Session 1

1.2 Wireless System

3G and UMTS Standards Family
Suk Chan Kim
Dept. of Electronics Engineering
Pusan National University

International
Telecommunication
1
Union

Background
Need for universal standard (Universal Mobile Telecommunication
System)
Support for packet data services
IP data in core network
Wireless IP

New services in mobile multimedia need faster data transmission

and flexible utilization of the spectrum
FDMA and TDMA are not efficient enough
TDMA wastes time resources
FDMA wastes frequency resources

CDMA can exploit the whole bandwidth constantly

Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) was selected for a radio access system
for UMTS (1997)

IMT 2000
ITU IMT-2000
compliant standards

common name(s)

IMT-SC
(Single-Carrier)

EDGE (UWC-136)

IMT-MC
(Multi-Carrier)

TDMA

FDD
CDMA2000

IMT-DS
(Direct Spread)

description

Areas

evolutionary upgrade to
GSM/GPRS

worldwide, except
Japan and South
Korea

evolutionary upgrade to
cdmaOne

Americas, Asia, some

others

CDMA

W-CDMA
UMTS

IMT-TC
(Time Code)

duplex channel

worldwide
family of revolutionary upgrade
s to earlier GSM family.

TD-CDMA
TD-SCDMA

IMT-FT
(Frequency Time)

DECT

IP-OFDMA

WiMAX

Europe
China

TDD

FDMA/
TDMA

short-range;
standard for cordless phones

Europe, US, Canada

OFDMA

IEEE 802.16

worldwide

Multiple Access Schemes

Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
Different frequencies for different users
Ex) Nordic Mobile Terminal (NMT) systems

Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

Same frequency but different timeslots for different users,
Ex) GSM (GSM also uses FDMA)

Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)

Same frequency and time but users are separated from each other with
orthogonal codes

Spread Spectrum
Means that the transmission bandwidth is much larger than the

information bandwidth i.e. transmitted signal is spread to a wider

bandwidth
Bandwidth is not dependent on the information signal

Benefits
More secure communication
Reduces the impact of interference (and jamming) due to processing
gain

Classification
Direct Sequence (spreading with pseudo noise (PN) sequence)
Frequency hopping (rapidly changing frequency)
Time Hopping (large frequency, short transmission bursts)

Direct Sequence is currently commercially most viable

Spread Spectrum
Where does spread spectrum come from
First publications, late 40s
First applications: Military from the 50s
Rake receiver patent 1956
Cellular applications proposed late 70s
Investigations for cellular use 80s
IS-95 standard 1993 (2G)
1997/1998 3G technology choice
2001/2002 Commercial launch of WCDMA technology

Direct Sequence
User bits are coded with unique binary sequence
The bits of the channelization code are called chips
Chip rate (W) is typically much higher than bit rate (R)
Codes need to be in some respect orthogonal to each other

Length of a channelization code

defines how many chips are used to spread a single information bit and
thus determines the end bit rate
Shorter code equals to higher bit rate but better SINR is required. Also
the shorter the code, the fewer number of codes are available
Different bit rates have different geographical areas covered based on
the interference levels

In transmission side, information signal is multiplied with

channelization code (spread signal)

In receiving side, spread signal is multiplied with channelization

code (despread signal)

Direct Sequence (2)

WCDMA System
W-CDMA is the most common radio interface for UMTS systems
Wide bandwidth, 3.84 Mcps (Megachips per second)
Maps to 5 MHz due to pulse shaping and small guard bands between the
carriers

Users share the same 5 MHz frequency band and time

UL and DL have separate 5 MHz frequency bands

High bit rates

With Release 99 theoretically 2 Mbps both UL and DL
384 kbps highest implemented

Fast power control (PC)

Reduces the impact of channel fading and minimizes the interference

WCDMA System (2)

Soft handover
Improves coverage, decreases interference

Robust and low complexity RAKE receiver

Introduces multipath diversity

Variable spreading factor

Support for flexible bit rates

Multiplexing of different services on a single physical connection

(Simultaneous support of services with different QoS requirements)

Real-time: voice, video telephony
Streaming: streaming video and audio
Interactive: web-browsing
Background: e-mail download

