LTE Physical Channel and Basic Call Flow

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LTE Channel Structure

Logical Channel Transport Channel

DL Channel
Control Channel
 Broadcast Channel (BCH)
 Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH)
– System Information broadcasted in the entire coverage area of the
– DL broadcast of system control information.
cell.Beamforming is not applied.
 Paging Control Channel (PCCH)
 Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH)
– DL paging information. UE position not known on cell level
– User data, control signaling and System Info. HARQ and link
 Common Control Channel (CCCH) adaptation. Broadcast in the entire cell or beamforming. DRX and
– UL/DL. When no RRC connection exists. MBMS supported.
 Multicast Control Channel (MCCH)  Paging Channel (PCH)
– DL point-to-multipoint for MBMS scheduling and control, for – Paging Info broadcasted in the entire cell. DRX
one or several MTCHs.
 Multicast Channel (MCH)
 Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH) – MBMS traffic broadcasted in entire cell. MBSFN is supported.
– UL/DL dedicated control information. Used by UEs having
UL Channel
an RRC connection.
 Uplink Shared channel (UL-SCH)
Traffic Channel – User data and control signaling. HARQ and link adaptation.
 Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH) Beamforming may be applied.
– UL/DL Dedicated Traffic to one UE, user information.  Random Access Channel (RACH)
 Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH) – Random Access transmissions (asynchronous and
– DL point-to-multipoint. MBMS user data. synchronous). The transmission is typically contention based. For
UEs having an RRC connection there is some limited support for
contention free access.

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LTE Channel Structure

Physical channels

 Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) Physical signals

– transmission of the DL-SCH transport channel
 Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH)  Reference Signals (RS)
– transmission of the UL-SCH transport channel
– support measurements and coherent demodulation in
 Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH)
uplink and downlink.
– indicates the PDCCH format in DL
Primary and Secondary Synchronization signals (P-SCH
 Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)
– DL L1/L2 control signaling and S-SCH)
 Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) – DL only and used in the cell search procedure.
– UL L1/L2 control signaling Sounding Reference Signal (SRS)
 Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) – supports UL scheduling measurements
– DL HARQ info
 Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH)
– DL transmission of the BCH transport channel.
 Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH)
– DL transmission of the MCH transport channel.
Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH)
– UL transmission of the random access preamble as given by
the RACH transport channel.

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LTE Channel Mapping

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LTE Physical Channel
Downlink Transmission Uplink Transmission

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Synchronization Signals (PSS & SSS)
 PSS and SSS Functions
–Frequency and Time synchronization
 Carrier frequency determination
 OFDM symbol/subframe/frame timing determination
–Physical Layer Cell ID (PCI) determination
 Determine 1 out of 504 possibilities
PSS and SSS resource allocation
–Time: subframe0 and 5 of every Frame
–Frequency: middle of bandwidth (6 RBs = 1.08 MHz)
Primary Synchronization Signals (PSS)
–Assists subframe timing determination
–Provides a unique Cell ID index (0, 1, or 2) within a Cell ID group
Secondary Synchronization Signals (SSS)
–Assists frame timing determination
–Provides a unique Cell ID group number among 168 possible Cell ID groups

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 Cell Identity Determination from PSS and SSS
Physical Cell Identity (PCI) is uniquely defined by:
A number in the range of 0 to 167, representing the Physical
Cell Identity (PCI) group
A number in the range of 0 to 2, representing the physical
identity within the Physical Cell Identity (PCI) group
S-SCH
Provides 168 sequences, each associated to a cell ID group
information
These sequences are interleaved concatenations of two length-
31 binary sequences
P-SCH
Three (NID=0,1,2) frequency domain Zadoff-Chu sequences of
length 62

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DL Reference Signals (RS)
The downlink reference signals consist of so-called reference symbols which are known symbols inserted within in the OFDM
time/frequency grid.
 Similar with Pilot signal of CDMA. Used for downlink physical channel demodulation and channel quality measurement (CQI)
Characteristics:
 Cell-Specific Reference Signals are generated from cell-specific RS sequence and frequency shift mapping. RS sequence also carriers one
of the 504 different Physical Cell ID.
 RS distributes discretely in the time-frequency domain, sampling the channel situation which is the reference of DL demodulation.

