Channel Tracking Versus Frequency Hopping For Uplink LTE: Ken Eriksson

Channel Tracking versus Frequency Hopping for Uplink LTE
KEN ERIKSSON
Masters Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden March 2007
XR-EE-KT 2007:003
Ericsson Internal TECHNICAL REPORT

Prepared (also subject responsible if other) No.
1 (34)
LN/EAB/PDB/B Ken Eriksson

Approved Checked Date Rev Reference
2007-03-09
Channel tracking versus frequency hopping for uplink LTE

Abstract The aim of this work is to compare several algorithms in a receiver for uplink LTE (Long Term Evolution). In this receiver, the radio propagation channel is estimated using pilot SC-FDMA symbols. For a continuous transmission on a constant frequency interval, these channel estimates can be interpolated over time. The interpolation is done over several pilot symbols thus making it possible to use previous pilot sequences transmitted from one terminal in estimating the new data from the same terminal. This paper only investigates algorithms used for estimating the channel for data sequences. The investigated algorithms are different regression and interpolation methods, and also an MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) method. Here the performance between frequency hopping and an interpolation algorithm is compared. With frequency hopping this interpolation is not possible. Instead a frequency diversity gain is expected when the transmitter regularly changes frequency interval. The LTE environment is simulated with a simulator written in Matlab. This is a report for a master thesis done at Ericsson Lindholmen.

2 (34)

2007-03-09
Contents 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.6.1 1.6.2 1.6.3 1.7 1.7.1 1.7.2 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 2 2.1 3 3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 6 7 8 Background .........................................................................................3 Uplink and Transmitter structure .........................................................3 Downlink..............................................................................................4 OFDM..................................................................................................4 Sub-Carrier..........................................................................................4 MIMO...................................................................................................4 Sub-Frame ..........................................................................................5 Data SC-FDMA symbol .......................................................................5 Pilot SC-FDMA symbol ........................................................................5 Cyclic Prefix.........................................................................................5 Channel model ....................................................................................6 Frequency Selective Channel Fading .................................................7 Time Varying Channel Fading .............................................................7 Inter Symbol Interference ....................................................................7 Inter Carrier Interference .....................................................................7 Receiver structure ...............................................................................7 Channel tracking .................................................................................9 Frequency Hopping .............................................................................9 Problem Description ..........................................................................11 Channel tracking versus Frequency hopping ....................................11 Procedure..........................................................................................12 Estimating channel at pilot SC-FDMA symbol ...................................12 Estimating channel at data SC-FDMA symbol...................................12 Interpolation.......................................................................................13 Regression ........................................................................................14 Simulation results ..............................................................................20 Typical Urban 15 km/h.......................................................................21 Typical Urban 50 km/h.......................................................................23 Typical Urban 300 km/h.....................................................................26 Case3 10 km/h ..................................................................................27 AWGN ...............................................................................................28 Channel estimation with added delay..Error! Bookmark not defined. Future Work.......................................................................................31 Time-variant channel estimates...........Error! Bookmark not defined. Estimating the optimal SNR for the MMSE channel estimator ..........31 Velocity estimator for MMSE channel estimator ................................31 Summary ...........................................................................................32 Notation .............................................................................................33 References ........................................................................................34

3 (34)

2007-03-09
Background
LTE is the next step in the ongoing development of todays 3G standard WCDMA to retain its competitiveness in the future. Each spectrum of 20 MHz will have downlink capacity of approximately 100 Mbps, and uplink capacity of approximately 50 Mbps. Technologies used in LTE includes OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). The carrier spacing is 15 kHz and a maximum of 1200 subcarriers can be used for a spectrum of 20 MHz.
1.1
Uplink and Transmitter structure

