Codebook Design for LTE-A Downlink System
Lu Wu, Jinhui Chen, Hongwei Yang and Di Lu
Research & Innovation Center, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Shanghai, China
Email: {lu.wu, jinhui.chen, hongwei.yang, di.a.lv}@alcatel-sbell.com.cn
Abstract—Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been
adopted by long term evolution (LTE) and its updated version
LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) to increase the spectrum efficiency.
However, the benefits of multi-user (MU) MIMO highly rely on
the accurate channel knowledge at the transmitter. So proper
codebook design is a key problem for LTE-A FDD downlink
system. In this paper, a codebook design with phase adjustment in
the precoder targeting wideband channel properties is proposed.
The average cell spectrum efficiency and cell-edge user spectrum
efficiency of the proposed scheme are evaluated through system
level simulation and compared to the discrete Fourier transform
(DFT) based feedback scheme. The results show that the proposed
codebooks significantly improve feedback efficiency and system
performance for co-polarized linear antenna array.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spatial multiplex-
ing is recognized to be capable of dramatically increasing
the spectrum efficiency of wireless communication [1] and
has been adopted by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP) long term evolution (LTE) and its updated version
LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) as one of the key techniques. High
data rates (326 Mbps for LTE [2], 1 Gbps for LTE-A [3][4])
and high spectrum efficiency are some of the requirements for
these standards. These ambitious targets can be achieved only
by the usage of advanced MIMO techniques.
It is well known that multi-user (MU) MIMO is very sen-
sitive to the accuracy of channel knowledge at the transmitter.
Contrary to single user (SU) MIMO, limited feedback in
MU-MIMO limits the gain of spatial multiplexing due to
the quantization error. In other words, as signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) increases, MU-MIMO becomes interference limited
due to the intra-cell interference induced by the quantization
error.
In a frequency division duplex (FDD) system, the transmit-
ter gets the channel state information (CSI) via quantization
and limited feedback from each user. In recent 3GPP meetings,
it has been agreed that the feedback framework allows the
report of two matrices selected from two separate codebooks
[5]. One matrix targets wideband and/or long-term channel
properties, and the other matrix targets frequency-selective
and/or short-term channel properties. Hence, the design for
the two codebooks is a main problem. In practice, co-polarized
linear antenna array is a typical configuration in LTE-A sys-
tems. There should be a proper codebook design corresponding
to this antenna array. In LTE-A discussions, many feedback
proposals have been presented to quantize the two matrices.
Among these schemes, discrete Fourier transform (DFT) based
feedback [6] is a smart design and receives the most concern,
978-1-4244-8327-3/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
which selects a cluster of beams first, then performs beam
selection and co-phasing between two antenna subgroups. But
this codebook design does not perform well in co-polarized
linear antenna array since it does not fully match the channel
characteristic of this antenna configuration due to the limited
co-phasing.
In this paper, we indicate that precoder should have the
form of DFT vector for closely-spaced co-polarized linear
antenna array due to the high spatial correlation. Then an
enhanced DFT based codebook is proposed herein with phase
adjustment added in the precoder targeting wideband CSI. By
use of this phase adjustment, the channel characteristic of co-
polarized arry can be fully utilized as much as possible without
increasing codebook size. Hence, compared to DFT based
feedback [6], CSI feedback efficiency and system performance
with the proposed codebook can be improved significantly
for co-polarized antennas. As to cross-polarized linear antenna
array, since the feedback granuality is the same, the proposed
codebook can still perform well as DFT based feedback, which
