Performance Analysis of LTE Physical

Layer Based on Release 10

V.Venkataramanan*, M.Kavitha**, Arunai College of Engineering
* rvvenkat.mtech@gmail.com, ** kavithaece2008@gmail.com

AbstractDespite their tremendous success over the years,

the wireless technologies are still confronted with some of the
critical challenges such as, fading, multipath, and interference and
spectrum limitations. To fulfill this, wireless communication
industry worked hard and defined a new air interface for mobile
communications. That is Long Term Evolution (LTE ),is the
evolution of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System
describes standardization work by the 3rd Generation Partnership
Project .It enhances the overall system performance by increasing
the capacity of the system along with improving spectral
efficiencies while reducing latencies. In order to achieve above
requirements important changes have been required at the physical
layer e.g. new modulation and coding schemes, reduced
Transmission Time Interval (TTI) or advanced medium access
techniques. In this paper, the main objective is to investigate a
downlink and uplink physical layer performance of Long Term
Evolution system.
Keywords: LTE, OFDM, SC-FDMA, 3GPP
I.INTRODUCTION
LTE stands for Long Term Evolution is a new
technology that suggests intensifications to prevailing
mobile technologies. LTE is 4G (4th Generation)
technology that focused to afford excelling features of
service as compare to other technology. LTE is extensively
called the adversary technology to WiMAX because of its
wireless nature and mobile services. LTE technology is
under the phase of growth and advancements to afford
network providers a definite elucidation to shift from 3G to
4G technology environment [6]. These systems are based
on the first release of LTE, 3GPP Release 8, which was
finalized in 2008. Release 8 can provide downlink and
uplink peak rates up to 300 and 75 Mb/s, respectively, a
one-way radio-network delay of less than 5 ms, and a
significant increase in spectrum efficiency.

broadcast/multicast services, positioning services, and

improved emergency-call functionality, as well as
enhancements for downlink dual-layer beam-forming, were
added. Recently, 3GPP has concluded the work on LTE
Release 10, Worked out at the end of 2010 and further
extending the performance and capabilities of LTE beyond
Release 8/9. An important aim of LTE Release 10 is to
ensure that LTE fulfills all the requirements for
International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) Advanced
as defined by the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU). The relation to IMT-Advanced is also the reason for
the label LTE-Advanced sometimes given to LTE Release
10 and beyond.
LTE Release 10, sometimes known as LTE Advanced
[1], is not a new radio access technology but the evolution
of LTE to further improve performance. Being an evolution
of LTE, Release 10 includes all the features of Release 8/9
and adds several new features, the most important of which
carrier aggregation, enhanced multi-antenna support,
improved support for heterogeneous deployments, and
relaying [11].
II.LTE PHYSICAL LAYER
The architecture of the LTE physical layer is authorized by
necessities for maximize for transmission rate (100 Mbps
DL/50 Mbps UL), spectral efficiency, and multiple
channel bandwidths (1.25-20 MHz)[2]. To fulfill these
concerns, orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM)
and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) was selected
to be in data transmission. In addition, the LTE physical
layer uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple
Access (OFDMA) on the downlink (DL) and Single
Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA)
on the uplink (UL) [12].

LTE accommodates extensive support for spectrum

flexibility, supports twain frequency-division duplex (FDD)
and time-division duplex (TDD), and targets a smooth
evolution from earlier 3GPP technologies such as timedivision synchronous code-division multiple access (TDSCDMA) and wideband CDMA (WCDMA)/high-speed
packet access (HSPA) as well as 3GPP2 technologies such
as cdma2000. The LTE radio access technology is
continuously evolving to meet future requirements [3]. In
Release 9, worked out at the end of 2009, holds for
V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/
Thiruvannamalai, India.