The communication technique used for uplink is SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access) and is based on DFT-spread OFDM. It is similar to OFDMA (see section 1.2), which is the technique used on the downlink, but has a lower PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio) thus making it more suitable for uplink where mobile communication devices can transmit information with a better power efficiency and less complex amplifiers. An example of a transmitter for uplink is given in Figure 1.
CRC gener ator
Turbo Codin g
Modula tion
DFT
Filte ring
Map ping
IDFT
CP inse rtion
Information Check bits sum added
Raw/mode m bits
Symbols
Frequency Domain samples
Localized or distributed
Time Domain samples
Figure 1. Transmitter structure for uplink LTE
When the information bits enter the transmitter it will first get a CRC generated sequence attached. These attached bits will be used at the receiver for verification to see if the information bits have changed during the transmission. Turbo coding will then be used to increase the redundancy of the information. After turbo coding, those bits will be coded into symbols by one of the supported modulation formats: QPSK, 16QAM, or 64QAM. The symbols will go through a DFT to transform them into frequency domain samples. These samples will then be mapped to a number of sub-carriers, which depends on the spectrum allocation (See section 1.4). This can be done by two different methods, localized mode or distributed mode. The two methods differ in how they handle the mapping of sub-carriers. Localized mode will place all sub-carriers from the same user next to each other on an allocated frequency spectrum. Distributed mode will spread the sub-carriers and interlace them with sub-carriers from other users making use of a larger frequency spectrum thus creating frequency diversity. The spectral efficiency is the same in both methods.

4 (34)

2007-03-09
The frequency domain samples will be converted back into time domain samples through an IFFT, and the cyclic prefix (See section 1.6.3) will be inserted before the signal exits the transmitter.
1.2
Downlink
OFDMA is used on the downlink. This is a multi-carrier technique very similar to the one used on the uplink but with a higher PAPR. The possible modulations on downlink are QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM. The Downlink will not be further discussed in this paper.
1.3
OFDM
OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) based technique will be used in both uplink and downlink. This technique maps the signal to a number of sub-carriers with carrier spacing of 15 kHz. Each sub-carrier will be orthogonal to each other hence avoiding ICI, See Figure 2
Frequency [Hz]
Figure 2. Frequency response for five orthogonal sub-carriers
1.4
Sub-Carrier
A sub-carrier is a narrow band carrier for use in OFDM based communications. Sub-carriers will be spread over the entire frequency band allocated to the user creating a spectrum of up to 1200 narrow band and orthogonal carriers. By being narrow band the fading that each sub-carrier experience can be approximated as a flat fading channel.
1.5
MIMO

5 (34)

2007-03-09
MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) is a term used for multiple antenna communication systems. Several independent signals can be transmitted, leading to an increased spectral efficiency by exploiting spatial diversity. To achieve this antennas have to be physically separated. Another way is to separate the antennas through polarization. There are several ways to use the multiple antennas depending on the area of priority, for example redundancy or data rate.
1.6
Sub-Frame
A sub-frame is defined as a packet containing 6 data SC-FDMA symbols (see section 1.6.1), 2 pilot SC-FDMA symbols (see section 1.6.2), and 8 cyclic prefixes (see section 1.6.3), See Figure 3. This is subject to change since the standardization of LTE is still under work.
0.5 ms
Long Block Short Block Cyclic Prefix
Figure 3. Sub-frame structure for uplink LTE (subject to change)
1.6.1
Data SC-FDMA symbol A data SC-FDMA symbol, also called long block, contains unknown data for the receiver, sent from the transmitter. It has the size of 2048 samples over 66.7 microseconds for a 20 MHz spectrum allocation. The data SC-FDMA symbol contains relevant information transmitted over the radio channel, be it speech or some other data.
1.6.2
Pilot SC-FDMA symbol Pilot SC-FDMA symbol, also called short block, have half the length of long blocks, 1024 samples over 33.3 microseconds for a 20 MHz spectrum allocation. The information contained in a pilot SC-FDMA symbol is known by the receiver, and by using these blocks the channel coefficients can be estimated as described in section 3.1.
1.6.3
Cyclic Prefix

6 (34)

2007-03-09
A cyclic prefix is a repeat of the last part of an OFDM symbol attached to the beginning. The purpose of the Cyclic Prefix is to act as a guard interval, making it redundant to ISI (Inter Symbol Interference, See 1.8), and to convert a linear convolution of the channel impulse response to a circular one.
CP
OFDM symbol
Figure 4. Cyclic prefix attached to the front of an OFDM symbol
1.7
Channel model
Multipath is a phenomenon that occurs when the signal sent from the transmitter gets reflected by ambient objects. This causes the signal to reach the receiver by two or more paths separated by a delay. The delayed signals will cause ISI (Inter Symbol Interference, see section 1.8).
TX
RX
Figure 5. Channel model for multipath signal
Multipath propagation will be modelled as
y(n ) = h1 s(n t1 ) + h2 s(n t 2 ) + K + hL s(n t L ) + v(n )

where y(n) is the received signal, hk is the channel coefficient, s(n-tk) is a delayed version of transmitted signal s(n) due to reflection, and v(n) is additive noise, caused by natural sources and interference from other transmitters.

