Carrier Aggregation - (one) key enabler for LTE-Advanced

News

Carrier aggregation –
(one) key enabler for LTE-Advanced

Article_Carrier-aggregation_3606-7630-62_v0101.indd 1 30.10.2012 09:43:53

Carrier aggregation –
Analysts anticipate that by the end of 2012, 152 LTE networks will be on air in 68 countries worldwide.
Compared to previous technology rollouts (2G, 3G, 3.5G), this is by far the fastest adaptation that the wire-
less industry has seen to date. But even with all marketing departments of all network operators adver-
tising today’s LTE deployments as 4G, speaking strictly technical – they are not. LTE in its definition as of
3GPP Release 8 does not meet all IMT-Advanced requirements as set by ITU to be designated a true 4G
mobile communications technology 1). 3GPP, short for 3rd Generation Partnership Project and the standard-
ization body behind LTE, is addressing and exceeding these requirements while standardizing LTE-Advanced
as part of its Release 10 for all relevant technical specifications. This article describes the most demanded
feature within the LTE-Advanced feature set in greater detail: carrier aggregation. It further outlines how
leading Rohde & Schwarz test and measurement solutions support carrier aggregation.

Carrier aggregation and its different types as part aggregation, which will be discussed in more detail in the
of the LTE-Advanced feature set following. LTE-Advanced as of 3GPP Release 10 (Rel-10)
While the industry is still facing challenges with LTE, e.g. allows the aggregation of a maximum of five component
offering circuit-switched services such as SMS and voice carriers with up to 20 MHz bandwidth each to attain a
via the “All-IP”-based network architecture, including the total transmission bandwidth of up to 100 MHz. How-
IP Multimedia Subsystem, standardization has moved on ever, 3GPP’s RAN Working Group 4 (RAN4), which is re-
to enhance LTE to meet the IMT-Advanced requirements sponsible for setting performance requirements, currently
outlined in Table 1. limits aggregation to two component carriers. Hence the
maximum aggregated bandwidth is 40 MHz, which is still
The required spectral efficiency and requested peak data in line with IMT-Advanced requirements. To assure back-
rates for downlink (DL), but moreover uplink (UL), can ward compatibility, each of these carriers is configured
only be achieved in two steps. First, enhancing the multi- to be compliant with 3GPP Release 8 (Rel-8). Each of the
antenna capabilities in the downlink (up to 8x8 Single User aggregated component carriers could also use a different
MIMO 2)) and allowing multi-antenna support in the uplink bandwidth. In fact, one of the six supported bandwidths
(up to 4x4 Single User MIMO). Second, applying carrier 1)
ITU-R M.2134.
2)
MIMO: Multiple Input Multiple Output.

Table 1 IMT-Advanced requirements
IMT-Advanced LTE LTE-Advanced
3GPP Rel. 8 3GPP Rel. 10

Transmission bandwidth ≤ 40 MHz/≤ 100 MHz ≤ 20 MHz ≤ 100 MHz
Peak data rate (DL/UL) 1000 Mbps (low mobility), 300 Mbps/75 Mbps 1000 Mbps/500 Mbps
100 Mbps (high mobility)

Peak spectral efficiency (in bps/Hz)
DL (4x4/8x8) 15/– 15/– 16/30
UL (2x2/4x4) 6.75 3.75 8.4/16.8 (FDD),
8.1/16.1 (TDD)

