An LTE compatible massive

MIMO testbed
based on OpenAirInterface

Xiwen JIANG, Florian Kaltenberger

EURECOM
 Testbed Overview

Open Based on OAI hardware

source and software
platform

Incorporate all
protocol layers
3GPP LTE Enable end-to-end
compatible experimentation with
readily available 4G
terminals

TDD
reciprocity Exploiting TDD
calibration reciprocity through
relative calibration

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 Key Parameters

Parameters Value
Number of antennas Up to 64
Center Frequency 2.6GHz
Bandwidth 5MHz
Sampling Rate 7.68MS/s
FFT Size 512
Number of used subcarriers 300
Slot time 0.5ms
Maximum simultaneously Currently 4 (LTE release 10),
served users extendable

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 System Architecture

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 Hardware components

Ettus Research Octo-clock for clock

distribution

PCIe Chassis + 16 EXMIMO2 cards

Huawei Antenna array

Each EXMIMO2 card contains 4 RF chains

20 patch antennas with 4 antennas each

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 Software implementation

RRC
Signaling

Logical to
Beamforming
physical
weights
antenna
calculation
mapping

IFFT and UE specific

Precoding
Parallelization RS

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 RRC signaling

Transmission Mode (TM) Configuration in

RRCConnectionReconfiguration
UE EUTRAN
RRCConnectionRequest

RRCConnectionSetup

RRCConnectionComplete

Configure the
TM1/2
UE to use TM7
RRCConnectionReconfiguration

RRCConnectionReconfigurationComplete

TM7
Data Transmission

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 Logical Antenna Ports

LTE antenna ports definition Source: 3g4g.blogspot.com

Antenna Ports DL RS 3GPP Release

Port 0-3 Cell Specific RS Release 8

Port 4 MBSFN-RS Release 8

Port 5 UE Specific RS for single-layer Beamforming (TM7) Release 8

Port 6 Positioning RS Release 9

Port 7-8 UE specific RS for Dual-layer Beamforming (TM8) Release 9

Port 9-14 UE specific RS for up to 8 layers Beamforming (TM9) Release 10

Port 15-22 Channel State Information (CSI) RS Release 10

Port 15-30 CSI-RS (precoded or standard) Release 13

Port 15-46 CSI-RS (precoded or standard) Release 14

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 Antenna Port Mapping (TM7)

Cell specific and UE specific antenna port mapping

Logical antenna ports are mapped to physical antennas;
Precoding the control channel with common beam weights;
Precoding data with the UE specific weights.

Logical Antenna ports

Physical Antennas
w0 +

Cell Specific 0 w1 +

w2 +
UE Specific 5
w3 +

Cell Specific 1 w4 +

w5 +

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 UE Specific RS

Precoding UE specific RS and data with the same

weights in order to perform beamforming channel
estimation

Cell Specific RS: UE Specific RS + data:

Use common BF weights Use UE specific BF weights

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 IFFT and Beam Precoding Parallelization

Real time IFFT and beam precoding

Challenge: Impossible to perform IFFT and beam precoding
sequentially when the number of physical antennas go large
Solution: using a thread pool to parallelize the IFFT and beam
precoding for all physical antennas

All
threads
Wakeup all threads active
only when all threads Thread pool: each thread is in
are in waiting status charge of the IFFT and precoding
operation for one physical antenna

All Some
threads threads
waiting finish

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 Beamforming Weights Calculation

CSIT acquisition
Challenge: LTE CSIT Feedback mechanism not feasible in massive
MIMO.
Solution: TDD channel reciprocity, estimate UL channel to assess
DL channel.
Implementation:
Use SRS (UL RS) to estimate UL channel,
Calibrate the UL channel to have DL CSIT (reciprocity calibration).

Beamforming weights calculation

Same weights for the whole frame (since based on TDD
reciprocity).
MRT is implemented, ZF, MMSE are to be accomplished.

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 TDD Reciprocity Calibration

TDD Reciprocity and hardware non-symmetry

TDD DL/UL physical channels enjoy reciprocity, implying that we
can obtain DL CSI from UL channel estimation
TX/RX RF chains are not symmetric, broking the channel reciprocity

TDD Reciprocity Calibration

The RF chain non-symmetry are stable during time, and can be
estimated
We perform offline reciprocity calibration to obtain the hardware
non-symmetry
BS internal calibration within the 64 antenna array so that the UE is
not evolved in the calibration

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 Demo at WSA 2017 @TU Berlin

Reduced scale demo with 4

antennas
TDD band 38
Motorola phone
Reciprocity calibration
Beamforming based on reciprocity

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 Massive MIMO and C-RAN

Massive MIMO is currently implemented centralized as an

enhanced 3GPP eNodeB function
New functional splits (ongoing development) allow flexible
(co-located or distributed) C-RAN deployments
RRC (IF1) (RAU + RRU): L1/L2 processing in the frontend
RRC (IF1) RAU (IF45) RRU: one RAU for multiple sites,
high speed fronthaul
RRC (IF45) RRU: several virtual cells, high speed fronthaul
Use synchronized
low-cost RRUs to
create (distributed)
massive MIMO array

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 Conclusions

FDD vs TDD Massive MIMO

FDD: UE beam-selection among a set of fixed beams
TDD: Can use TDD reciprocity calibration -> better performance due to
better quality CSIT
Eurecom massive MIMO testbed based on ExpressMIMO2
is being phased out
Alternative scalable hardware solutions
Synchronized, low-cost RRUs based on USRP B2x0 (mini)
like in C-RAN testbed
USRPs X3x0 can be scaled & synchronized using
PXIe (NI based solution)
Very expensive
Not supported by UHD and thus OAI
Gbit Ethernet switch
Skylarke, Other?

