Physical Layer Protocol

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Physical Layer

Enables exchange of data & control info between eNB and UE and also transport of
data to and from higher layers

Functions performed include error detection, FEC, MIMO antenna processing,

synchronization, etc.

It consists of Physical Signals and Physical Channels

Physical Signals are used for system synchronization, cell identification and channel
estimation.

Physical Channels for transporting control, scheduling and user payload from the
higher layers

OFDMA in the DL, SC-FDMA in the UL

LTE supports FDD and TDD modes of operation

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Physical Layer Frame Structure

In FDD, the DL and UL Radio Frames (RFs) are not on the same carrier.
The RF frame is called Type 1 by the 3GPP.The RF length is 10 ms.

The radio frame is made up of 10 sub-frames of 1 ms.Each sub-frame is made up of 2 slots of

0.5ms.

For FDD, 10 subframes are available for downlink transmission and 10 subframes are available
for uplink transmissions in each 10 ms interval. Uplink and downlink transmissions are separated
in the frequency domain.A Frame structure type 2 is also defined and is applicable to TDD
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Physical Layer Frame Structure

Each slot is made up of: 7 symbols in case of normal CP (guard time between symbols)

Tu = Useful Symbol Duration

Tcp = Cyclic Prefix duration
Tecp = Extended Cyclic Prefix duration
Since OFDM offers a better flexibility in terms of sub-frame structure and pilot
allocation, there is no reason to consider the same structure as for DFT-SOFDM.

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Physical Layer Frame Structure

The frame structure for the Type 2 frames used on LTE TDD is somewhat different.
The 10 ms frame comprises two half frames, each 5 ms long.
The LTE half-frames are further split into five sub frames, each 1ms long.

The subframes may be divided into standard subframes of special subframes. The special
subframes consist of three fields:
DwPTS - Downlink Pilot Time Slot
GP - Guard Period
UpPTS - Uplink Pilot Time Stot.
These three fields are also used within TD-SCDMA and they have been carried over into LTE
TDD (TD-LTE) and thereby help the upgrade path. The fields are individually configurable in
terms of length, although the total length of all three together must be 1ms.
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Physical Layer Frame Structure

LTE Frame Structure Type I (FDD)

LTE Frame Structure Type II (TDD)

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Resource Block

Multiplex multiple users both in time and frequency, together with pilots and control
signals.
The time-frequency plane is divided into chunks=minimum resource allocation unit.
The traffic multiplexing is performed by allocating to each user a certain number of chunks
depending on its data rate/geometry.
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Physical Resource Block

In OFDMA, users are allocated a specific number of subcarriers for a predetermined amount of
time. These are referred to as physical resource blocks (PRBs) in the LTE specifications.
PRBs have both a time and frequency dimension. Allocation of PRBs is handled by a
scheduling function at the 3GPP base station (eNodeB).

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Resource Element Group

For the control channel, the radio signaling, the Resource Block is not the adapted unit.
The control channels mapped on the Resource Elements Groups (REGs), which represent
less radio resources.
A REG is made up of 4 (or 6 if there are pilot sub-carriers) sub-carriers during 1 symbol.
The REG are grouped into the CCE (Control Channel Element)
Resource element groups are used for defining
the mapping of control channels to resource
elements.

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FDD (left) and TDD (right) frequency bands defined in the 3GPP

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Downlink Transmission Scheme-OFDMA

The downlink transmission scheme for E-UTRA FDD and TDD modes is based on
conventional OFDM. In an OFDM system, the available spectrum is divided into
multiple carriers, called sub-carriers, which are orthogonal to each other. Each of
these sub-carriers is independently modulated by a low rate data stream.

OFDM is used as well in WLAN, WiMAX and broadcast technologies like DVB.
OFDM has several benefits including its robustness against multipath fading and its
efficient receiver architecture.

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OFDM

Single Carrier Transmission (e.g. WCDMA)

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

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Difference between OFDM and OFDMA

OFDM allocates users in time domain

only

OFDMA allocates users in time and

frequency domain

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OFDMA Principles
There are several ways to transmit over the frequency band and to share the resource between
several devices.