is also demonstrated by system level simulations.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section
II introduces the downlink system model. Section III firstly
describes DFT based feedback, then derives the proposed
codebook. System level simulation results are presented in
Section IV. Finally, Section V provides some concluding
remarks.
Notation: (·)T is transpose, nmodN denotes the modulus
function, and diag(a1 , a2 , · · · , aN ) represents a diagonal ma-
trix with a1 , a2 , · · · , aN being the main diagonal elements.
II. T HE D OWNLINK S YSTEM M ODEL
In 3GPP LTE-A, MIMO and orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) are employed for downlink system.
Suppose that each base station (BS) has Nt transmit antennas
and each user is equipped with Nr receive antennas. At BS,
the transmitted signal for subcarrier k can be expressed as
x(k) = F(k)s(k) (1)
T
where s(k) = [s1 (k), s2 (k), · · · , sR (k)] is a R × 1 vector
containing the encoded MIMO complex data symbols at
subcarrier k, R is the rank of the transmission, and F(k) is a
Nt × R complex precoding matrix.
Codebook based precoding is employed for LTE-A FDD
system. Each user selects the codeword in the predefined
codebook to represent the CSI from the served BS, and
sends the preferred codeword index to the BS. There are
some criterias to select codeword, such as maximum capacity
and chordal distance. Then BS retrieves the downlink CSI where ek denotes a Nb × 1 elementary vector with all zeros
according to the codeword index fed back from user, and except for the (k + 1)-th element with value 1. For rank 2,
performs proportional fairness scheduling by greedy search  
1 Y1 Y2
based on maximum weighted sum capacity. If SU mode is W2 = √ (6)
2 bY1 −bY2
scheduled, the precoding matrix F(k) is set as the codeword
fed back by the corresponding user. Otherwise, if MU mode where b represents co-phasing, and Y1 , Y2 are selected from
is scheduled, F(k) is usually calculated by zero-forcing (ZF) the elementary vectors.
method based on the downlink CSI of each scheduled user. With proper selection of a and b, the design in equations
(3)-(6) can also be made to suit the closely spaced co-polarized
III. C ODEBOOK D ESIGN linear array.
How to design the codebook effectively quantizing the Assume that the whole band is divided into M subbands.
CSI is a very important question for FDD downlink system. The sizes of C1 and C2 are denoted by N1 and N2 bits
In recent 3GPP meetings, it has been agreed that the CSI respectively. At first, user selects codeword W1 in codebook
feedback framework allows the report of two matrices selected C1 on the whole band. Then on each subband, user selects
from two separate codebooks. One matrix targets wideband codeword W2 in codebook C2 to match the subband CSI.
and/or long-term channel properties, and the other matrix tar- Hence, the overhead of DFT based feedback is N1 + M N2
gets frequency-selective and/or short-term channel properties. bits.
Hence, the two codebooks need to be designed properly. Based on the design described above, 8-Tx codebooks for
DFT based feedback are concretely presented in [6] for co-
A. DFT Based Feedback polarized and cross-polarized antennas. 128 beams are gener-
In recent LTE-A meetings, a two-stage codebook design is ated from the multiplication of W1 and W2 , in which only
agreed in [6]. The recommended codeword W for a subband sixteen beams have the form of 8-Tx DFT vectors matching
is the spatial characteristic of co-polarized antenna setup. In W1 ,
W = W1 W2 (2) X is composed of four adjacent overlapping beams. Each
beam is one of 32 4-Tx DFT vectors. The use of adjacent
where W is a Nt × R matrix, the outer matrix W1 ∈ C1 is a
overlapping beams is to reduce edge effect in frequency-
Nt × Nb matrix representing the wideband CSI, and the inner
selective precoding. Thus sixteen W1 codewords could be
matrix W2 ∈ C2 is a Nb × R matrix.
obtained as
This structure is well-suited for efficiently supporting com-  
(0) (1) (15)
mon antenna setups such as closely spaced cross-polarized or C1 = W1 , W1 , · · · , W1
co-polarized linear array. To see how correlations properties  (k) 
(k) X 0
are exploited, first consider the common case of an array of W1 = , k = 0, 1, · · · , 15 (7)
0 X(k)
closely spaced cross-polarized antennas. The antennas can then
be divided into two separate subgroups depending on the polar- where
 