Codes in W-CDMA
Channelization Codes (=short code)
Codes from different branches of the code tree are orthogonal
Length is dependent on the spreading factor
Used for
channel separation from the single source in downlink
separation of data and control channels from each other in the uplink

Same channelization codes in every cell / mobiles and therefore the

additional scrambling code is needed

Scrambling codes (=long code)

Very long (38400 chips = 10 ms =1 radio frame)
Does not spread the signal
Uplink: to separate different mobiles
Downlink: to separate different cells
The correlation between two codes (two mobiles/NodeBs) is low
Not fully orthogonal

UTRAN Architecture
UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN)

New Radio Access network

needed mainly due to new

radio access technology
Core Network (CN) is based
on GSM/GPRS
Radio Network Controller
(RNC) corresponds roughly
to the Base Station
Controller (BSC) in GSM
Node B corresponds roughly
to the Base Station in GSM
Radio network controller
(RNC) controls the radio
resources: Radio resource
management (RRM)

RAKE receiver
Every multipath component arriving at the receiver more than one

chip time (0.26 s) apart can be distinguished by the RAKE receiver

0.26 s corresponds to 78 m in path length difference

RAKE assigns a finger to each received component (tap) and

alters their phases based on a channel estimate so that the
components can be combined constructively

Transmitted
symbol

Finger #1

Finger #2

Finger #3

Received
symbol at
each time slot

Phase modified
using the
channel
estimate

Combined
symbol

Power Control in WCDMA

The purpose of power control (PC) is to ensure that each user

receives and transmits just enough energy to have service but to

prevent:
Blocking of distant users (near-far-effect)
Exceeding reasonable interference levels

Without PC received
power levels would
be unequal

UE1
UE2
UE3
UE1
UE2

UE1 UE2 UE3

UE3

With ideal PC received

power levels are equal

Power Control in WCDMA

1. Open loop power control

Only for the initial power setting of the MS

Based on distance attenuation estimation from the downlink pilot signal

2. Inner loop transmitter power control (CL TPC) at a rate of 1500 Hz

Mitigates fading processes (fast and slow fading)

Tx power is adjusted up/down to reach SIR target

Both in UL and DL

Uses quality targets in MS / BS

3. Outer loop PC at the rate of 100 Hz

Sets the quality target used by the inner loop PC

Compensates the changes in the propagation conditions

Adjusts the quality target

Both in UL and DL

Power Control in WCDMA

Inner loop power control in the uplink

Outer loop PC (running in the radio network controller, RNC) defines SIR
target for the BS.

If the measured SIR at BS is lower than the SIR-target, the MS is

commanded to increases its transmit power. Otherwise MS is
commanded to decrease its power

Power control dynamics at the MS is 70 dB

Power Control in WCDMA

Inner loop power control in downlink:
Outer loop PC (running in the MS) defines SIR target for the MS
If the measured SIR at the MS is lower than the SIR-target, the BS is
commanded to increases its transmit power for that MS. Otherwise, BS
is commanded to decrease its power.
Power control rate 1500 Hz
Power control dynamics is dependent on the service
Theres no near-far problem in DL due to one-to-many scenario.
However, it is desirable to provide a marginal amount of additional
power to mobile stations at the cell edge, as they suffer from increased
other-cell interference.

Diversity
Transmitting on a single path only can lead to serious performance
degradation due to fading
As fading is independent between different times and spaces it is
reasonable to use the available diversity of them to decrease the
probability of a deep fade

The more there are paths to choose from, the less likely it is that all of
them have a poor energy level

There exists different types of diversity which can be used to

improve the quality, e.g.:
Multipath
RAKE receiver exploits taps arriving at different times

Macro
Different Node Bs send the same information

Site Selection Transmit Diversity (SSTD)

Maintain a list of available base stations and choose the best one, from which
the transmission is received and tell the others not to transmit

WCDMA Handovers
WCDMA handovers can be categorized into three different types
Intra-frequency handover
WCDMA handover within the same frequency and system. Soft, softer
and hard handover supported