7 (34)

2007-03-09
1.7.1
Frequency Selective Channel Fading A radio channel will almost never have a flat frequency response. The interference caused by multipath will create dips in certain frequencies due to destructive interference. For narrowband signals this could possibly cause all information to be lost if the dip occurs at the transmission frequency. For LTE this is partially overcome by spreading the signals to a large number of subcarriers, thus if a dip will appear on the transmission frequency not all of the sub-carriers will be affected and only some information will be lost.
1.7.2
Time Varying Channel Fading When the transmitter is standing still the channel will be time invariant, which means the channel will not change over time. But when the transmitter is in motion the channel will start to vary over time due to the change in the propagation path of the reflected signals and results in a time varying channel. This can cause a destructive interference resulting in a dip in the channel response at certain times, creating a negative gain on the signals that arrive during that time.
1.8
Inter Symbol Interference

ISI is the name for the interference that occurs when two OFDM symbols overlap each other. This is caused by the superposition of delayed signals due to reflection from surrounding objects, also called multipath interference For OFDM based communication systems, this problem is overcome by spreading the signal to multiple sub-carriers and letting each of them have an OFDM symbol period that is higher than the delay spread by letting the cyclic prefix act as a guard interval, extending the period of the OFDM symbol, and thus letting the delay spread signal settle before the next symbol.
1.9
Inter Carrier Interference

ICI occurs when a frequency is interfered by nearby frequencies. For OFDM modulated signals, this can be avoided by having the surrounding subcarriers being orthogonal to each other resulting in zero cross-talk as long as no frequency error exists. In cases where frequency error exists, which causes a small shift on the carrier frequency, the orthogonality will not be maintained and results in ICI.
1.10
Receiver structure
A structure of a receiver for data SC-FDMA symbol in an uplink LTE system is illustrated in Figure 6.

8 (34)

2007-03-09
CP remov al
DFT
Equaliz er
IDFT
Soft bit gene rator
Turb o deco ding
CRC chec k
CP remov al
DFT
Pilot chann el
Figure 6. Receiver structure for uplink LTE
The Cyclic prefixes will first be removed when the signal enters the receiver followed by a DFT to turn the time domain samples into frequency domain samples. For each pilot SC-FDMA symbol a channel estimate is achieved as described in [3]. Channel compensation (equalization) and antenna combination are done within the equalizer. Channel estimation for data SC-FDMA symbols are described in section 3.2. The sub-carriers corresponding to one transmitter in SC-FDMA are all dependent and the equalization will be more computationally complex for uplink where one equalizer is used for all sub-carriers simultaneously, in contrast to downlink where the sub-carriers are independent and therefore every sub-carrier will be assigned one equalizer each, see
SC-FDMA
DFT
Equalizer
Equalizer Equalizer
OFDMA
DFT
Equalizer Equalizer Equalizer
Figure 7. Equalizer for uplink and downlink
Because a SC-FDMA symbol has its modulated symbols contained in the time domain, an IFFT is needed before the turbo decoder. This is also the major difference compared to OFDMA, which is used on the downlink since OFDMA has its modulated symbols contained in the frequency domain, and therefore the receiver does not need an IFFT. The modulated symbols, QPSK, 16QAM, or 64QAM, will be demodulated into soft bits. A soft bit is when the symbols are demodulated into decimal values

9 (34)