Figure 1 General Signal Structure for LTE downlink reproduced by permission of 3GPP [2]
A.LTE Downlink
Due to high spectral efficiency and robust transmission in
presence of multipath fading, the OFDMA has been
selected as basic modulation scheme for downlink in LTE
systems. The LTE physical layer specifications are designed
to deal with the bandwidths from 1.25MHz to 20MHz.
B. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
Data transmission in downlink is based on OFDMA, which
is an upcoming technique to provide an efficient access
over high-speed wireless networks. Besides, it is adequate
for broadcasting even in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
(MIMO) scenarios. OFDMA acquires high spectral
efficiency in multiuser environments by dividing the total
available bandwidth into narrow sub-bands to be shared by
users in an efficient manner. Different bandwidths are
supported (from 1.25 to 20 MHz) keeping subcarrier
spacing unchanged and, as a consequence, the number of
subcarriers varies accordingly. This technology will offer
broadband wireless access at data rates of multiple Mbit/s
to the end-user and within a range of several kilometers [8].
OFDMA at the physical layer, in combination with a
Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, affords an ideal
resource allocation and Quality of Service (QoS) support
for distinct types of services. The OFDM signal used in
LTE comprises a maximum of 2048 different sub-carriers
having a spacing of 15 kHz. Although it is necessary for the

mobiles to have capability to be able to accept all 2048 subcarriers, not all need to be transmitted by the base station
which only requires being able to support the transmission
of 72 sub-carriers. In this way all mobiles will be able to
talk to any base station [13].
Within the OFDM signal it is possible to choose between
three types of modulation:
1. QPSK (4QAM) = 2 bits per symbol
2. 16QAM= 4 bits per symbol
3. 64QAM= 6 bits per symbol
C.LTE Uplink
For uplink, SC-FDMA is chosen as an essential multiple
access schemes for LTE physical layer.
SC-FDMA is also a multi-carrier scheme that re-utilizes
many of the functional blocks of OFDMA. The main
advantage of SC-FDMA is its low PAPR which is a
beneficial criterion for uplink [10].
D.Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SCFDMA) is a new technology used for uplink physical layer
in LTE [9]. Multiple accesses are acquired in frequency
domain in SC- FDMA. Thus to change from SC-FDE to
SC-FDMA requires division frequency amongst frequencies
[5].

V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/

Thiruvannamalai, India.

The use of SC-FDMA in LTE is confined to the

uplink because the added time-domain processing would be
Figure
2
a abundant burden on the base station, which has to
the dynamics ofP/Smulti-userADD
transmission
SCN-DFT
Mapping manage M-IDFT
CP
DAC
S/P
FDMA can amuse all of the avails mentioned for OFDM in
addition to low Peak Average Power Ratio (PAPR). Similar
to OFDM, the bandwidth is divided into multiple parallel
subcarriers with cyclic prefix in between in order to stay
orthogonal to each other and remove Inter Symbol
Interference (ISI). In SC-FDMA, the linear combination of
all data symbols that are transmitted at the same time is
modulated to a given subcarrier. In a given symbol period,
all transmitted subcarriers of a SC-FDMA signal
Transmitter-Receiver block diagrams for OFDMA
arecarrying a fundamental of each modulated data symbol.
This is known as a single carrier scheme of SC- FDMA.

Figure 3 Basic block diagram of SC-FDMA Transmitter [8]

Detector

P/S

N- IDFT
De-Mapping/Equalization
M- DFT

S/P

Remove C P

ADC

Figure 4 Basic block diagram of SC-FDMA receiver [8]

The basic transmitter and receiver architecture is nearly
identical to OFDMA, and it suggests the same degree of
multipath protection. The SC- FDMA transmitter comprises
of function blocks similar to OFDMA. The block diagram
of SC-FDMA is shown in Figure 3, 4. The input data
stream is first modulated [7] to single carrier symbols by
using QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM. The consequence
modulated symbols become the inputs of the functional
blocks of SC-FDMA.
III.SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT
The main core of our study is to measure the
performance of LTE uplink and downlink physical layer
based on Release 8, 9 & 10. First and most important,
studies made on issues related to LTE and the basic of LTE
need to understand. Next, the related simulator need to find
to running the simulation and the adequate simulator use to
obtain the result is MATLAB. The intention of choosing

MATLAB simulator is because it is broadly used in data

analysis. In addition, the result can be acquired by running a
program and setting the limit in the simulator and the
performance of LTE downlink can be measured and
analyzed with MIMO channels [15].
Simulink is a graphical extension to MATLAB for the
modeling and simulation of systems. In Simulink, systems
are drawn on screen as block diagrams. Many elements of
block diagrams are available (such as transfer functions,
summing junctions, etc.), as well as virtual input devices
and output devices. Simulink is integrated with MATLAB
and data can be easily transferred between the programs.
Simulink model consists of LTE downlink structure with
MIMO channel [14]. Here we used 16 QAM modulations
after modulation bits are mapped into the layer according to
the 3GPP standards it shows in table. Modulated layer are
precoded using the codebooks specified in LTE standard
use of spatial

V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/

Thiruvannamalai, India.