Inter-frequency handover
Handover between different frequencies (carriers) but within the same
system
E.g. from one WCDMA operator to another
Only hard handover supported

Inter-system handover
Handover between WCDMA and another system, e.g. from WCDMA to
GSM
Only hard handover supported

Soft Handover
Handover between different Node Bs
Several Node Bs transmit the same signal to the UE which
combines the transmissions

Advantages: lower Tx power needed for each Node B and UE

Disadvantage: resources (code, power) need to be reserved for the UE
in each Node B

No interruption in data transmission

Needs RNC duplicating frame transmissions to two Node Bs

Softer and Hard Handover

Softer handover
Handover between two sectors of
the same Node B
Special case of a soft handover
No need for duplicate frames

Hard handover
The source is released first and
then new one is added
Short interruption in data flow

Capacity and coverage

In WCDMA coverage and capacity are tight together:
When the load increases, the interference levels increases, too, and
therefore also increased transmit powers are needed in order to keep
constant quality.
Due to finite power resources, the more users Node B serves the less
power it has for each UE coverage will decrease

This leads to cell breathing: the coverage area changes as the load
of the cell changes.

Therefore, the coverage and

the capacity have to be
planned simultaneously
Radio resource management
(RRM) is needed in WCDMA
to effectively control cell
breathing.

High Speed Downlink Packet Access

(HSDPA)

In Release 99 there basically exists three different methods for

downlink packet data operation
DCH
Forward Access Channel (FACH)
Downlink Shared Channel (DSCH)

After the introduction of HSDPA in Release 5 some changes to

downlink packet data operations occurred

New High Speed DSCH (HS-DSCH) channel was introduced

DSCH was removed due to lack of interest for implementing it in
practical networks

HSDPA features
Agreed features in Release 5
Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)
QPSK or 16QAM

Multicode operation
Support of 1-15 code channels (SF=16)

Short frame size (TTI = 2 ms)

Fast retransmissions using Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ)
Chase Combining
Incremental Redundancy

Fast packet scheduling at Node B

E.g. Round robin, Proportional fair

Features agreed in Release 7

Higher order modulation (64QAM)
Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)

Channel quality
(CQI, Ack/Nack, TPC)
Data

Instantaneous EsNo [dB]

HSDPA - general principle

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2

16QAM3/4

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Time [number of TTIs]

16QAM2/4

UE

QPSK3/4
QPSK2/4
QPSK1/4

New base station functions

HARQ retransmissions
Modulation/coding selection
Packet data scheduling (short TTI)

Users may be time and/or code multiplexed

Fast scheduling is done directly in Node-B based on feedback

information from UE and knowledge of current traffic state.

160

HSDPA functionality
Scheduling responsibility has been moved from RNC to Node B
Due to this and the short TTI length (2 ms) the scheduling is
dynamic and fast
Support for several parallel transmissions

When packet A is sent it starts to wait for an acknowledgement from the

receiver, during which other packets can be sent via a parallel SAW
(stop-and-wait) channels

HSDPA functionality (2)

UE informs the Node B regularly of its channel quality by CQI
messages (Channel Quality Indicator)

HSDPA channels
User data is sent on High Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-

DSCH)
Control information is sent on High Speed Common Control Channel
(HS-SCCH)
HS-SCCH is sent two slot before HS-DSCH to inform the scheduled
UE of the transport format of the incoming transmission on HSDSCH

High Speed Uplink Packet Access

(HSUPA)

Peak data rates increased to significantly higher than 2 Mbps;

Theoretically reaching 5.8 Mbps

Packet data throughput increased, though not as high throughput
as with HSDPA
Reduced delay from retransmissions.
Solutions
Layer1 hybrid ARQ
NodeB based scheduling for uplink
Frame sizes 2ms & 10 ms

Schedule in 3GPP
Part of Release 6
First specifications version completed 12/04
In 3GPP specs with the name Enhanced uplink DCH (E-DCH)

HSPA Peak Data Rates

Downlink HSDPA

Uplink HSUPA

Theoretical up to 14.4 Mbps

Theoretical up to 5.76 Mbps

Initial capability 1.8 3.6 Mbps

Initial capability 1.46 Mbps