer 1, while paths 2-1 and 2-2 represent Layer 2. Each layer
reaches each Rx along a different path. The UE then reconstructs the layers
using information from both antennas

In open loop operations, the eNodeB receives minimal information from the
UE: a Rank Indicator (RI), the number of layers that can be supported under
the current channel conditions and modulation scheme; and a Channel
Quality Indicator (CQI), a summary of the channel conditions under the
current transmission mode, roughly corresponding to SNR. The eNodeB then
uses the CQI to select the correct modulation and coding scheme for the
channel conditions. Combined with this modulation and coding scheme, CQI
can also be converted into an expected throughput.

In closed loop operations, the UE analyzes the channel conditions of each Tx,
including the multipath conditions. The UE provides an RI as well as a
Precoding Matrix Indicator (PMI), which determines the optimum precoding
matrix for the current channel conditions. Finally, the UE provides a CQI
given the RI and PMI, rather than basing CQI on the current operation mode.
This allows the eNodeB to quickly and effectively adapt the transmission to
channel conditions. Closed loop operations are particularly important for
spatial multiplexing, where MIMO offers the greatest throughput gains.
LTE supports up to rank-2 transmissions for 2x2 or 4x2 antenna
configurations, and up to rank-4
for 4x4 antenna configurations. Throughput gains from Closed-Loop and
Open-Loop rank-2 transmissions can be seen in Figure 3.

In a MIMO or Tx Diversity configuration, each C-RS antenna port must be

transmitted on a separate physical antenna to create spatial diversity between the
paths. Single-layer beamforming, on the other hand, is accomplished by sending
the same signal to each antenna but changing the phase of the each antenna's
signal relative to the others. Since the same UE-RS sequence is sent from each
antenna, the 89600 VSA can compare the received UE-RS sequence with the
reference sequence and calculate the weights that were applied to the antennas to
accomplish the beamforming.
Multi-layer beamforming adds some complexity to beamforming by transmitting as
many UE-RS sequences as there are layers to allow demodulation of each layer's
PDSCH data. The UE-RS sequence for each antenna port is orthogonal to the
others, either in time/frequency domain or in the code domain. This can be thought
of as beamforming of each layer independently. N-layer beamforming is an
extension of dual-layer beamforming and supports up to 8 data layers with the

ability to beamform each layer separately

MIMO can be sub-divided into three main categories:

(1)Precoding
(2)Spatial multiplexing
(3)Diversity coding
Precoding the layers are precoded using a precoding matrix The result of precoding is a

set of modulation symbols that are to be mapped directly onto the subcarriers. Precoding
involves multiplying the layers matrix with a precoding matrix which creates the antenna
port subcarrier values that are sent to the OFDMA mapper and then to the antenna ports.

Precoding is a generalization of beamforming to support multi-stream (or multi-layer) transmission

in multi-antenna wireless communications.
In point-to-point systems, precoding means that multiple data streams are emitted from the transmit
antennas with independent and appropriate weightings such that the link throughput is maximized at
the receiver output
For the single-antenna case, precoding is just a direct assignment of the layer
contents to the antenna port data for the current physical channel.

For multiple-antennas, there are two types of precoding: transmit diversity

precoding and spatial multiplexing precoding. In addition, spatial multiplexing
can be either Without CDD (cyclic delay diversity) or with Large Delay CDD.
Spatial Multiplexing precoding reduces correlation between the layers. This
makes it easier for the antenna port signals to be separated using MIMO
techniques once they are received.
Instead of precoding, beamforming can be used. Multi-layer spatial
multiplexing can also be done using UE-RS antenna ports and each layer can

be beamformed differently from the others.

In MIMO communication systems, array gain means a power gain of transmitted signals that is
achieved by using multiple-antennas at transmitter and/or receiver, with respect to single-input
single-output case. It can be simply called power gain. In a broadside array, the array gain is
almost exactly proportional to the length of the array

spatial multiplexing, a high rate signal is split into multiple lower rate streams and
each stream is transmitted from a different transmit antenna in the same frequency
channel. If these signals arrive at the receiver antenna array with sufficiently
different spatial signatures, the receiver can separate these streams into (almost)
parallel channels. Spatial multiplexing is a very powerful technique for increasing
channel capacity at higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The maximum number of
spatial streams is limited by the lesser of the number of antennas at the transmitter
or receiver. Spatial multiplexing can be used with or without transmit channel
knowledge. Spatial multiplexing can also be used for simultaneous transmission to
multiple receivers, known as space-division multiple accessing. The scheduling of
receivers with different spatial signatures allows good separability.
Space Division Multiplexing is used to achieve higher data rates instead of signal
quality. So, it works well when SNR of the channel is high
diversity methods, a single stream (unlike multiple streams in spatial multiplexing)
is transmitted, but the signal is coded using techniques called space-time coding.
The signal is emitted from each of the transmit antennas with full or near
orthogonal coding