ization direction of the antenna. The correlation is high among X(k) = b2kmod32 b(2k+1)mod32 · · · b(2k+3)mod32
the channels within an antenna subgroup while channels from  2πm 2πm∗2

2πm∗3 T
different antenna subgroups fade in an independent manner, bm = 1, ej 32 , ej 32 , ej 32 , m = 0, 1, · · · , 31.
and to some extent with reduced cross-talk due to the use of (8)
orthogonal polarizations. Such an antenna setup thus creates
W2 codebook C2 is composed of column selection and QPSK
quite pronounced channel properties, which are well-matched
co-phasing, and is expressed as follows:
to a block diagonal structure of W1 , i.e.,
  • Rank 1
X 0
W1 = (3)
   
0 X 1 Y 1 Y
W2 ∈ C2 = √ ,√ ,
where X targets a co-polarized antenna subgroup. Since the 2  Y  2 jY 
correlation is high within the antenna subgroup, it makes sense 1 Y 1 Y
to use a grid of beam codebook implemented from DFT based √ ,√
2 −Y 2 −jY
precoder vectors. Thus, X is composed by Nb Nt × 1 adjacent
Y = {e0 , e1 , e2 , e3 } (9)
DFT vectors.
The inner matrix W2 selects one beam in W1 and adjusts • Rank 2

 
the relative phase shift between polarizations. For rank 1, W2 1 Y 1 Y2
W2 ∈ C2 = √ ,
could be formed as
  2  Y1 −Y2 
1 Y 1 Y1 Y2
W2 = √ (4) √
2 aY 2 jY1 −jY2
In the equation above, a represents co-phasing, and (Y1 , Y2 ) ∈ {(e0 , e0 ), (e1 , e1 ), (e2 , e2 ), (e3 , e3 ),
Y ∈ {e0 , e1 , · · · , eNb −1 } (5) (e0 , e1 ), (e1 , e2 ), (e0 , e3 ), (e1 , e3 )} (10)
B. Proposed Codebook If an unified codebook is needed for both co-polarized and
For closely-spaced co-polarized linear array, the dominated cross-polarized antenna, the codebook proposed above can be
eigen-vector of the channel correlation matrix can be approxi- modified by just adding a co-phasing factor a in W2 , which
mated by a DFT vector due to the high spatial correlation. targets the phase adjustment between two antenna subgroups
So the rank-1 precoder W needs to be designed as DFT for cross-polarized antenna. Then W2 is constructed as
vectors specific to this antenna configuration. In the DFT • Rank 1
 
based feedback described in Section III-A, the co-phasing in 1 Y
W2 = √
W2 is important for matching the phase shift between the 2 aY
two antenna subgroups. However, due to the limited selection Y = {e0 , e1 , · · · , eNb −1 } (17)
of co-phasing, 8-Tx codebooks for DFT based feedback only
provide sixteen DFT vectors from total 128 beams. If more • Rank 2
 
DFT vectors are wanted, it needs more bits for co-phasing, 1 Y Y
W2 = √
which must increase the codebook size and the feedback 2 aY −aY
overhead. In this section, an enhanced two-stage codebook Y = {e0 , e1 , · · · , eNb −1 } (18)
is proposed to overcome this problem without increasing the
overhead of DFT based feedback. Next, as an example, the proposed 8-Tx codebook is pre-
Define the N × 1 DFT vector as sented in the following.
  