2007-03-09
ranging from -1 to 1 depending on the certainty of the bit value where a negative value corresponds to a transmitted 1 bit and a positive value corresponds to 0 bit. A hard bit is when the symbols are demodulated into either 0 or 1 without respect to the certainty of the symbol actually being correct. The turbo decoder will then use the soft bits as input.
1.11
Channel tracking
An interpolation is done by using channel estimates from previous pilot SCFDMA symbol. The advantage with this method is that more information about the channel will be available due to the increase in the number of received pilot SC-FDMA symbols. This interpolation is possible if the same frequency interval is used over several sub-frames, see Figure 8. The algorithms used for interpolation will be discussed in section 3.2.1, and for regression in section 3.2.2.
f
1.5 ms
Sub-frame #1
Sub-frame #2
Sub-frame #3 t
Sub-frame to estimate Previous sub-frames
Figure 8. Channel tracking over a time interval of three sub-frames
1.12
Frequency Hopping
Frequency Hopping uses a pseudorandom code, known by both transmitter and receiver, to map which sub-carrier frequency the signal will change to. Since frequency hopping changes the sub-carrier frequency it also avoids staying on a bad fading channel for a long time thus improving performance, in terms of less bit errors, when the channel is frequency selective. However, the frequency hopping is done before each sub-frame and therefore this method will only have two available pilot sequences which should give a less accurate estimation of the channel compared to the interpolating method.

10 (34)

2007-03-09
f
0.5 ms
Sub-frame #3 Sub-frame #1 Sub-frame #2 t Sub-frame to estimate Previous sub-frames
Figure 9. Frequency hopping over a time interval of three sub-frames

11 (34)

2007-03-09
Problem Description
The goal of this paper is to compare the performance between frequencyhopping and an algorithm that interpolates pilot SC-FDMA symbols over several sub-frames. The comparison will be done in terms of BER and BLER.
2.1
Channel tracking versus Frequency hopping

Channel tracking and frequency hopping will both have their own optimal conditions. Frequency hopping emulates a fast varying channel by changing the sub-carrier frequencies. This makes it redundant to frequency selective channel fading. On the other hand, if the same sub-carriers are used over several sub-frames, the advantage will come from the possibility of collecting previous pilot SCFDMA symbols to use them in estimating the channel in future sub-frames. More pilot SC-FDMA symbols should equal a better estimate of the channel. Comparing these two methods gives a hypothesis that frequency hopping will be the preferred choice for very slow time-varying channels since it has the capability of emulating a fast time varying channel by making a frequency hop. If the interpolation method would experience the same channel, it could get stuck in a bad channel, and since the channel varies slowly this could go on for a significant amount of time. For very fast time-varying channels both methods should come out about equal because such channel would give almost the same effect as frequency hopping resulting in both methods experiencing a change in channel for every sub-frame or faster. The interpolative method of using previous pilot SC-FDMA symbols should be the better choice when a channel shows small variations over two or three sub-frames. This kind of variation would make best use of previous pilot SCFDMA symbols. For channels with small variations in frequency, frequency hopping will not get any diversity gain because the possibility of hopping to a frequency with better gain will be zero since the spectrum is almost flat. For this type of channel the channel tracking method is better suited where the possibility of using channel coefficients from very far back in time will give an advantage due to the channel being almost time-invariant.

12 (34)

2007-03-09
Procedure
The procedure for estimating the channel of data SC-FDMA symbols starts by first estimating the channel of pilot SC-FDMA symbols, and from that information estimating the channel coefficients for the unknown data. The algorithm used for estimating the channels for the pilot sequences is the same for all simulations, but the algorithm used in estimating the data SC-FDMA symbols will differ. The channel estimation simulated for both frequency hopping and multiple sub-frame interpolating algorithms. The frequency hopping will be simulated by generating a new random start phase for the channel before every new sub-frame.
3.1
Estimating channel at pilot SC-FDMA symbol

The channel is estimated at each short block with an LS algorithm, see [3].
3.2
Estimating channel at data SC-FDMA symbol

The data SC-FDMA symbols will be estimated through a number of block based algorithms. The algorithms use previous sub-frames to gain access to a larger number of pilot SC-FDMA symbols. There is no limit on how many previous sub-frames that can be used but only the last sub-frames data SCFDMA symbol will be estimated. In other words, previous and current pilot SC-FDMA symbols are used for estimating the channel at the data SC-FDMA symbols for the last incoming sub-frame. This is done either by regression or interpolation in time-domain, as described in section 3.2.1 and 3.2.2. The algorithms discussed in the preceding sections will be described for interpolation of only one channel tap. In multipath channels, one interpolation has to be done for every reflection of the original signal. Here n is the index used for time in a time varying channel.
h(n) hSB(n2) hSB(n1) hSB(n3) hLB(n) hSB(n4)
1 ms
Figure 10. Time domain interpolation of one channel tap