TDMA
The users are separated by the the time
Used by the GSM
CDMA
The users are separated by the codes. They receive data at the same time at the same
frequency.
Used in the CDMAOne, CDMA200 and WCDMA
FDMA
The users are separated by the frequency
The 3G LTE used an improved FDMA called OFDMA
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OFDMA
Notion of Orthogonality

In OFDM, the sub-carrier frequencies are chosen so that the sub-carriers are orthogonal to
each other, meaning that cross-talk between the sub-channels is eliminated and inter-carrier
guard bands are not required. This greatly simplifies the design of both the transmitterand the
receiver; unlike conventional FDM a separate filter for each sub-channel is not required.
The orthogonality requires that the sub-carrier spacing is f = k/(TU) Hertz, where TU
seconds is the useful symbol duration (the receiver side window size), and k is a positive
integer, typically equal to 1. Therefore, with N sub-carriers, the total passband bandwidth will
be B Nf (Hz).
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OFDMA

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OFDMA
The inter-channel (or inter sub-carrier) interferences are cancelled because they are located
in a such way that when there is the peak for a given sub-carrier, the adjacent subcarriers are
null.

OFDM allows high density of carriers, without generating Inter-Channel Interference

(ICI).

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OFDMA
BASIC IDEA: The channel bandwidth is divided into multiple subchannels to reduce ISI and
frequency-selective fading.
A single wideband signal is transformed into multiple narrow band signals transmitted on
orthogonal subcarriers
One single stream at high rate
Each symbol occupies the whole bandwidth
Very short symbol duration to ensure high rate

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OFDMA
Inter-Symbol Interference
What is the multipath?
Due to the signal propagation phenomena, like reflection or diffraction, areceiver can
receive several delayed versions of the same signal.This creates Inter-Symbol Interference
(ISI).

The multi-path impact is an overlapping of 2 symbols, called Inter-Symbol Interference

(ISI). The modulation is based on the amplitude and on the phase, so in case of
overlapping there are 2 different amplitudes and phases.
The receiver is not able to decode the state of the symbol.
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OFDMA
Cyclic Prefix
The problem is fixed by adding a guard time between each symbol to avoid the ISI.
The ISI is still present but is not disturbing for the receiver.

Principle : add a prefix to absorb channel effect and avoid ISI

Cyclic prefix permits to facilitate demodulation
The cyclic prefix transform the classical channel convolution into a cyclic convolution which
permits easy demodulation after FFT
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OFDMA
Cyclic Prefix
The guard time is called the Cyclic Prefix (CP). It permits to facilitate demodulation.

The cyclic prefix transforms the classical channel convolution into acyclic convolution which
permits easy demodulation after FFT.

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OFDMA
OFDMA Transmitter

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OFDMA
In the downlink, OFDM is selected to efficiently meet E-UTRA performance requirements. With
OFDM, it is straightforward to exploit frequency selectivity of the multi-path channel with low
complexity receivers. This allows frequency selective in addition to frequency diverse scheduling
and one cell reuse of available bandwidth.
Furthermore, due to its frequency domain nature, OFDM enables flexible bandwidth operation
with low complexity. Smart antenna technologies are also easier to support with OFDM, since
each sub-carrier becomes flat faded and the antenna weights can be optimized on a per subcarrier (or block of sub-carriers) basis.
In addition, OFDM enables broadcast services on a synchronized single frequency network
(SFN) with appropriate cyclic prefix design.
This allows broadcast signals from different cells to combine over the air, thus significantly
increasing the received signal power and supportable data rates for broadcast services.

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OFDMA
OFDMA Receiver

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OFDMA
OFDMA Advantages
Robust against narrow-band co-channel interference Robust against Intersymbol interference
(ISI) and fading
High spectral efficiency Efficient implementation using FFT

Drawbacks
High Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
The power limitation is more problematic in UL than in DL
Signal with high PAPR will limit the Tx power in UL and reduce coverage

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Downlink Physical Layer Procedures

Cell search and synchronization:

Scheduling: Scheduling is done in the base station (eNodeB). The downlink control
channel PDCCH informs the users about their allocated time/frequency resources and the
transmission formats to use. The scheduler evaluates different types of information, e.g.
Quality of Service parameters, measurements from the UE, UE capabilities, buffer status.