2πm(N −1) T (0) (1) (15)
m
fM,N
2πm
= 1, ej M , · · · , ej M , m = 0, 1, · · · , M − 1 C1 = W1 , W1 , · · · , W1
 (k) 
(11) (k) X 0
W1 = , k = 0, 1, · · · , 15 (19)
where M/N denotes the value of oversampling. It is obvious 0 X(k) Λ(k)
that the phase shift between two subgroups is fixed for the
where
(m + 1)-th DFT vector, i.e., 2πm(N/2)/M . Basing on this  
observation, we indicate that for co-polarized antenna, there is X(k) = b2kmod32 b(2k+1)mod32 · · · b(2k+3)mod32
 2π4
no need to feed back any bit for co-phasing due to the fixed 2π4
Λ(k) = diag ej 32 (2kmod32) , ej 32 ((2k+1)mod32) ,
phase shift of each beam. In the following, we propose adding 
the fixed phase shift of each beam into W1 in equation (3) 2π4 2π4
ej 32 ((2k+2)mod32) , ej 32 ((2k+3)mod32)
to construct DFT vectors. Furthermore, an unified codebook 
2πm 2πm∗2 2πm∗3 T
design is provided for both co-polarized and cross-polarized bm = 1, ej 32 , ej 32 , ej 32 , m = 0, 1, · · · , 31.
linear array. (20)
Define Z(k) as follows, which is comprised by Nb DFT
vectors. And W2 codebook is written as
 kNb
• Rank 1
k1 k2
Z(k) = fM,N , f , · · · , f (12)  
t /2 M,Nt /2 M,Nt /2 1 Y
W2 = √
Define

2 aY
2πk1 (Nt /2) 2πk2 (Nt /2) 2πkN (Nt /2)
b Y = {e0 , e1 , e2 , e3 }
Λ(k) = diag ej M , ej M , · · · , ej M

{1}, co-polarized antenna

(13) a∈ (21)
{1, −1, j, −j}, unified codebook
Then we propose W1 as follows:
 (k) • Rank 2
(k) Z 0  
W1 = , k = 0, 1, · · · , N1 − 1 (14) 1 Y Y
0 Z(k) Λ(k) W2 = √
2 aY −aY
With the diagonal matrix Λ(k) added, each corresponding Y = {e0 , e1 , e2 , e3 }
columns in the first and second block diagonal matrix can

{1}, co-polarized antenna

construct Nt -Tx DFT vectors. Thus, for co-polarized antenna, a∈ (22)
{1, −1, j, −j}, unified codebook
only beam selection is needed in W2 , i.e.,
• Rank 1
Obviously, compared to DFT based feedback in equations
  (7)-(10), the proposed codebooks presented above reduce
1 Y
W2 = √ payload size of 2M bits for co-polarized antenna. Besides,
2 Y since the proposed codebooks provide the largest number of
Y = {e0 , e1 , · · · , eNb −1 } (15) DFT vectors without increasing codebook size, the system
• Rank 2 performance can be further improved as the reduction of
  beam granularity. As to cross-polarized linear antenna array,
1 Y Y
W2 = √ although the proposed codebooks use different co-phasing to
2 Y −Y DFT based feedback, there is no big difference between their
Y = {e0 , e1 , · · · , eNb −1 } (16) performance due to the same co-phasing granularity.
 TABLE I
S IMULATION PARAMETERS FOR LTE-A D OWNLINK 1

Deployment scenario 3GPP case 1 3D, SCM-UMa, 0.9

8 degree angle spread
0.8
Cell number 19 cells with 3 sectors per cell
Wrap-around model Yes 0.7
Duplex method and bandwidth FDD: 10MHz for downlink
Network synchronization Synchronized 0.6
Traffic model Full buffer