Latency
User plane < 10 ms < 6 ms < 6 ms
Control plane < 100 ms 50 ms 50 ms

2


within LTE: 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz or covers intraband contiguous and interband CA, whereas
20 MHz. This of course depends on the availability of spec- intraband non-contiguous CA will not be realized until
trum to each individual network operator. Currently, RAN4 Rel-11. Intraband describes the aggregation of component
discusses constellations with 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz carriers within the same frequency band in a contiguous
and 20 MHz channel bandwidth. As none of these ser- or non-contiguous way. For interband carrier aggregation,
vice providers owns a continuous spectrum of 100 MHz, the two component carriers reside in different frequency
three different modes of carrier aggregation exist within bands. Figure 1 shows the different modes being defined
LTE-Advanced: intraband contiguous, intraband non-confor carrier aggregation.
tiguous and interband carrier aggregation. Rel-10 already
Interband carrier aggregation has led to a high amount of
Figure 1 Modes of carrier aggregation different band combinations that are in demand by net-
work operators worldwide based on the frequency blocks
Intraband contiguous they are licensing. Especially in the US there is a very com-
Frequency band A Frequency band B petitive situation among all carriers and how much spec-
trum is available to each one: contiguous, non-contiguous
as well as in different frequency bands. Carrier aggrega-
tion is clearly seen as the ultimate way to combine these
Component different frequency allocations and is therefore also often
carrier (CC) referred to as spectrum aggregation. Table 2 shows the
band combination that RAN4 is currently working on. As
Intraband non-contiguous
indicated above, the majority of band combinations have
Frequency band A Frequency band B been submitted by US-based network operators. Most
of these combinations seek aggregation of currently de-
ployed LTE networks at 700 MHz or in general lower fre-
quencies with frequency blocks around 2 GHz, mainly in
what is known as the AWS spectrum. AWS stands for
Interband Advanced Wireless Services and corresponds in the 3GPP
Frequency band A Frequency band B terminology to frequency band 4. AWS frequencies were
auctioned off by the Federal Communication Commission
(FCC) back in 2006, whereas the 700 MHz frequency band
licensing took place in February 2008.

Table 2
Acronym Mode Work item Work item rapporteur
LTE_CA_B3_B7 FDD RP-100668 TeliaSonera
LTE_CA_B4_B17 FDD RP-111750 AT&T
LTE_CA_B4_B13 FDD RP-111678 Ericsson (Verizon)
LTE_CA_B4_B12 FDD RP-111316 Cox Communications
LTE_CA_B7_B20 FDD RP-110403 Huawei (Orange)
LTE_CA_B5_B12 FDD RP-120111 US Cellular
LTE_CA_B1_B7 FDD RP-111357 China Telecom
LTE_CA_B3_B5 FDD RP-111603 SK Telecom
LTE_CA_B4_B7 FDD RP-111358 Rogers Wireless
LTE_CA_B3_B20 FDD RP-120372 Vodafone
LTE_CA_B8_B20 FDD RP-111213 Vodafone
LTE_CA_B11_B18 FDD RP-111634 KDDI
LTE_CA_B1_B19 FDD RP-111765 NTT DoCoMo
LTE_CA_B1_B21 FDD RP-111764 NTT DoCoMo
LTE_CA_B3_B5 with 2 uplink FDD RP-120364 SK Telecom
LTE_CA_B3_B8 FDD RP-120388 KT

3


Are all component carriers equal? second step. The reasons are quite simple. Uplink carrier
The important question is how carrier aggregation is acti- aggregation for interband requires a second transmit chain
vated by the network. The answer is simple: only in con- [Ref. 01], which leads to a more complex device design
nected mode. So before this can actually take place, a and of course higher power consumption. In addition,
mobile device that supports Rel-10 needs to execute the things like power control per (uplink) component carrier,
generic access procedures that are defined for LTE as of related power head room reporting, buffer status reports
Rel-8: cell search and selection, system information ac- and timing advance are more challenging to implement,
quisition and initial random access. All these procedures and need to be thoroughly tested and verified, resulting in
are carried out on the Primary Component Carrier (PCC) a longer time to market. This would not be in line with the
for downlink and uplink. Secondary Component Carriers aggressive roadmaps of some, not only US-based, net-
(SCC) – in total up to four, initially two – are seen as addi- work operators in terms of carrier aggregation. Therefore
tional transmission resources. The basic linkage between this two step deployment approach seems to be plausible
the PCC in downlink and uplink is signaled within system and is backed up with the work items submitted (WI) to
information block type 2 (SIB type 2). The PCC is device- RAN4, where only one network operator requested inter-
specific, not cell-specific. That means, for instance, two band carrier aggregation for FDD including aggregation of
terminals belonging to the same network operator could two uplink component carriers 3).
have their PCC on different frequency bands. If we stick 3)
RP-120364, Rapporteur: SK Telecom (South Korea).
with the US-based example mentioned earlier, terminal
#1 could have its PCC in the AWS spectrum, whereas ter-
minal #2’s PCC is at 700 MHz. However, the most likely Figure 3 Default EPS bearer establishment
initial deployment scenario is that the PCC is configured procedure
for 700 MHz since the carriers’ initial LTE deployments
are in the lower frequency bands. Nevertheless, the net- UE EUTRAN