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 DL Reference Signals (RS)
R0 R0
R1: RS transmitted in 1st ant port
One Antenna
One antenna port

R0 R0
R2: RS transmitted in 2nd ant port
R3: RS transmitted in 3rd ant port
Port

R0 R0
R4: RS transmitted in 4th ant port
R0 R0
l0 l6 l0 l6

Resource element (k,l)

R0 R0 R1 R1
Two Antenna
Two antenna ports

R0 R0 R1 R1
Not used for transmission on this antenna port
Ports

R0 R0 R1 R1
Reference symbols on this antenna port

R0 R0 R1 R1
l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6

R0 R0 R1 R1 R2 R3
Four antenna ports
Four Antenna

R0 R0 R1 R1 R2 R3
Ports

R0 R0 R1 R1 R2 R3

R0 R0 R1 R1 R2 R3
l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6 l0 l6

even-numbered slots odd-numbered slots even-numbered slots odd-numbered slots even-numbered slots odd-numbered slots even-numbered slots odd-numbered slots

Antenna port 0 Antenna port 1 Antenna port 2 Antenna port 3

Antenna Port 0 Antenna Port 1 Antenna Port 2 Antenna Port 3

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Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH)

PBCH Function
–Carries the primary Broadcast Transport Channel
–Carries the Master Information Block (MIB), which includes:
 Overall DL transmission bandwidth
 PHICH configuration in the cell
 System Frame Number
 Number of transmit antennas (implicit)
Transmitted in
– Time: subframe 0 in every frame
– 4 OFDM symbols in the second slot of corresponding subframe
– Frequency: middle 1.08 MHz (6 RBs)

TTI = 40 ms
– Transmitted in 4 bursts at a very low data rate
– Same information is repeated in 4 subframes
– Every 10 ms burst is self-decodable
– CRC check uniquely determines the 40 ms PBCH TTI boundary
Last 2 bits of SFN is not transmitted

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Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH)
Carries the Control Format Indicator (CFI)
Indicate the number of OFDM symbols of PDCCH:
– 1, 2, or 3 OFDM symbols for system bandwidth > 10 RBs
– 2, 3, or 4 OFDM symbols for system bandwidth > 6-10 RBs
– Control and data do not occur in same OFDM symbol

Transmitted in:
– Time: 1st OFDM symbol of all sub-frames
– Frequency: spanning the entire system band
 4 REGs -> 16 REs
 Mapping depends on Cell ID

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 Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)
Used for:
– DL/UL resource assignments
(scheduling).
– Multi-user Transmit Power
Control (TPC) commands
– Paging indicators

CCEs are the building blocks for

transmitting PDCCH
– 1 CCE = 9 REGs (36 REs) = 72 bits
– The control region consists of a
set of CCEs, numbered from 0 to
N_CCE for each sub-frame
– The control region is confined to
3 or 4 (maximum) OFDM symbols
per sub-frame (depending on
system bandwidth)

A PDCCH is an aggregation of contiguous

CCEs (1,2,4,8)
– Necessary for different PDCCH
formats and coding rate
protections
– Effective supported PDCCH
aggregation levels need to result in
code rate < 0.75
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Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH)

Transmits DL packet data

One Transport Block transmission per UE’s code word per
subframe
A common MCS per code word per UE across all allocated RBs
–Independent MCS for two code words per UE
7 PDSCH Tx modes

Mapping to Resource Blocks (RBs)

Mapping for a particular transmit antenna port shall be in
increasing order of:
–First the frequency index,
–Then the time index, starting with the first slot in a
subframe.

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Physical HARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH)

Used for ACK/NAK of UL-SCH transmissions

Transmitted in:
Time
–Normal duration: 1st OFDM symbol
–Extended duration: Over 2 or 3 OFDM symbols
Frequency
–Spanning all system bandwidth
–Mapping depending on Cell ID

FDM multiplexed with other DL control channels

Support of CDM multiplexing of multiple PHICHs

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Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH)
Basic Principle of Random Access :
 Random access is the procedure of uplink synchronization between UE and E-UTRAN.
 Prior to random access, physical layer shall receive the following information from the higher layers:
 Random access channel parameters: PRACH configuration, frequency position and preamble format, etc.
 Parameters for determining the preamble root sequences and their cyclic shifts in the sequence set for the cell, in order
to demodulate the random access preamble.