CDF
0.5
User number per sector 10
Maximal number of 0.4
co-scheduled users 8 for 8Tx
BS Antenna 8Tx: Co-polarized/Cross-polarized 0.3
antennas with the spacing of half
wave length, polarization angles 0.2
of 90◦ /±45◦
0.1 DFT based codebook
User antenna 2Rx: half wave length spacing; Proposed codebook
co-polarized antennas with vertical 0
polarization; cross-polarized 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
User Throughput (kbps)
antennas with polarization angles
of 90◦ /0◦
Transmission scheme ZF method, MU-MIMO, Fig. 1. CDF of user throughput for 8Tx co-polarized antenna.
rank 1 per user
Scheduler Proportional fair and frequency
selective scheduling, scheduling
granularity of one subframe (1 ms) 1
Feedback Wideband W1 , subband W2 and
subband CQI: 5ms report 0.9
periodicity, 6ms feedback delay
0.8
Link adaptation Error: N(0,1dB) per PRB
HARQ Synchronous HARQ, chase 0.7
combining, max 4 retransmissions
Receiver type MMSE 0.6
Control channel and
CDF

0.5
reference signal overhead Fixed 0.3063
(As agreed in ITU evaluation) 0.4
Simulation time 800 subframes (1 ms/subframe)
0.3

TABLE II 0.2
S YSTEM L EVEL S IMULATION R ESULTS FOR 8T X C O - POLARIZED
A NTENNA 0.1 DFT based codebook
Proposed codebook
0
Codebook (N1 , N2 ) Average SE (bps/Hz) Edge SE (bps/Hz/user) 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
DFT based feedback 4.53 (100%) 0.161 (100%) User Throughput (kbps)
Proposed codebook 4.97 (109.71%) 0.171 (106.21%)
Fig. 2. CDF of user throughput for 8Tx cross-polarized antenna.

IV. S IMULATIONS
This section shows the system level simulation with the
presented codebooks for LTE-A FDD downlink system over
19 sites/57 pentagon-shaped cells. The main simulation pa-
rameters and modeling assumptions for LTE-A evaluation
are summarized in Table I. The overall downlink bandwidth
(10 MHz) is divided into 10 subbands, i.e., M = 10. We
consider perfect channel knowledge at the user side and error-
free feedback transmission from each user. For MU-MIMO,
lower bound of the post-detection signal to interference plus
noise ratio (SINR) of each user is used as the channel quality
indicator (CQI) [7]. After the MU-MIMO scheduling, BS
adjusts the reported CQI according to the number of co-
scheduled users by multiplying a scaling factor, and equal
transmit power is allocated to each data stream.
Figure 1 and figure 2 show the cumulative distribution
function (CDF) of user throughput for the proposed code-
books, which illustrates that the proposed codebooks help
increasing the system performance. Furthermore, Table II and
III give the performance comparison in the form of spectrum
efficiency (SE) between the proposed codebooks in equations
(19)-(22) and DFT based codebooks [6]. It can be seen that
with the same overhead, for co-polarized antenna, the proposed
codebooks greatly outperform DFT based codebooks with
about 10% gain on average cell SE, and 6% gain on cell-
edge user SE. And for cross-polarized antenna, the proposed
codebooks still show gain compared with DFT based code-
book. Through system evaluations, it is demonstrated that the
TABLE III
S YSTEM L EVEL S IMULATION R ESULTS FOR 8T X C ROSS - POLARIZED
A NTENNA
Codebook (N1 , N2 ) Average SE (bps/Hz) Edge SE (bps/Hz/user)
DFT based feedback 3.64 (100%) 0.114 (100%)
Proposed codebook 3.71 (101.92%) 0.117 (102.63%)
proposed codebooks outperform DFT based codebook, while
the overhead is not increased.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a codebook design is proposed by adjust-
ing phase between polarizations in the precoder targeting
wideband CSI. This design effectively matches the channel
characteristics of co-polarized linear antenna array, since the
largest number of DFT beams are constructed for this antenna
configuration. System level simulation in a LTE-A system
is performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed
codebooks. The results show that compared to DFT based
codebooks in [6], without increasing the feedback overhead,
the proposed codebooks show significant gain on both average
cell SE and cell-edge user SE for co-polarized antenna, while
still outperform the latter for cross-polarized antenna.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by National Science and Tech-
nology Major Projects under Grant 2009ZX03003-010 and
2011ZX03003-001-04.
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