13 (34)

2007-03-09
The channel over a data SC-FDMA symbol will be approximated as timeinvariant with one channel tap for each received reflection of the original signal sent by the transmitter. This is done for every data SC-FDMA symbol. These taps will then be Fourier transformed to create a frequency response of the channel to be used in the equalization of data SC-FDMA symbols, see section 1.10.
3.2.1
Interpolation Interpolation is a method that constructs a function from a discrete number of known data points, and the function that is created has to pass exactly through those points. The channel at the last data SC-FDMA symbol will be estimated through extrapolation.
3.2.1.1
Linear interpolation Linear interpolation will create a segmented curve where two samples are connected by a straight line. A segment is made up of a linear curve:
h(n ) =
hSB (nk ) hSB (nk 1 ) (n nk 1 ) + h(nk 1 ) nk nk 1
The number of segments will be n-1 where n is the number samples. Channel estimation based on linear interpolation will only use three of the four available pilot symbols, this due to only the samples on each side of the point to be estimated will have any influence on the outcome, and should only give a very slight increase over non-interpolating methods. The channel at last data SC-FDMA symbol will be extrapolated from the last segment. h(n)
n
Figure 11. Example of linear interpolation
3.2.1.2
Polynomial interpolation Polynomial interpolation will draw a single polynomial function through all of the points in space. The polynomial must be in the order of n-1 where n is the

14 (34)

2007-03-09
number of points. The function is calculated to minimize the error in least square sense. h(n)
n
Figure 12. Example of polynomial interpolation
3.2.2
Regression Regression is a statistical model to estimate the relationship between several random variables. Here a function is created by minimizing the error in least square sense.
3.2.2.1
Linear regression Linear regression computes a linear curve with best fit for several points in space. In the case of only two points the linear regression will be equal to linear interpolation. In cases with more than two points a line that minimizes the error in least square sense will be computed. A linear curve is given by
y = mx + b
(1)
To find the curve of best fit in vertical least square sense for several points in space, the sum of the squares is calculated for all points.
R (m, b ) = [ y i (mxi + b)]

i =1
(2)
The minimum can be found by calculating the derivative and equalling it to zero.
n R = 2 [ y i (b + mxi )]xi = 0 m i =1 n R = 2 [ y i (b + mxi )] = 0 b i =1
(3) (4)
These equations can be rewritten as

15 (34)

2007-03-09
nb + m xi2 = y i
i =1 i =1
(5) (6)
b xi + m xi2 = xi y i
i =1 i =1 i =1
Rewriting these two into matrix form and solving for m and b gives the line of best fit
n b m = n x i i =1
h(n)
xi i =1 n 2 xi i =1
n
n yi ni =1 xy i i i =1
(7)
n
Figure 13. Example of linear regression
3.2.2.2
Polynomial regression A polynomial regression creates a polynomial function that minimizes the error in least square sense. If the polynomial is of order n-1 where n is the number of samples, the curve will be the same as a polynomial interpolation. h(n)
n
Figure 14. Example of polynomial regression
3.2.2.3
MMSE estimation A Minimum Mean Square Error method minimizes the residual error by using the fading properties of electromagnetic waves. A commonly used model of

16 (34)

2007-03-09
how the channel taps are fading is to model the autocorrelation function of a channel tap as a Bessel function of zero order and first kind, which can also be derived from Maxwells equations. The channel estimate for one pilot SC-FDMA symbol is modelled as
hSB (nk ) = h(nk ) + v(n k )
k = 1,2,3, K , m
(1)
Where h(nk) is the true channel at time instant nk, with k as the index for the pilot SC-FDMA symbol, and v(nk) is white Gaussian noise. The autocorrelation of the above equation gives
2 2 2 2 E hSB (nk ) = E (h(nk ) + v(nk )) = E (h(nk )) + E (v(nk ))
{(
)} {
}
} {
} {
(2)
where
2 E (h(nk )) = h 2
and
E (v(nk )) = v2
2
(3)
2 2 where h is the signal power, and V is the noise power.
The channel coefficients for the data SC-FDMA symbols are determined by interpolation of channel coefficients from pilot SC-FDMA symbols. See Figure 15. h(n)
SB(n2) SB(nm-1) SB(n1) LB(n) SB(nm)
n
Figure 15. Interpolation of channel coefficients from pilot SC-FDMA symbols
This is modeled as
hLB (n ) = a1 (n )hSB (n1 ) + a 2 (n )hSB (n2 ) + K + a m (n )hSB (nm )

where ak(n) are the MMSE coefficients to be calculated.
(4)
These MMSE coefficients are determined by minimizing the mean square error of the residual error function e(n)
e(n ) = h(n ) A(n )hSB
(5)

