DL Carrier Aggregation

CA principles
A regular cell is paired with additional logical
cell serving the same site sector.
this dependency could be bi-directional,
this first cell could serve as secondary cell
PCell and SCell have to be collocated
RL50 supports inter-band CA only
RL60 starts with selected intra-band CA
only non-GBR data could be sent via Scell
all CA configured cells serve simultaneously
CA UEs and also regular, non-CA Ues
there is no CA in the uplink direction

P.Cell and S.Cell data transmission

PRIMARY
CELL
SECONDARY
CELL

CA capable UE

Carrier 1, P.Cell
Carrier 2, S.Cell

DL Carrier Aggregation
Downlink data rates of up to 300Mbps
Downlink carrier aggregation - 40 MHz (RL60)
Challenges
Fragmented spectrum availability with Operators (multiple bands)
Higher throughput / Capacity required to cater exponential growth in mobile broadband
traffic
High churn due low peak data rate
Motivation, Benefits
Doubling the DL peak data rates to 300 Mbps
Very fast load balancing between carriers (on TTi level)
A mix of carrier aggregation UEs and non-carrier aggregation UEs are supported in
downlink
All HO types are supported between CA and Non-CA cells
ARPU increase due to higher data package prices
Mitigates the challenge of fragmented spectrum
The downlink carrier aggregation is applied for
UEs with the related UE capabilities and
UEs having only non GBR e-RABs established
UEs are admitted based on the primary component carrier (PCC) admission
control settings
The mobility for carrier aggregation configured UEs is based on PCC
measurements (HO works with one carrier PCC)
UEs with an activated SCC are scheduled by separate and coordinated downlink
schedulers
Both Inter band and Intra band combination is possible.

The two component carriers can have different MIMO settings, e.g.
2x2 MIMO + 2x2 MIMO
4x2 MIMO + 2x2 MIMO
4x2 MIMO + 4x2 MIMO

LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation

Primary
Comp.
Carrier
Seconda
ry
Comp.
Carrier

Band A

150Mbps

20 MHz

Carrier
Aggregation

Band B
20 MHz

40 MHz

150Mbps

LTE1332- Downlink carrier aggregation - 40 MHz

300Mbps

DL Carrier Aggregation
RL60 embodiment of Carrier Aggregation functionality

Primary improvements coming with RL60 LTE1332 feature:

Additional cell bandwidth combinations are supported on top of RL50

band combinations:
5 MHz + 15 MHz
5 MHz + 20 MHz
10 MHz + 15 MHz
10 MHz + 20 MHz
15 MHz + 15 MHz
15 MHz + 20 MHz
20 MHz + 20 MHz

20 MHz

20 MHz

RL60 extends maximum possible

aggregated bandwidth from 20 MHz (RL50
LTE 1089) to 40 MHz

Support for additional band combinations is provided:

band 1 + band 7
band 2 + band 4
band 2 + band 5
band 2 + band 17
band 3 + band 3
band 3 + band 7
band 3 + band 20
band 4 + band 4

band 4 + band 17
band 5 + band 7
band 7 + band 20
band 4 + band 12
band 3 + band 28
band 4 + band 7
band 7 + band 7

Note that RL60 provides also support for

certain intra-band carrier aggregation
options this support was not in place in
RL50

2.6 G

1.8 G

SINR: Signal-to-Interference + Noise Ratio

SINR: Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio
Minimum relation between useful signal and sum of interferences coming from own and
neighboring cells and the received noise power
SINR

I own

S
I oth N

- S : useful signal (received power)

- Iown : own cell interference (close to zero in LTE due to the orthogonality of subcarriers)
- Ioth : other cell interference
- N : noise power
In LTE the PDSCH required SINR replaces the required Eb/No of the UMTS Rel. 99 DCH
Link Budget; Eb/No is not helpful in case of Fast Link Adaptation
SINR requirement is practically obtained from link level simulations, which depend on
channel model, MIMO scheme, BLER requirement.

Required SINR

In order to meet the defined quality requirements (BLER) a certain average required SINR is needed
Required SINR depends on:

Cell Range (Pathloss)

Cell Edge User Throughput

Based on the Cell Edge Throughput the number of allocated PRBs and the MCS could be defined see next slides

OFDM specific channel models

Channel model is a way to consider UE mobility and environment in the link budget calculation

2 main groups of channel models are available:

Enhanced Pedestrian A 5Hz (EPA05) valid for low speed mobiles in general, i.e. 3 Km/h at 1800 MHz (5Hz Doppler)

Enhanced Typical Urban (ETU70) valid for higher speed mobiles

Considered Antenna Scheme for the DL:

1Tx 2Rx; 2TX 2RX Transmit Diversity ; 2TX 2RX Spatial Multiplexing (not expected at cell edge)
L1 overhead of the physical channels
-

The impact is the reduced number of resource blocks which could be used for user data
Scheduling gain
see next slides

MCS: Modulation & Coding Scheme

PRB: Physical Resource Block

DL Required SINR decision sequence (1/7)

STEP 1 for the required SINR decision:
Input:
Cell Edge User Throughput

The target cell edge throughput is used to select the least

robust MCS with good balance of coverage & resource
consumption of the air interface
BLER at first HARQ retransmission

Assumption: to be 10% for the first HARQ retransmission,

i.e. 10% probability to complete 1 or more
retransmissions

The actual effect is the increase of the cell edge

throughput

STEP 1 for required

SINR decision
Cell Edge
Throughput

MCS = Modulation & Coding Scheme

3GPP TS 36.211 specifies QPSK, 16QAM & 64QAM for the DL
Affects the amount of resources that will be used for user data