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 Outlook for 5G New Radio (3GPP Rel 15)

Designed for massive MIMO from the start:

At least, the 8 orthogonal DL DMRS ports are supported for SU-
MIMO and maximum 12 orthogonal DL DMRS ports are supported
for MU-MIMO [1]

FDD and dynamic TDD

Reciprocity based beamforming still possible

Hybrid analogue digital antenna systems supported

Challenges for reciprocity calibration

OAI-NR project starting now

Will lay the groundwork for massive MIMO

[1] 3GPP TR 38.802 V14.0.0 (2017-03) Study on New Radio Access Technology Physical Layer Aspects

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 APPENDIX

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 APPENDIX 1:
STANDARDIZATION FOR
MASSIVE MIMO

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 LTE release 8/9 (transmission modes 7/8)

Unspecified number of TX antennas

UE-specific reference signals to which the same beamforming is
applied as for PDSCH
Means to derive beamforming is unspecified
TM7: One virtual antenna port p={5}
Single codeword for one user
TM8: Two virtual antenna ports p={7,8} +
Two codewords for two users
+
Codeword p={8}
User 2
+
Codeword p={7}
User 1
+

Beamforming +
Filters

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 LTE release 10 (transmission mode 9)

Superset of all previous transmission

+
modes (supports both cell-specific and UE-
specific pilots)
UE specific reference signals (p={7,8,,6+}) +
CSI reference signals (p={15,16,,22})
If UE-specific pilots are used +
Arbitrary number of antennas
Up to 8-layer SU/MU-MIMO (max 2 codewords per +
UE)
No. concurrent users limited by PDCCH +

Feedback (UE-selected) of multiple

+
precoding matrix indicators (quantized as
in Rel-8)
+
Measurements made using CSI reference
signals
+

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 LTE release 11/12 (transmission mode 10)

LTE release 11 (transmission mode 10)

Scrambling identities for DMRS can be assigned for better
orthogonality in CoMP scenarios
ePDCCH: same beamforming applied to control and data
More than 8 UEs possible (per subframe) by using virtual cells (with
same eNB id)

LTE release 12
Mainly small cell enhancements
Not many change regarding MIMO

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 LTE release 13/14

LTE release 13
New CSI reference signals for up to 16 antennas
No new feedback scheme or transmission modes
Unfinished work?

LTE release 14
Work Item on Enhancements on Full-Dimension (FD) MIMO for LTE
CSI reference signals for up to 32 antennas
Enhancement on CSI reports
Support for providing higher robustness against CSI impairments
(such as inter-cell interference or higher-speed UEs) and higher CSI
accuracy
New transmission mode?

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 Summary

TDD Massive MIMO feasible even with current Rel 10/11

Using transmission mode 9 or 10

Massive MIMO could even be applied to earlier releases

Beamforming of all signals in transmission mode 1
Similar to Artemis private cell concept [Forenza, 2015]?

No explicit UE support for relative calibration

Not absolutely needed (can be done internally or by proprietary
calibration Ues)
Maybe work in Rel 13/14 could also be exploited for that

FDD Massive MIMO partially feasible

Release 14 should support up to 32 antennas + feedback modes
Can be also used for fixed beam-switching

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 APPENDIX 2:
PLL ISSUES FOR LMS6002D

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 Express MIMO 2

RF RX
(4 way)

RF TX
(4 way)

PCI Express
(1 or 4 way)
Spartan 6 LX150T
4xLMS6002D RF ASICs 12V from ATX power supply
250 MHz 3.8 GHz GPIO for external RF control

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 TDD issues on LMS6002D

Fig.6. LMS6002D layout

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 PLL issues

LMS6002D limitations
ExpressMIMO2 uses LMS6002D as RF front-end chips
Tx and Rx RF chains use different PLLs (initially designed for FDD
mode)
If we set both PLLs to the same frequency as in the FDD mode,
they interfere each other;
LMS6002D turns on/off alternatively the PLLs for Tx and Rx in
TDD mode, resulting in a random modulation phase and making
it impossible to perform MIMO precoding.

Solutions
Set a *fs frequency shift in Tx and Rx RF chains in the analogue
domain, where fs is the sampling frequency
Draw back the frequency shift in the digital domain

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 TDD workaround
Original Signal

Baseband filter = 5MHz

fc-fs/2 fc fc+fs/2
Offset RX frequency

Baseband filter = 10MHz

Alias

fc-fs/2 fc=fc-fs/4 fc+fs/2

Shift baseband signal back by fs/4

fc = carrier frequency
fs = sampling frequency
0
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 TDD workaround Drawbacks

Drawbacks
LO leakage (issue mostly for UE)
Will only work if (left-) adjacent channel is free

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 APPENDIX 2:
TM7 SIMULATION IN OAI

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 OAI Downlink simulation on TM7

Fig.4. TM7 BLER under perfect channel estimation (QPSK, AWGN channel)

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