17 (34)

2007-03-09
where the MMSE coefficient vector, A(n), and the channel coefficient vector, hSB(nSB), are defined as
A(n ) = [a1 (n ) a 2 (n ) L a m (n )]
T hSB = hSB (n1 ) hSB (n2 ) L hSB (nm )
(6)
(7)
The mean square error is
J = E e 2 (n ) = E (h(n ) A(n )hSB )
= E (h(n ) A(n )hSB )(h(n ) A(n )hSB )
(8)
The * denotes transponate and conjugate. Finding the minimum with respect to A is done by calculating the first derivative of the mean square error and setting it equal to zero.
dJ = E 2(h(n ) A(n )hSB )hSB = 0 dA

Rewriting this gives
E h(n )hSB A(n )E hSB hSB = 0
(9)
(10)
resulting in the MMSE coefficients

A(n ) = E hSB hSB
} E{h(n )h }
1 SB
(11)
Rewriting the right hand side of equation (8) into matrix form gives
E hSB hSB
E hSB (n1 )hSB (n1 ) E hSB (n2 )hSB (n1 ) = M E hSB (n m )hSB (n1 )
{ {
} E{h } E{h }
(n1 )hSB (n2 )} SB (n 2 )hSB (n 2 )}

SB
E hSB (n1 )hSB (n m ) M O M L E hSB (nm )hSB (n m ) L
(12)
E h(n )hSB
E h(n )hSB (n1 ) E h(n )hSB (n 2 ) = M E h(n )hSB (n m )
{ {
} }
(13)

18 (34)

2007-03-09
where every element in the matrices can be calculated using the Bessel function of zero order and first kind
2 rh (l ) = E h(n )h (n l ) = h J 0 ( D l )
(14) (15)
2 r (l ) = E hSB (n )hSB (n l ) = rh (l ) + V (l )
2 2 Where (l ) is the Dirac delta function, h is the signal power, V is the noise power, the Bessel function of zero order and first kind is given by J 0 ( D l ) , and with angular Doppler frequency given by D :
J 0 ( D l ) =
( 1) p D l 2 p p = 0 p! ( p + 1) 2
(16)
D =
2fv cf s
(17)
Where f is the transmission frequency e.g. 2.5 GHz, v is the velocity of the transmitter, c is the speed of light, fs is the sampling frequency. This sampling frequency will be 30.72 MHz for spectrum allocation of 20 MHz. This definition of correlation holds for all processes that fade according to a Rayleigh function. The matrices in equation (9) and (10) can then be rewritten using equations (9) and (10) resulting in
rh (n n1 ) rh (n n2 ) b= M rh (n nm )
r (n1 n2 ) L r (n1 nm ) r (0) r (n n ) r (0) r (n2 nm ) 1 2 R= M O M r (0) r (nm n1 ) r (nm n2 ) K
(18)
(19)
And rewriting equation (11) in compact matrix form becomes
A(n ) = R 1b
(20)
The coefficients resulting from this equation will be the MMSE coefficients for interpolation of a Rayleigh fading channel.

19 (34)

2007-03-09
3.3
Channel estimation with delay

Adding a delay to get access to one future pilot SC-FDMA symbol should give a better estimate of the channel. The procedure is illustrated in Error! Reference source not found.. A future pilot SC-FDMA symbol is made available by using a delay. By this method no extrapolation is needed and should result in a better channel estimate at the last data SC-FDMA symbol and should also improve the channel estimates over all other data SC-FDMA symbols due to more information about the channel being available.
t
Sub-Frame to estimate Short block
Figure 16. Estimation with delay to get access to one future pilot SC-FDMA symbol

20 (34)

