Unit 1

Advanced cellular mobile communication systems

WEEK 1 : Overview of the legacy 3GPP cellular systems, WiMAX systems:

Introduction

WEEK 2 : WiMAX systems: Architecture, Frame structure, Applications

WEEK 3:LTE systems: Introduction, Architecture, Frame structure and applications

These slides contains copyrighted materials from - Andrea Molisch, “Wireless

Communication”, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2013.

Text books, references:

1. Andrea Molisch, “Wireless Communication”, Cambridge University Press, 2nd
edition, 2013.
 WEEK 3 LECTURES
LTE systems: Introduction, Architecture, Frame
structure and applications
 3GPP Long-Term Evolution
• In 2004, rollout of Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
(WCDMA) systems was happening, the Third Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP) industry consortium started to work on fourth-
generation (4G) systems.
• It was predicted at that time the data rates and spectral efficiencies
of WCDMA would not meet the demand of future applications;
therefore, a new system had to be developed.
• It was decided to completely change both the air interface and the
core network.
• The air interface was to move to Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) as modulation, and Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), with (limited) support for
Multiple Input Multiple Output system (MIMO) antenna technology.
• The core network was to evolve into a pure packet-switched network.
• The new standard became known as 3GPP Long-Term Evolution,
or simply LTE.

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EVOLUTION RECAP AND IMPORTANT HIGHLIGHTS

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 LTE System Architecture
• Increased service provisioning – more services at lower cost with better user
experience
• Flexibility of use of existing and new frequency bands
• Simplified architecture, Open interfaces and allow for reasonable terminal power
consumption
LTE has introduced a number of new technologies. LTE to operate more efficiently with respect
to the use of spectrum, and also provide the much higher data rates that are now required.
• OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex)
• OFDM technology has been incorporated into LTE because it enables high data
bandwidths to be transmitted efficiently while still providing a high degree of resilience
to reflections and interference.
• MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output)
• By using MIMO, the system can combat with problems associated to multipath
mechanism and increase the throughput.
• SAE (System Architecture Evolution)
• With the very high data rate and low latency requirements for 3G LTE, the system
architecture must evolve to achieve the performance improvement benchmarks. One
change is that a number of the functions previously handled by the core network have
been transferred out to the periphery. Essentially this provides a much "flatter" form of
network architecture. In this way latency times can be reduced and data can be routed
more directly to its destination.
 LTE System Architecture
Source: White paper LTE Network Evolution and Technology Overview, 2014
E-UTRAN-
Evolved
Universal
Terrestrial Radio
Access

EPC - Evolved
Packet Core

LTE
ARCHITECTURE

EPC Elements
GSM EDGE Radio Access
Network (GERAN), Mobility
Management Entity (MME),
Serving Gateway (S-GW),
Packet Data Network Gateway
(P-GW), Home Subscriber
Server (HSS), The Policy and
Charging Control Function
(PCRF), Evolved Packet6 Data
Gateway (ePDG)
 LTE: Architecture/Network Structure

Important Functions:
• Mobility management
• Subscriber management and charging;
• Quality of service provisioning, and policy control of user data flows;
• Connection to external networks.
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 LTE systems
• The network structure in LTE is quite simple
• There is only a single type of access point, namely, the eNodeB (or BS, in
our notation).
• Each BS can supply one or more cells, providing the following
functionalities:
• air interface communications and PHYsical layer (PHY) functions;
• radio resource allocation/scheduling;
• retransmission control.
• The X2 interface is the interface between different BSs. Information that is
important for the coordination of transmissions in adjacent cells (e.g., for
intercell interference reduction) can be exchanged on this interface.
• Each BS is connected by the S1 interface to the core network.
• For LTE, a new core network, called System Architecture Evolution (SAE)
or Enhanced Packet Core (EPC) was developed. It is based on packet-
switched transmission. It consists of (i) a Mobility Management Entity
(MME), (ii) the serving gateway (connecting the network to the RAN),
and (iii) the packet data network gateway, which connects the
network to the Internet.
• In addition, the Home Subscriber Server is defined as a separate entity.
 LTE Protocol structure

• The transmission protocol of LTE is divided into several layers.

• At the top, the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) performs functions related to data
integrity (like enciphering) and IP header compression. The PDCP hands its packets, called
Service Data Units (SDUs) to the Radio Link Control (RLC).
• The RLC segments and/or concatenates the SDUs into packets that are more suitable for
transmission over the radio channel, the Protocol Data Units (PDUs).
• The RLC also makes sure that at the receiver (RX), all PDUs arrive (and arrange for
retransmission if they do not) and hand them to the PDCP in their correct order.
• The Medium Access Control (MAC) handles the scheduling of the PDUs, as well as the Hybrid
Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) for retransmissions on the PHY.2
• Finally, the PHY handles all the processes of actually transmitting data over the air, including
coding and modulation. Note that the PHY not only interfaces with the MAC layer (layer 2), but
also the Radio Resource Control (RRC) of layer 3 .

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LTE frame structure

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 LTE frame structure

• In LTE, the time axis is divided into entities that play an important role in the
transmission of different channels.
• These time entities have the following hierarchy
• The fundamental time unit of LTE transmission is a radio frame, which has a
duration of 10 ms.
• Each radio frame is divided into 10 subframes (each being 1ms long).
Subframes are the fundamental time unit for most LTE processing, like
scheduling.
• Each subframe consists of two slots, which are each 0.5 ms long.
• Each slot consists of 7 (or 6) symbols.
• One subcarrier, for the duration of 1 OFDM symbol, is called a resource
element
• Time/frequency resources are assigned to different users as integer multiples
of a Resource Block (RB)
• an RB is 12 subcarriers (180 kHz) over the duration of one slot.

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 LTE Applications

Source: R. LIU, Q. CHEN, G. YU, G. Y. LI and Z. DING, "Resource Management in

LTE-U Systems: Past, Present, and Future," in IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular
Technology, vol. 1, pp. 1-17, 2020, doi: 10.1109/OJVT.2019.2949020. 12
Source:
 COMPLETION OF UNIT 1
UNIT 2 DEALS WITH MULTICARRIER
MODULATION, OFDM AND ITS CONCEPTS

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