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Uplink RS (Reference Signal)
Uplink RS (Reference Signal):
 The uplink pilot signal, used for synchronization between
E-UTRAN and UE, as well as uplink channel estimation.

 Two types of UL reference signals:

[1] DM RS (Demodulation Reference Signal),
-Associated with transmission of PUSCH or PUCCH
-Purpose: Channel estimation for Uplink coherent
demodulation/detection of the Uplink control and data
channels
-Transmitted in time/frequency depending on the
channel type (PUSCH/PUCCH), format, and cyclic prefix
type

[2] SRS (Sounding Reference Signal),

-Not associated with transmission of PUSCH or PUCCH
-Purpose: Uplink channel quality estimation feedback to
the Uplink scheduler (for Channel Dependent
Scheduling) at the eNB.
-Transmitted in time/frequency depending on the SRS
bandwidth and the SRS bandwidth configuration (some
rules apply if there is overlap with PUSCH and PUCCH)

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 Physical Uplink Shared & Control Channel (PUSCH & PUCCH)
Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)
 Carries Hybrid ACK/NACK response DL transmission
– Always transmitted using QPSK
– Is punctured into UL-SCH to avoid errors due
to missed DL assignments and thus different
interpretations of ACK/NACK symbols

 Carries Scheduling Request (SR)

 Carries CQI (Channel Quality Indicator)

Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH)

 Carries data from the Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH)
transport Channel.
If data and control are transmitted simultaneously -> PUSCH
– control located in the same region as data (time
multiplexed)
– required to preserve single-carrier properties
If only control is transmitted -> PUCCH
– control located at reserved region at band edges
– one RB is shared by multiple UEs through
orthogonal spreading sequences

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Downlink Resource Structure

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Uplink Resource Structure

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 System Information (MIB & SIB)
MIB (Master Information Block) Repeats every 4 frames (40 ms) and includes DL Tx bandwidth, PHICH configuration, and SFN. This
information is necessary to acquire (read) other channels in the cell. ***( LTE Release 8 has 11 different SIB types)

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 PLMN Selection and Cell Search Procedure
PLMN Priorities Cell Search
1.RPLMN : Registered PLMN
- Derived from PLMN ID in Tracking Area
Identity (TAI = PLMN + TAC).
- Stored in USIM

2.EPLMN : Equivalent PLMN

- When the UE is switched off, it
shall keep the stored list so that it can be
used for PLMN selection after switch on.

3.EHPLMN : Equivalent Home PLMN

-Stored in USIM

4.HPLMN : Home PLMN

-Derived from IMSI

5.UPLMN : User Controlled PLMN

- Stored in USIM

6.OPLMN : Operator Controlled PLMN

- Stored in USIM
*VPLMN : Visitor PLMN
- Given by Physical Layer Search.
*FPLMN : Forbidden PLMN
- Stored in USIM

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 Random Access & RRC Connection Setup Procedure

Purpose
- Get uplink synchronization
- Acquire uplink scheduling resource

Scenarios
1. UE initial attach
2. RRC reestablishment after RRC drops
3. Handover
4. UL out-of-sync occurs

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TAU Procedure
The network knows the location of a UE that is roaming within a network. This makes it possible for the mobile subscriber to receive
a call wherever it is. To keep the network up to date with the subscriber’s location, the UE performs location updating

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 TAU Procedure
Idle Mode Connected Mode

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Attach Procedure

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 Handover via X2 Procedure
Simplified mobility scheme to handled the
most common scenario.
 Handover is performed in E-UTRAN
without the knowledge of EPC.
 Forwarding of user data on X2 interface
(Selective Forwarding).
 After handover is completed, EPC is
informed and the route is optimized.

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 Handover via S1 Procedure
 S1 handover:
– Relocation of MME or SGW
– Handover to UTRAN or GSM
– Change of MME pool area
 Signaling is done via EPC.

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