2007-03-09
Simulation results
Performance of uplink LTE is given in this section, in terms of BLER (block error rate). Here the following parameter settings are used: 20 MHz bandwidth Carrier frequency 2.5 GHz Localized carrier allocation Bandwidth (BW) allocation fraction of current user: 1 / 4 No frequency hopping within a sub-frame. Interpolation is done between sub-frames when previous sub-frame is available. A hop in frequency will be done after every fiftieth sub-frame even in non-frequency hopping algorithms. One transmit antenna Two receiver antennas Channel model: o Typical Urban 15 km/h o Typical Urban 50 km/h o Typical Urban 300 km/h o AWGN (One tap static) o Case 3 10 km/h Algorithms: o Linear Regression o Linear Interpolation o Polynomial Regression o Polynomial Interpolation o MMSE

21 (34)

2007-03-09
The velocity used in the estimation of Doppler frequency for the MMSE algorithm is always set equal to the true velocity of the channel.
4.1
Typical Urban 15 km/h
Figure 17. Performance in a TU15 channel
Simulations are done for different algorithms in a TU15 (Typical Urban 15 km/h) channel, see Figure 17. From the simulation results it can be seen that linear regression is the algorithm with overall best performance.

22 (34)

2007-03-09
Figure 18. Performance for linear regression with different number of pilot SC-FDMA symbols in a TU15 channel
Comparing the performance between different numbers of available pilots for the linear regression algorithms (See Figure 18) gives an idea of the optimal number of pilot SC-FDMA symbols to use.
Figure 19. Close-up of Figure 18

23 (34)

2007-03-09
From the results in Figure 19 it can be concluded that the best performance in a slowly varying typical urban channel comes from the linear regression with six pilot SC-FDMA symbols, with very close results from the algorithms with four and eight pilot SC-FDMA symbols. For channels with faster variations the algorithm with four pilot SC-FDMA symbols should probably be the best choice.
4.2
The performance for different algorithms in a TU50 (Typical Urban 50 km/h) channel is illustrated in Figure 20. Linear regression gives the best overall performance, but is beaten by the frequency hopping at around 11 dB.

24 (34)

2007-03-09
The MMSE channel estimator has third best performance, behind Linear regression and Frequency hopping, see Figure 21. Also the Linear interpolation with two pilot SC-FDMA symbols and no frequency hopping outperforms the linear interpolation with four pilot SC-FDMA symbols which is not what was expected.
Figure 22. MMSE estimator with different values for estimated SNR

25 (34)

2007-03-09
The MMSE algorithm needs an estimate of the SNR in order to calculate the MMSE coefficients. Figure 22 shows simulation results with the MMSE algorithm simulated with a number of different SNR values used in calculating the MMSE coefficients.
The best performance in a TU50 channel comes from the algorithm with SNR set to 7 dB, see Figure 23. Also it seems that it is better to overestimate the SNR rather than underestimating it.

26 (34)

2007-03-09
4.3
For a very fast varying channel the linear regression cannot keep up with the rest of the algorithms, see Figure 24. MMSE knows the velocity since the velocity used for calculating the Doppler frequency is equal to the true velocity, in this case 300 km/h, and is therefore not affected. This leads to MMSE as being the algorithm with best performance, followed by frequency hopping.

27 (34)

2007-03-09
4.4
Case3 10 km/h
Figure 25 Performance in a Case3 channel
Linear regression and MMSE have the best overall performance for a slow varying case3 channel, see Figure 25. Both algorithms has performance very close to each other.

28 (34)

2007-03-09
As it can be seen in the close-up of the case3 performance graph (see Figure 26), the two top performers are very close to each other.
4.5
AWGN
Figure 27. Performance in an AWGN channel
The results from the AWGN simulation did not come out quite as expected, see Figure 27. It was expected that most of the simulations would result in very similar performance graphs, but the results are telling that frequency hopping is performing slightly better than the rest of the algorithms. The MMSE performance is far off due to the SNR not being correctly estimated.
4.6
Typical Urban 50 km/h with delay

Performance of several algorithms with an added delay is compared in a TU50 channel as described in Section 3.3. The algorithms investigated are: Linear regression, Linear interpolation, and MMSE estimator.