work is able to change a terminal’s PCC while executing
the handover procedure. Besides being used for the initial Initial access and RRC connection
establishment attach request and
access, only the PCC in the uplink will carry the Physical PDN connectivity request
Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) for uplink control infor-
mation transmission. Any SCC that might be added in the Authentication
uplink provides only the Physical Uplink Shared Channel
(PUSCH). However, even if carrier aggregation in the
Additional information NAS security
uplink is defined with Rel-10, it is most likely that initial
submitted by a
LTE-Advanced deployments for FDD will only make use of 3GPP Rel-10 device…
carrier aggregation in the downlink. That means we have UE capability procedure
an asymmetric aggregation of component carriers, for
example two in the downlink and only one in the uplink. AS security
Typical TD-LTE carrier aggregation results in a symmetric
aggregation. First systems may feature two DL and one UL RCC connection reconﬁguration
CA for TDD as well. attach accept and default EPS
bearer context request

So in FDD systems, which are the majority of current
Default EPS bearer context accept
deployments, symmetric carrier aggregation with up
to five CCs, as shown in Figure 2, as well as intraband
non-contiguous CA is supposed to be rolled out in a

Figure 2 Symmetric carrier aggregation

Downlink Uplink

SCC SCC SCC PCC SCC SCC SCC SCC PCC SCC

PDSCH; PDCCH is optional PDSCH and PDCCH PUSCH only PUSCH and PUCCH

4


What type(s) of carrier aggregation does a device interband carrier ggregation. Table 3 shows supported
a
support? bandwidth classes for LTE-Advanced as defined in the
At this point it is important to note that there are certain actual version of the related 3GPP specification. Figure 4
limitations as to what band combinations a Rel-10-capable provides an example of the terminology used by the de-
terminal can support. A multitechnology device enabled vice to indicate its support of carrier aggregation for a par-
for global roaming has to support at least four GSM fre- ticular frequency band or band combination 5). Let’s take
quency bands, five 3G/WCDMA frequency bands and the intraband, non- ontiguous case using CA_25A_25A
c
three LTE bands, if we just consider 3GPP-defined tech- as an example. It tells the network that this device is able
nology support. Not to mention the support of GPS, FM, to receive (or transmit) two separate carriers in frequency
Bluetooth® and WLAN standards, and eventually NFC 4). band 25, each one with a maximum bandwidth of 100 RB,
Each technology requires its own transmit-receive (TRX) i.e. 20 MHz. If this device would be able to aggregate
chain, and space is limited due to the form factor and two carriers in that frequency band, but continuously, the
size of today’s smartphones. And the more TRX elements, acronym would change to CA_25C. Bandwidth class C
the higher the power consumption. Due to these limita- defines an aggregated transmission bandwidth between
tions, a device that supports LTE-Advanced will submit 100 RB and 200 RB, allocated to two component carriers.
additional information to the network during the UE capa- As can been seen, 3GPP still has work to do for band-
bility procedure. The UE capability transfer is part of the width classes D, E and F as these are marked FFS – For
Default EPS Bearer establishment – shown in igure 3
F Further Studies. Therefore it’s a fair conclusion that we
– that takes place after contention resolution of the initial will have initially an aggregated bandwidth of maximum
random access procedure. The submitted UE capabili- 200 RB, equal to 40 MHz as required by IMT-Advanced,
ties, already enhanced with Rel-9, have once again been using two separate carriers. So as soon as the network
extended for Rel-10. With regards to the supported band is aware of the carrier aggregation capabilities of the de-
combinations, the RF-Parameters-v1020 information ele- vice, it can add, modify or release SCC by means of the
ment provides this important detail to the network. The RRCConnectionReconfiguration message that has been
capabilities are signaled per frequency band, separately e
nhanced with Rel-10. But, let’s take a step back before
for downlink and uplink. Furthermore, bandwidth classes going into further details.
are indicated on a per band basis, including the support 4)
NFC: Near Field Communication.
of either intraband (contiguous or non-contiguous) and 5)
R4-122764, CA configuration acronyms for non-contiguous intraband CA,
Nokia Corp.

