Evolution of Adaptive Antennas for LTE Systems

Zayad M.Benguzzi, Mohamed S.Farshouh, AbdallahI.Abrwais, Jalal A.Srar

Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Misurata University, Libya
Abstract Long term evolution (LTE) is a 4G wireless
broadband technology developed by Third Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP), an industry trade group. There is an
increasing interest in technologies that will be define the next
generation (5G) telecommunication standard. Some of these
technologies are already making their way into standards such as
3GPP LTE. 3GPP has been centered on enhancing LTE radio
standards to improve capacity and performance. In order to
increase both the capacity and employed bit rate of the down link
LTE system, an adaptive array of 64-element has been proposed
by the 3GPP in Release-13. In this paper, the capacity
improvement and the saving power of the LTE system due to
using of adaptive antenna array are studied in different channel
scenarios. Simulation results showed that the system developed is
more transmit power efficient as well as capacity improvement to
a remarkable degree when the adaptive antenna is used
compared to the conventional antenna system. Finally, a
mathematical model of the improved capacity over a nonadaptive antenna is used case has been obtained and simulated.

bandwidth blocks are essentially the amount of space a

network operator dedicates to a network. Depending on the

LTE

type of

being deployed, these bandwidths have

slightly different meaning in terms of capacity.

LTE , various antenna technologies, such as antenna

In

array beamforming, are used to provide better

SNR [2] by

a factor of the number of transmit/receive antennas. Moreover,

this technology, i.e., adaptive antennas; will enhance and
improve the quality of the link between the user equipment

(UE) and the base station[3]. In addition, adaptive

antennas can fulfill the

LTE

requirements of higher

spectrum efficiency, better coverage and higher data rate [4].

Beamforming can also be used to provide better performance

Keywords: Adaptive Antenna Array Beamforming, LTE, Power

Saving.

in low

SNR and fading conditions.

I.
INTRODUCTION

Beamforming, in general, is a signal processing technique

used to control the direction of the beam pattern of the array
by applying a specific weight complex values for each
element. These weights are updated based on some chosen
beamforming criterion in which the phases and amplitudes are
adjusted to optimize the received signal. This causes the
output of the antenna arrays to form transmission or reception
of the signals in a particular direction and minimizes the
output in other directions [5].

Long Term Evolution ( LTE ); as defined by the 3rd

Generation Partnership Project (

3 GPP ); is supposed to

be the next generation and will be the basis on which future

mobile telecommunications systems will be built.

3 GPP

engineers named the technology "Long Term Evolution"

because it represents the next step ( 5 G ) in a progression

from

3G

GSM , a

2G standard, to

technologies that based upon

required to deliver a peak data rate of

downlink and

50 Mbps

UMTS , the

modes (

TM ) that employ beamforming. Table 1

that

in the

TM 7

of

Release

beamforming, Release 9 added

in the uplink. This requirement

supports

single

layer

TM 8 which supports dual

layer beamforming. Moreover, Release 10 added

was exceeded in the eventual system, which delivers peak data

TM 9

supporting up to 8 layer beamforming transmission.

rates of 300 Mbps and 75 Mbps respectively [1].

LTE

defines many downlink ( DL ) transmission

summarized some of these modes, from which we can notice

GSM . LTE was

100 Mbps

LTE

Furthermore, Release 11 adds

TM 10

with up to eight

layers for Downlink Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission

supports deployment on different frequency

and Reception

bandwidths. The current specification outlines the following

bandwidth blocks:

1.4 MHz ,

3 MHz ,

enhanced

5 MHz ,

(CoMP .) . Release 12 achieves low cost,

coverage

Machine-Type

Communications

( MTC) , while Release 13 is the refinement and

10 MHz , 15 MHz , and 20 MHz [1]. Frequency

enhancement of work started in earlier Releases, including

1

power reduction in both terminals and base stations via more

efficient radio transmission[6].
TABLE 1

LTE

algorithms of both the uplink and down link transmission

powers by means of simulations in scope of the coverage and
capacity optimization and interference reduction. The work in
[2] shows the employment of transmit and receive diversity to

DOWNLINK TRANSMISSION MODES

improve the

3 GPP

Transmission modes

Eigen Transmission ( DET ) power algorithm has been

TM 1
3 GPP
Release 8

used to further improve the performance of the system. This

: SISO single antenna transmission.

TM 2

: TX Diversity 2 or 4 antenna.

TM 3

: Open loop SU-MIMO (spatial

algorithm maximize the

the

TM 5

: closed loop MU-MIMO.

improvement of Bit Error Rate (

TM 6

: Rank 1 spatial multiplexing.

saving power when adaptive antenna array is employed have

been studied in an Additive White Gaussian Noise (

TM 7

: single layer Beamforming on port

LTE

3 GPP

performance when

II

the

system model and problem formulation is introduced. This is

then followed by describing the system environment in

:Up to 8 layers, antenna ports

Section

TM 9 and TM 10

III . Results obtained from computer simulations

for different number of antenna elements are presented in

Release 13

Section

IV . Finally, Section V

concludes the paper.

system has been studied extensively

II.

using single antenna transmission, there is little research and

work reported on the

LTE

SYSTEM MODEL AND PROBLEM FORMULATION

supported adaptive antenna

The aim of using an adaptive antenna system is to provide the

maximum coverage and capacity at the maximum utilization
of transmission power of each sector antenna gains.

beamforming. In [7], author have studied the adaptive

antennas and the results show an improvement in

dB

LTE

This paper is organized as follows; in Section

including

values and

adaptive antenna array is employed.