29 (34)

2007-03-09
Figure 28. Performance of linear regressions with different conditions in a TU50 channel
In Figure 28 the performance for different linear regressions is compared. The performance of the Linear regression with added delay and the Linear regression with four pilot SC-FDMA symbols are extremely close, however the algorithm using the extra pilot SC-FDMA symbol seems to perform slightly better.
Figure 29. Performance of linear interpolations with different conditions

30 (34)

2007-03-09
Figure 29 shows the performance of two linear interpolation algorithms where one of them uses a delay to get access to one extra pilot SC-FDMA symbol. There is a slight improvement in performance can be observed by adding the delay. Compared to Linear regression, Linear interpolation seems to win more from using the extra pilot SC-FDMA symbol.
Figure 30. Performance for MMSE with different conditions
The results from the MMSE simulations in Figure 30 did not come out as expected. An increase in performance was expected by using a delay to get access to a future pilot SC-FDMA symbol, but that did not happen. All three algorithms gives very similar performance, but the algorithm using the delay seems to fall behind the rest slightly.

31 (34)

2007-03-09
Future Work
Extending the scope of this project can result in other areas of work to consider. Work that could be investigated in the future is as follows.
5.1
Estimating the optimal SNR for the MMSE channel estimator

The communication channel will change as the transmitter/receiver moves and this will change the SNR. Signal-to-Noise-Ratio is needed in calculating the channel coefficients for the MMSE estimator. An adaptive channel estimator could be created to adapt itself to the different SNR conditions. Also it could be of interest to understand how often this estimation has to be done.
5.2
Velocity estimator for MMSE channel estimator

In order to calculate the Doppler frequency the velocity of the transmitter has to be known. During the simulations made in this report, the velocity was always set to the true velocity of the transmitter, but in reality the velocity of the transmitter has to be estimated.

32 (34)

2007-03-09
Summary
The overall best performance comes from MMSE estimator. It showed good performance in all but one simulation, and that was probably due to the SNR being way off. Linear regression has good potential at slow varying channels but shows its weakness when the variations get faster. Frequency hopping showed solid results in most of the simulations. Channel tracking with MMSE estimator is the best choice Frequency hopping is still a good choice considering it is less complex than the MMSE estimator Linear regression was surprisingly good in slow varying channels Adding a delay did not give any noteworthy increase in performance

33 (34)

2007-03-09
Notation
3G Third Generation 3GPP Third Generation partnership Project AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise BER Bit Error Rate BLER Block Error Rate BPSK Binary Phase-Shift Keying CP Cyclic Prefix CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check DFT Discrete Fourier Transform FFT Fast Fourier Transform GHz Giga Hertz ICI Inter Carrier Interference IDFT Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform IFFT Inverse Fast Fourier Transform ISI Inter Symbol Interference kHz kilo Hertz LB Long Block LS Least Square LTE Long Term Evolution Mbps Mega bit per second MHz Mega Hertz MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output MMSE Minimum Mean Square Error OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access PAPR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation QPSK Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying SB Short Block SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access SNR Signal to Noise Ratio TU Typical Urban WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access

34 (34)

2007-03-09
8
[1]
References
3GPP TS 36.211, Physical Channels and Modulation Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network, V0.2.2 (2006-12), Release 8. http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/36_series/ Simon Haykin, Adaptive Filter Theory, Third Edition Henrik Sahlin, Introduction and overview of LTE Uplink Baseband Algorithms, Ericsson internal technical report 3GPP TR 25.814, Physical layer aspects for evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network, V7.0.0 (2006-06), Release 7 Ove Edfors, Magnus Sandell, Jan-Jaap van de Beek, Daniel Landstrm, Frank Sjberg, An introduction to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, September 1996
[2] [3] [4]
[5]

Channel Tracking Versus Frequency Hopping For Uplink LTE: Ken Eriksson

Cargado por

Información del documento

Descripción original:

Título original

Derechos de autor

Formatos disponibles

Compartir este documento

Compartir o incrustar documentos

Opciones para compartir

¿Le pareció útil este documento?

¿Este contenido es inapropiado?

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Channel Tracking Versus Frequency Hopping For Uplink LTE: Ken Eriksson

Cargado por

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Channel Tracking versus Frequency Hopping for Uplink LTE

Masters Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden March 2007

Ericsson Internal TECHNICAL REPORT

LN/EAB/PDB/B Ken Eriksson