Figure 4 Notation of carrier aggregation support (type, frequency band, bandwidth)

Contiguous Non-contiguous
intraband CA intraband CA Interband CA

E-UTRA band number

CA_1C CA_25A_25A CA_1A_5A

Supported bandwidth class

Table 3
CA bandwidth class Aggregated transmission Maximum number of CC Nominal guard band BWGB
bandwidth configuration

A NRB,agg ≤ 100 1 0.05 BWChannel(1)
B NRB,agg ≤ 100 2 FFS
C 100 < NRB,agg ≤ 200 2 0.05 max(BWChannel(1), BWChannel(2))
D 200 < NRB,agg ≤ [300] FFS FFS
E [300] < NRB,agg ≤ [400] FFS FFS
F [400] < NRB,agg ≤ [500] FFS FFS
BWChannel(1) and BWChannel(2) are channel bandwidths of two E-UTRA component carriers according to Table 5.6-1.

5


Impact of carrier aggregation on LTE signaling subframe n, then 8 subframes (8 ms) later the resources
procedures are available to the device and it can check for schedul-
Generally speaking, the signaling for carrier aggregation ing assignments. At this point in time, a newly introduced
affects only certain layers, not the entire protocol stack. timer 6) will also be started. Assuming an SCC has been
For instance, the device is permanently connected via configured for a device using RRC signaling and has been
its PCC to the serving Primary Cell (PCell). Non-Access activated via MAC, but in a certain period no scheduling
S
tratum (NAS) functionality such as security key exchange information via the PDCCH is received, this SCell will be
and mobility information are provided by the PCell. All deactivated on MAC after the timer expires. The timer can
secondary component carriers, or secondary cells, are be overidden by setting it to infinity, the maximum setting.
understood as additional transmission resources. For the When the MAC acts as a multiplexer, each component
Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) and Radio Link carrier has its own Physical Layer (PHY) entity, providing
Control (RLC) layer, carrier aggregation signaling is trans- channel coding, HARQ, data modulation and resource
parent. Compared to Rel-8, the RLC layer only needs to mapping. On the primary and each secondary component
support the higher data rates by having a larger buffer size. carrier, both types of synchronization signals are transmit-
The buffer size is defined by the UE category that a device ted to allow device detection and synchronization. igure 5
F
belongs to. With Rel-10, three new categories have been shows the control plane signaling, highlighting the lay-
added (see Table 4), however carrier aggregation is not ers that are involved in activating carrier aggregation for
limited to these new categories. Rel-8 device categories a particular handset. Coming back to the extension of
2 to 5 can also be capable of carrier aggregation. A ter- the previously mentioned RCConnectionReconfiguration
R
minal is configured on the Radio Resource Control (RRC) message at the RRC layer. With the help of this mes-
layer to handle secondary component carriers, provided sage extension, a maximum of four secondary cells can
by secondary cells. Moreover, on RRC the parameters of be activated. For each cell, its physical cell identity is
the SCell(s) are set, i.e. configured. The Medium Access sent, including the explicit downlink carrier frequency as
Control (MAC) layer acts as a multiplexing entity for the an bsolute Radio Frequency Channel Number (ARFCN)
A
aggregated component carriers as they are activated or 6)
sCellDeactivationTimer-r10.
deactivated by MAC control elements. If activation is in

Table 4

UE category Maximum number Maximum number Total number of soft Maximum number
of DL-SCH transport of bits of a DL-SCH channel bits of supported layers
block bits received t
ransport block received for patial multiplexing
s
within a TTI
within a TTI in DL

... ... ... ... ...
Category 6 301 504 149 776 (4 layers), 3 654 144 2 or 4
75 376 (2 layers)

Category 7 301 504 149 776 (4 layers), 3 654 144 2 or 4
75 376 (2 layers)

Category 8 2 998 560 299 856 35 982 720 8

≈ 3 Gbps peak DL data rate
for 8x8 MIMO, 64QAM

UE category Maximum number Maximum number Support for 64QAM Total layer 2 buffer size
of UL-SCH transport of bits of an UL-SCH in UL
block bits transmitted transport block trans-
within a TTI mitted within a TTI

... ... ... ... ...
Category 6 51 024 51 024 no 3 300 000 bytes
Category 7 102 048 51 024 no 3 800 000 bytes
Category 8 1497 760 149 776 yes 42 200 000 bytes