: Up to 8 layer transmission using

7 to14

LTE

SNR

with the existence of co-channel interfered signals. In

addition, free space and shadowing models have also been
considered in this study. The main purpose of this paper is to

: Dual layer Beamforming on ports

TM 10

Releases 11,12

BER ), capacity and

AWGN ) channel with different

ports 7 to 8

3 GPP

system that supported in Release 13. This

show the huge improvements of

TM 9

Release 10

ZF ), in the

: Closed loop SU-MIMO.

7 & 8.

3 GPP

UE side.

TM 4

TM 8

Release 9

and the Bit-Error Rate at

beamforming algorithms, e.g. Zero Forcing (

5.

3 GPP

SNR

In this paper, we investigate the implementation of the

multiplexing).

1.8

by a factor of the number of

transmit/receive antennas. In another study [9], the Dominant

Releases

Whilst the

SNR

SNR of

The block diagram of our study is presented in Fig. 1. A

to achieve an error of 10 -3 bit per second (bps)

when Stanford University Interim (

virtual

SUI ) channel models

is considered. Each cell contains one base station ( BTS ),

are used. The performance of the system can be more

improved by increasing the number of antennas at receiver
side. Authors in [8] have investigated the self-optimization of
coverage and capacity in

LTE

LTE network that includes 7 cells-cluster has been

each

BTS

contains three sectors; and each sector

coverage 120 degree as shown in Fig. 2. In each cell, a

networks using adaptive

number of users are assumed.

antenna systems. In addition, they study the self-optimization

2

Tx
LTE Network Performance
(System Level Simulation)

d /d 0

and
N = from 2 to 21
SNR= 0 to 40 dB

Measure
(BER Saved power - SIR)

Rx ) antennas gain,

and

path loss exponent

is the ratio between reference distance and

distance between user and

BST .

Rewriting (1) to include the shadowing effect yields.

Pshad (dB)=Pr (dB)+ X

Fig.1 Block diagram of proposed design

where

Pshad dB

added and

LTE

The performance of the considered system has been evaluated

by means of simulations. For comparison purposes, results
obtained with the conventional antenna with one element are
also presented. For the simulations, the following parameters
are used:
A linear array of maximum of 21 isotropic antenna
elements per sector.

BER , power reduction and output Signal to

Interference Ratio ( SIR ) are then measured when an

adaptive antenna array of

elements are used. Else

A desired binary phase shift keying ( BPSK

an angle of

more, the effect of shadowing on the system under test is also

measured.

Path Loss

Rx

Channel

Shadowing

Interferenc
e

Fig. 3 Channel model of the proposed

LTE system

and it is fixed at 500 m from the

AWGN

channel.

Weight vector is initially set to zero.

A

BPSK

co-interference
and

i 1=60o

signals
with

arrive
the

at

same

amplitudes as the desired signal.

For the shadowing case,

=2 with 4 different values

of standard deviations ( ); 0, 1, 2 and 3 are used.

d
)
d0

An

i 1=30o

The travelled signals within the sector are modeled based on

the free space model, i.e.,

Pr=P t G TR (

0o

) arrives at

BST ..

Tx

[10].

III.SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT

Cellular Network

The block in Fig. 3 shows the simulation model used in this

paper. In this model we generated a signal message and
transmit it in a Gaussian channel, that includes path loss,
shadowing and interference signal. In this work, one desired
signal and two interferences signals are generated within the
sector.

is the power after shadowing is

is the shadowing value which depends on

the standard deviations

Fig. 2

(2)

(1)
IV.
RESULTS

where

Pr

and

Pt

are the average powers of the

received and the transmitted signals respectively,

GTR

A. Performance of
(

BER

First, the performances of the considered model has been

BER for different numbers of

evaluated by computing the

SIR=

N , and different values of SNR .

array elements,

BER

Fig. 4 shows the behavior of the

12 dB

values changes from -2 to

BER

theoretical values of the

for

2 dB

in

i=1

SNR

where :

pud : received power of the desired subscriber.

steps. The

pnoise : noise at the receiver.

are also calculated using

pIni : interference power of i th undesired

subscriber.
Q : number of interfered users.

( N10 )
SNR
10

(3)
However, after the Beamformer, the value of

SNR

increased the

BER

SIR

can be

measured by finding the power of the received desired signal

at its specific direction and the summation of the powers of the
undesired signals at their directions. Then applying (4) will

It is observed that under the given conditions, and as expected,

as

( 4)

p Ini

(3) for the same values of SNR values:

BER =0.5erfc

pud
Q

is improved. The

enhancement of BER is also increased with the increase of

give the required

approximately 0.023 when 4-elements is used, however its

around 4.56410-11 when all the available elements, i.e., 21
elements, are used. It is obvious from Fig. 4 that there is a
close agreement between the simulated and theoretical results.

