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1.4 Key Enabling Technologies and Features of LTE To meet its service and performance
requirements, LTE design incorporates several important enabling radio and core network technologies
[14–16].

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM):

➢ An elegant solution to multipath interference: The critical challenge to high bit-rate
transmissions in a wireless channel is inter symbol interference caused by multipath. In a
multipath environment, when the time delay between the various signal paths is a significant
fraction of the transmitted signal’s symbol period, a transmitted symbol may arrive at the
receiver during the next symbol and cause inter-symbol interference (ISI).

➢ Reduced computational complexity: OFDM can be easily implemented using Fast Fourier
Transforms (FFT/IFFT), and the computational requirements grow only slightly faster than
linearly with data rate or bandwidth. The computational complexity of OFDM can be shown to
be O(BlogTm) where B is the bandwidth and Tm is the delay spread.

➢ Graceful degradation of performance under excess delay: The performance of an OFDM system
degrades gracefully as the delay spread exceeds the value designed for. Greater coding and low
constellation sizes can be used to provide fallback rates that are significantly more robust
against delay spread.

➢ Exploitation of frequency diversity: OFDM facilitates coding and interleaving across

subcarriers in the frequency domain, which can provide robustness against burst errors caused
by portions of the transmitted spectrum undergoing deep fades.

➢ Enables efficient multi-access scheme: OFDM can be used as a multi-access scheme by

partitioning different subcarriers among multiple users. This scheme is referred to as OFDMA
and is exploited in LTE.

➢ Robust against narrowband interference: OFDM is relatively robust against narrowband

interference, since such interference affects only a fraction of the sub carriers.

➢ Facilitates use of MIMO: MIMO stands for multiple input multiple output and refers to a
collection of signal processing techniques that use multiple antennas at both the transmitter and
receiver to improve system performance.
➢ Efficient support of broadcast services: By synchronizing base stations to timing errors well
within the OFDM guard interval, it is possible to operate an OFDM network as a single
frequency network (SFN).

SC-FDE & SC-FDMA:

To keep the cost down and the battery life up, LTE incorporated a power efficient transmission scheme
for the uplink. Single Carrier Frequency Domain Equalization (SC-FDE) is conceptually like OFDM
but instead of transmitting the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) of the actual data symbols, the
data symbols are sent as a sequence of QAM symbols with a cyclic prefix added.
The IFFT is added at the end of the receiver. SC-FDE retains all the advantages of OFDM such as
multipath resistance and low complexity, while having a low peak-to-average ratio of 4-5dB. The uplink
of LTE implements a multi-user version of SC-FDE, called SC-FDMA, which allows multiple users to
use parts of the frequency spectrum.

CHANNEL DEPENDENT MULTIUSER RESOURCE SCHEDULING:

The OFDMA scheme used in LTE provides enormous flexibility in how channel resources are allocated.
OFDMA allows for allocation in both time and frequency and it is possible to design algorithms to
allocate resources in a flexible and dynamic manner to meet arbitrary throughput, delay, and other
requirements. The standard supports dynamic, channel-dependent scheduling to enhance overall system
capacity.
For high-mobility users, OFDMA can be used to achieve frequency diversity. By coding and
interleaving across subcarriers in the frequency domain using a uniform random distribution of
subcarriers over the whole spectrum, the signal can be made more robust against frequency selective
fading or burst errors. Frequency diverse scheduling is best suited for control signalling and delay
sensitive services.
➢ Multi-user MIMO: Since spatial multiplexing requires multiple transmit chains, it is currently
not supported in the uplink due to complexity and cost consider ations. However, multi-user
MIMO (MU-MIMO), which allows multiple users in the uplink, each with a single antenna, to
transmit using the same frequency and time resource, is supported.
Multi-Antenna Techniques in 5G:

Transmit diversity: This is a technique to combat multipath fading in the wireless channel. The idea
here is to send copies of the same signal, coded differently, over multiple transmit antennas. LTE
transmit diversity is based on space-frequency block coding (SFBC) techniques complemented with
frequency shift time diversity (FSTD) when four transmit antennas are used. Transmit diversity is
primarily in tended for common downlink channels that cannot make use of channel-dependent
scheduling. It can also be applied to user transmissions such as low data rate VoIP, where the additional
overhead of channel-dependent scheduling may not be justified. Transmit diversity increases system
capacity and cell range.
• Beamforming: Multiple antennas in LTE may also be used to transmit the same signal appropriately
weighted for each antenna element such that the effect is to focus the transmitted beam in the direction
of the receiver and away from interference, thereby improving the received signal-to-interference ratio.
Beamforming can provide significant improvements in coverage range, capacity, reliability, and battery
life. It can also be useful in providing angular information for user tracking. LTE supports beamforming
in the downlink.

• Spatial multiplexing: The idea behind spatial multiplexing is that multiple in dependent streams can
be transmitted in parallel over multiple antennas and can be separated at the receiver using multiple
receive chains through appropriate sig nal processing. This can be done as long as the multipath
channels as seen by the different antennas are sufficiently decorrelated as would be the case in a
scattering.

Multi-user MIMO: Since spatial multiplexing requires multiple transmit chains, it is currently not
supported in the uplink due to complexity and cost considerations. However, multi-user MIMO (MU-
MIMO), which allows multiple users in the uplink, each with a single antenna, to transmit using the
same frequency and time resource, is supported For MIMO techniques to be effective, it is required that
the channel conditions are such that the multipath delays do not cause inter symbol interference
IP-based Flat network architecture

3GPP network architecture evolved over a few releases. 3GPP Release 6 architecture, which is
conceptually very similar to its predecessors, has four network elements in the data path: the base station
or Node-B, radio network controller (RNC), serving GPRS service node (SGSN), and gateway GRPS
service node (GGSN).
Release 7 introduced a direct tunnel option from the RNC to GGSN, which eliminated SGSN from the
data path. LTE on the other hand, will have only two network elements in the data path: the enhanced
Node-B or e Node-B, and a System Architecture Evolution Gateway (SAE-GW). Unlike all previous
cellular systems, LTE merges the base station and radio network controller functionality into a single
unit.
The control path includes a functional entity called the Mobility Management Entity (MME), which
provides control plane functions related to subscriber, mobility, and session management.
The MME and SAE-GW could be collocated in a single entity called the access gateway (a-GW). More
details about the network architecture are provided in the next section.

EPC Architecture (LTE Network Architecture):

Serving Gateway (SGW): The SGW acts as a demarcation point between the RAN and core network
and manages user plane mobility. It serves as the mobility anchor when terminals move across areas
served by different e Node-B elements in E-UTRAN, as well as across other 3GPP radio networks such
as GERAN and UTRAN. SGW does downlink packet buffering and initiation of network-triggered
service request procedures. Other functions include lawful interception, packet rout ing and forwarding,
transport level packet marking in the uplink and the downlink, accounting support for per user, and
inter-operator charging.

Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW): The PGW acts as the termination point of the EPC toward
other Packet Data Networks (PDN) such as the Internet, private IP network, or the IMS network
providing end-user services. It serves as an anchor point for sessions toward external PDN and provides
functions such as user IP address allocation, policy enforcement, packet filtering, and charging support.
Policy enforcement includes operator-defined rules for resource allocation to control data rate, QoS,
and usage. Packet filtering functions include deep packet inspection for application detection.

Mobility Management Entity (MME): The MME performs the signaling and control functions to
manage the user terminal access to network connections, as segment of network resources, and mobility
management function such as idle mode location tracking, paging, roaming, and handovers. MME
controls all control plane functions related to subscriber and session management. The MME provides
Spectrum Options and Migration Plans for LTE 35 security functions such as providing temporary
identities for user terminals, interacting with Home Subscriber Server (HSS) for authentication.

Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF): The Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is a
concatenation of Policy Decision Function (PDF) and Charging Rules Function (CRF). The PCRF
interfaces with the PDN gateway and supports service data flow detection, policy enforcement, and
flow-based charging.