BLER

TBS =
Transport
Block Size

Output: TBS (Transport Block Size) & Number of Required RBs (Resource Blocks) see next slide

MCS

#RBs =
Number of
Resource
Blocks

DL Required SINR decision sequence (2/7)

TBS set
- Number of user data bits transmitted to single user during 1 TTI
(1ms)
- The TB occupies 2 PRBs in time domain

3GPP TS 36.213 specifies tables to:

- link the MCS Index -> Modulation Order (modulation type) and TBS
Index
- link the TBS Index -> Transport Block Size (TBS) for a specific
number of PRBs

MCS index - from 0 to 28

it is decided by the scheduler which should translate a specific CQI in an
MCS index

ITBS = TBS index

The TBS Index is mapped to a specific TBS size for a specific #PRBs
Uses a different table (3GPP TS 36.213)
See next slide for an example
MCS: Modulation & Coding Scheme
PRB: Physical Resource Block

DL MCSs
MCS_index
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

MCS
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
QPSK
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
16QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM
64QAM

Mod order
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

ITBS
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26

DL Required SINR decision sequence (3/7)

Example for the identification of the Number of PRBs per User and the Transport Block
Size (TBS)

Assumptions:
Required cell edge throughput = 384Kbps
MCS = 10-16QAM
MCS = 10-16QAM TBS_index = 9
Air Interface User Throughput =
= 384 / (100% - 10%) = 427 kbps
search for TBS in ITBS9 Air Interface User Throughput
#RB_used = 3 TBS = 456 bits
456 bits/TTI = 456 bits/1 ms = 456 kbps 427 kbps
Conclusion: # RB used= 3

Identifies the number of Resource Blocks (RB) required to achieve the target
Cell Edge User Throughput
Uses the already defined MCS to identify the appropriate row within
the transport block size table
The target Cell Edge User Throughput is used to determine the
minimum transport block size requirement

Only a subset of the complete table

(3GPP TS 36.213 specifies 110 columns)

DL Required SINR decision sequence (4/7)

-

STEP 2 for the required SINR decision:

The selected MCS & #PRBs from Step 1 is
associated with a defined Required SINR
The actual SINR requirement is obtained from
link level simulations
Several look-up tables results are available for
several cases:
Specific channel models (EPA 5Hz &
ETU70Hz channel models)
Different SINR requirements are specified
for different antenna schemes (1TX 2RX
or 2TX 2RX)
Block Error Rate BLER typical 10%
In the SINR look-up table result the SINR is a
function of :
MCS = Modulation and Coding Scheme
Number of RBs

STEP 2 for required

SINR decision

Example:
SINR table for the case DL 2Tx-2Rx, EPA 5Hz Channel Model, BLER
= 10%
EPA 5Hz Doppler frequency=5Hz for 1800MHz and 3km/h

Conditions for the table --- EPA5Hz + 22MIMO + 10%BLER

EPA: Enhanced Pedestrian A, ETU: Enhanced Typical Urban.
9

DL Required SINR decision sequence (5/7)

The selection of MCS is a trade-off between coverage & resource utilization:

The more robust the selected MCS (e.g. 0-QPSK) the lower the allowed required SINR which is
improving the coverage. But on the same time the higher the resource consumption (42 PRBs out of
50 for 10 MHz bandwidth for 1024Kbps) which leaves less resources for the rest of the scheduled
users.
10

DL Required SINR decision sequence (7/7)

STEP 3 for required SINR decision

STEP 3 for required SINR decision:

Consider additional SINR improvements features like FDPS (Frequency Domain
Packet Scheduling)
System level simulations are used to show the gain of Proportional Fair algorithm in DL
over Round Robin (see the table)
The table could be read as follows: when UE occupies 100% of resources there is no
gain from particular scheduling strategy because RRM cannot play with frequency
resources.

DL FDPS Gain (dB)

Channel usage per
single UE
10.00%
11.11%
12.50%
14.29%
16,67%
20.00%
25.00%
33.33%
50.00%
100.00%

Gain (dB)
3,71
3,64
3,53
3,41
3,25
2,93
2,52
2,11
1,68
0

The more UEs could be scheduled in the same TTI (that means less resource allocation per user), the more certain gain can
be observed.
Example:
Cell edge Throughput is 1024Kbps, Number of allocated PRBs per user is selected to be 13 out of 50 available in 10 MHz (for
MCS = 5-QPSK)
The channel usage per TTI of the user is 26%. Thus, Required SINR = 1,11 dB(Required SINR from table) 2,47 dB (FDPS
gain for 26% channel usage) = -1,36dB
The larger the amount of resources (subcarriers) available for the scheduling of a single user, the higher the chance to avoid
channel quality gaps
For example when 50 PRBs are available (10MHz bandwidth) and 10 full user buffer UEs are scheduled per TTI then it
results 5 PRBs per user that is 10% of resources allocated per UE.
11

UL Required SINR

The selection of MCS in UL is a trade-off between a lower required SINR value and the number of allocated PRBs per
UE:
UE output power is shared between the subcarriers assigned for transmission.
The smaller the number of used subcarriers the higher is the power per subcarrier so the higher the coverage. On the
other hand, lower number of PRBs per UE (lower number of subcarriers) requires a higher order MCS - increasing the
required SINR.
In this case, despite of a higher required SINR, a greater cell range could be obtained due to the accumulation of the total
power on less PRBs used for the transmission.
12