Link Adaptation: Link adaptation is already known from HSDPA as Adaptive

Modulation and Coding. Also in E-UTRA, modulation and coding for the shared data
channel is not fix, but it is adapted according to radio link quality. For this purpose, the
UE regularly reports Channel Quality Indications (CQI) to the eNodeB.

Hybrid ARQ (Automatic Repeat Request): Downlink Hybrid ARQ is also known from
HSDPA. It is a retransmission protocol. The UE can request retransmissions of
incorrectly received data packets.

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Uplink Transmission Scheme-SCFDMA

LTE uses in UL a modified form of OFDMA process, called SC-FDMA
SC-FDMA = Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SC-FDMA improves the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) compared to OFDM
Reduced power amplifier cost for mobile
Reduced power amplifier back-off improved coverage

In DL, use OFDM together with some PAPR reduction techniques (clipping and filtering,
tones reservation, etc)
In UL, find an alternative to OFDM combining some of OFDMs advantages, but with a PAPR
equivalent to single carriers one: DFT-Spread OFDM
(DFT-SOFDM), also known as Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA)
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SCFDMA

Thus, the LTE uplink transmission scheme for FDD and TDD mode is based on SCFDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access) with cyclic prefix.

SC-FDMA signals have better PAPR properties compared to an OFDMA signal.

This was one of the main reasons for selecting SCFDMA as LTE uplink access
scheme.

The PAPR characteristics are important for cost-effective design of UE power

amplifiers.

Still, SC-FDMA signal processing has some similarities with OFDMA signal
processing, so parameterization of downlink and uplink can be harmonized.

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SCFDMA
How does a SC-FDMA signal look like

Similar to OFDM signal, but

in OFDMA, each sub-carrier only carries information related to one specific

symbol,

in SC-FDMA, each sub-carrier contains information of ALL transmitted

symbols.

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SCFDMA
Benefits
DFT-spread OFDM (DFTS-OFDM) is a transmission scheme that can combine
the desired properties discussed in the previous sections, i.e.:
Small variations in the instantaneous power of the transmitted signal (singlecarrier
property).
Possibility for low-complexity high-quality equalization in the frequency domain.
Possibility for FDMA with flexible bandwidth assignment.
Due to these properties, DFTS-OFDM has been selected as the uplink transmission
scheme for LTE

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SCFDMA
UL Physical Channel Processing

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OFDMA and SC-FDMA

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Cell Search

Cell search: Mobile terminal or user equipment (UE) acquires time and frequency
synchronization with a cell and detects the cell ID of that cell.
Based on BCH (Broadcast Channel) signal and hierarchical SCH
(Synchronization Channel) signals.

P-SCH (Primary-SCH) and S-SCH (Secondary-SCH) are transmitted twice per

radio frame (10 ms) for FDD.

Cell search procedure :

1. 5 ms timing identified using P-SCH.
2. Radio timing and group ID found from S-SCH.
3. Full cell ID found from DL RS.
4. Decode BCH.

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LTE MIMO concept

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LTE MIMO concept

Multiple Antenna Schemes in LTE

In DL : Tx diversity, Rx diversity, Spatial multiplexing (2x2,4x2 configurations

SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO) supported

In UL : Only 1 Transmitter (antenna selection Tx diversity ), MU-MIMO possible,

Rx diversity with 2 or 4 antennas at eNB supported

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LTE MIMO concept

MIMO Configurations
MIMO

Multiple bases
(Network MIMO)

Single base

Co-located
antennas

Distributed
antennas

Noncoherent
(Magnitude only)

Coherent
(Magnitude/phase)

SU-MIMO,
MU-MIMO

Macroscopic
MIMO

Collaborative
MIMO

Coherent Network
MIMO

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LTE MIMO concept

Spatial Multiplexing

Spatial multiplexing allows to transmit different streams of data simultaneously on the same
downlink resource block(s). These data streams can belong to one single user (single user
MIMO / SU-MIMO) or to different users (multi user MIMO / MU-MIMO).
While SU-MIMO increases the data rate of one user, MU-MIMO allows to increase the overall
capacity.Spatial multiplexing is only possible if the mobile radio channel allows it.
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