Figure 5 LTE Downlink Simulink Structure

Multiplexing by 2 Antenna port admits two entries and 4
Antenna port admits 16 entries. Resource element mapper
map the user use CSR (Cell Specific Range) give into the

3GPP standard this transmission carried out over an OFDM

transmission. The figure 5 shows the results for the default
configuration of the model.

Table 1.Layer Mapper

Table 2 Resource Element Mapping
Co
de
Spectral
(MHz)
wo
rds

L Mapping
aBW 1.4
3
y
e
Resourcer
6
15

10

15

20

25

50

75

100

Block
FFT
1 Size1 N
(f=15KHz/
f=7.5KHz)

2048/4096
The codeword is mapped
to the single layer

Subcarrier
1
2
per
RB
(f=15KHz/
f=7.5KHz)

12/24 are split (even/odd)

The codeword symbols
between the two layers. Note that this option
is only used when there are 4 antenna ports

2
2
Used
subcarrier

Each
mapped600/
to its own
72/ codeword
180/ is300/
900/ layer.
1200/
Both codeword must have the same length

Figure 6 Error Calculation of Two MIMO Channel

144

360

600

1200

1800

The Simulink figure 6 shows the error rate calculation of the

two channels at transmitter and receiver of the channel.
Comparing the two sets of plots enables you to gauge the
signal separation the MIMO receiver achieves, which directly
impacts the PDSCH bit error rate performance.

2400

The first codeword is mapped to the first

layer, while the second codeword is split
(even/odd) between the other two layers.
Note that the first codeword must be half the
length of the second codeword, so that each
layer carries the same number of symbols
[16]

The first codeword is split (even/odd)

between the first two layers, while the
second codeword is split between the
second two layers. Both codeword's must
have same length

V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/

Thiruvannamalai, India.

Figure 7Post-OFDM Rx Scatter Plots

Figure 8Pre-Demodulation Scatter Plots

IV.CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This study comprises of absolute reasoning of 3GPP LTE Release 10 Specifications. Throughput analysis is the ultimate
consideration in any technology of wireless communication. In this study, the maximum throughput LTE Physical Layer
transmission is investigated depending on different scenarios of the physical layer.
The result shows error rate calculation of LTE downlink using 16 QAM ,it transmit 115200 bits with 0 packet loss at channel
2 ,0.006 packet loss at channel 1, We also conclude from our results that, the error probability increases as order of modulation
scheme increases. Therefore the selection of modulation schemes in adaptive modulation is quite crucial based on these results
and its scatter plot shows the QAM constellation value of the MIMO receiver.
This new architecture has been developed to allow a reasonably higher level of performance that is in line with the
requirements of LTE. The comparison of this new environment and the previous system environment can be made to study about
the performance and the difference between these two systems. Future work will be continued to implement Uplink of the LTE
physical layer.The Performance can be analyzed along with Different Modulation Schemes, Different Channel Models, Single
Input Single Output (SISO), Single Input Multiple Output
(SIMO), Multiple Input Single Output
(MISO), Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Antennas
placing it at Transmitter and receivers of LTE
Physical layer Structures based on the Standards.
V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/
Thiruvannamalai, India.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Authors are thankful for the Management and staff members of Arunai college of Engineering for their wonderful support
towards Preparation of this Paper.
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V.Venkataramanan was born at Cuddalore, Tamilnadu on 18th June 1981. He Completed his M.Tech VLSI Design from SRM University,
India. He has about 2.4 Years of Experience in the field of teaching as Assistant professor at Arunai College of Engineering. He has
Presented nearly 6 National and International journals, Conferences. He coordinated a group of 64 Students as a Project coordinator. He has
guided about 18 UG Students and 2 PG Students. His area of Interest includes Next generation Wireless technologies, MIMO OFDM and
VLSI Systems.

M.Kavitha received the B.E. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the Anna University of Chennai, Chennai, Tamilnadu, in 2011.
Currently, she is studying M.E. in Communication System at Arunai College of Engineering, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu. Her project area is wireless
communication. She has presented paper in National and International conference and she participated in various workshops.

V. Venkataramanan, M.Kavitha, Electronics and Communication, AnnaUniversity/ Arunai College of Engineering/

Thiruvannamalai, India.