The resulting

N . For example, at SNR=0 dB , the BER is equal to

SIR .

SIR

size and for three

performance with different antenna

SNR

values;

0 dB , 5 dB and

10 dB ; are shown in Fig. 5, which shows that, increasing

N

will leads to improve the output SIR values for all

SNR values, particularly when N is increased from 2 to 6elements, i.e., increasing SIR

40 dB

at

SNR =10 dB . From Fig. 5 we can also

notice that, the

Fig.4

BER
N

versus

SNR

from 0 dB to around

SIR

values from

N=6

N=20 are almost fixed.

for different number of antenna array,

for both measured (lines) and theoretical (marked lines).

B. Performance of output
Next, the output

SIR

SIR

is measured when the number of

array elements is increases for three different values of

SNR ;

0 dB ,

5 dB

and

10 dB . In general,

the Signal to Interference Ratio ( SIR ) can be calculated

Fig.5

according to

SIR

versus the number of antenna array elements, N,

for different

SNR

values.

to

C. Utilization of the power reduction

One of the main advantage of adaptive antenna is to control
the transmission power. In the current measurement, we will
notice the increase of the power saving compared with noantenna array is used. The results of this case are shown in
Theory
(dB
Fig. 6.

(5)
is

(dB

multiplied by

to find the total capacity. As shown in

Fig. 7, the channel capacity is increased, as expected, as the

SNR

Fig. 6 Saved power versus

Irrespective of

SNR

for different

SNR

values.

7 that the capacity will even more increased if

is

increased compared with no array has been used, i.e.,

values, using of adaptive antenna

N=1 .

array beamforming leads to superior power saving compared

with no beamforming case. In fact these results confirm the
results obtained in Sections IV part A and B. Even more, these
results will inturn leads to increase the coverage area and/or
decrease the transmitted power from the

is increased. It is also interesting to notice from Fig.

BTS .

D. Performance of cell capacity

As it well known, the adaptive antenna enables a reduction in
co-channel interference which leads to an increase in the
frequency reuse factor. This means that the employment of
adaptive antennas allow more users to use the same frequency
spectrum at the same time bringing about tremendous increase
in capacity. The Normalized Capacity per beam as function in
SNR could be computed from [10]

(dB)

Fig. 7 Channel capacity versus

SNR

measured for four different array

size.

C /b=log 2 ( 1+SNR ) (5)

where

In fact, we cannot take advantage of each antenna radiation

area as that obtained in Fig.7 because there is always an
overlapping area in between any consecutive beams as shown
in Fig. 8. Therefore, to calculate a more accurate capacity than

is a constant depended on the number of antenna

elements and it should be less than 1 and b is the available

bandwidth, that is[10]

B
b=
MR

that obtained in Fig.7, the common area (

from the beam under test.

(6)

C area =

Fig. 7 shows the normalized capacity per beam calculated

size;

C area can be calculated as

f
(
)
( 1 f 2 ( ) )d

R is frequency reuse factor.

from (5) as a function of the SNR

has to be

calculated, as show in Fig.8then half of it should removed

where M is the number of users when no adaptive arrays are

used and

C area

(7)

for four different array

As a result, the actual used area will be

N=1 , 2, 8 and 21. Here, the capacity obtained from

Coverage Area=

Beam AreaC area

(8)

Now, the actual capacity beam per cell can be calculated and
plotted as shown in Fig. 9 for different numbers of antenna
elements only. The model of this capacity,

V.
CONCLUSION

(Cimp ) , as a

In this paper, we to focus on the development of beamforming

technology in LTE system to enhanc the capacity and reduce
the BER. A sector of 21-element antenna array as stated in
LTE Release 13 has been used for different channel scenarios.
All simulations for the proposed system have shown an
improvement in BER, output SIR, power saving and capacity
as the number of the array elements is increased. A
mathematical model of the capacity increment has been
studied, investigated which can be used to estimate the actual
capacity when an adaptive array system is employed in the
BST of the LTE system.

function of the coverage area (in terms of square of cell radius,

A ) and

is given in [10] with the comparison of the

capacity M for the case of

N=1 . This model yields

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Fig.8 The common area between the beams.

Cimp M A / 2

(9)

where M is the channel capacity when N=1; i.e., no antenna

arrays are used, A is a constant equals the values from 0 to 10
and

=3.5.
Fig. 9 Actual capacity for antenna array size of 1 and 21
with a path loss of 3.5

The results shown in Fig. 9 represent the total actual capacity,

NC imp , per beam as a function of A . From this figure,

it's clear that as the coverage area, i.e. square of cell radius

A , the actual capacity per beam is also increased

compared with that of N=1 (M). This is also true when the
number of elements, N, is increased. For example, at

A=4 , the actual capacity improvement percentage

between the capacity at N=4 and N=8 is approximately 50%.