≈ 1.5 Gbps peak, UL data
rate, for 4x4 MIMO, 64QAM

6


as well as common and dedicated information. For the Network (HetNet) deployment scenarios with carrier ag-
common and dedicated information, the transferred in- gregation, where it is used to reduce interference. In
formation is separated for downlink and uplink. Common brief, HetNets aim to improve spectral efficiency per unit
information means it is applicable to all devices that this area using a mixture of macro-cell, pico-cell, and femto-
carrier will be added to, including for instance its band- cell base stations and further relays. In these deployment
width, PHICH and PDSCH configuration and, in the case scenarios, interference control and management is intro-
of TD-LTE, the UL-DL configuration and special subframe duced. The question that remains is how to schedule re-
configuration. Further, the MBSFN subframe configuration sources when carrier aggregation is being activated for
is part of the downlink information. With Rel-9, broadcast/ a device. The answer is in the definition of cross-carrier
multicast capabilities have been fully defined for LTE and scheduling. Instead of decoding the Physical Downlink
summarized as enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Control CHannel (PDCCH) on each associated compo-
Services (eMBMS). With this feature, mixed mode is pos- nent carrier, the device only has to decode the PDCCH
sible, where certain subframes out of an LTE radio frame on one carrier, presumably the PCC, to also identify allo-
are used for broadcast purposes. In terms of carrier ag- cated resources on associated SCC. For this purpose, the
gregation, this is important information for the device, as Downlink Control Information (DCI) formats carrying the
it does not need to check subframes that are assigned to scheduling assignment will be extended by a Carrier Indi-
MBSFN. For the uplink carrier, frequency and bandwidth cator Field (CIF). This new 3-bit field enables the terminal
information, power control related information and the up- to clearly identify the component carrier that the decoded
link channel configuration (PRACH, PUSCH) are signaled. scheduling decision is meant for. Figure 6 shows the de-
scribed principle. As explained, cross-carrier scheduling
Dedicated information that is only applicable to this partic- is enabled by RRC signaling. Since the terminal is not de-
ular terminal includes, for instance, the activation and use coding the PCFICH on the associated (secondary) compo-
of cross-carrier scheduling. Cross-carrier scheduling is an nent carrier anymore, it does not know how many OFDM
optional device feature. Its support is also indicated to the symbols in the beginning of each subframe are used for
network during the UE capability transfer procedure. The control data.
use of cross-carrier scheduling is linked to Heterogeneous

Figure 5 Protocol layers involved in carrier aggregation
signaling (control plane)

User equipment eNode B MME

NAS NAS

RRC RRC

PDCP PDCP

RLC RLC

MAC MAC

PHY PHY

Figure 6 Cross-carrier scheduling

PCFICH PDCCH
Frequency
PDCCH CIF=0 CIF=1
PDSCH start
PDSCH signaled by RRC

not possible,
transmission can
Time
only be scheduled
Component carrier #1 Component carrier #2 by one CC Component carrier #5

7


This information, referred to as PDSCH-Start 7), needs to T
oday, it already supports a frequency range up to 6 GHz,
be signaled to the device during activation of cross-carrier making it a secure investment for all upcoming future
scheduling and is therefore part of the related informa- challenges, including LTE-Advanced. With the proper
tion element. Depending on the bandwidth of the com- hardware configuration, available today, a standalone
ponent carrier, this could be anywhere from 1 to 4 OFDM R&S®CMW500 supports all variances of carrier aggrega-
symbols. For cross-carrier scheduling, it is also important tion: intraband (contiguous, non-contiguous) and inter-
to point out that if resources on a component carrier are band with two component carriers. As a single instru-
scheduled via another carrier, e.g. the PCC, no resources ment, it already supports all 3GPP frequency bands that
on that SCC for that terminal can be scheduled by any are or will be utilized for LTE; support of the different
o
ther component carrier. combinations for interband carrier aggregation, includ-
ing 2x2 MIMO, is no problem at all. Different bandwidths
However, initial deployments with carrier aggregation will per component carrier, up to 20 MHz each, are supported,
utilize resource allocation as of Rel-8. This means the ter- including asymmetric carrier aggregation, i.e. 2 DL and
minal will check, on the PCC as well as on all activated 1 UL. Carrier aggregation further increases mobile device
SCC, for the PDDCH to decode the associated DCI format complexity. The major design challenge is on the trans-
and demodulate the assigned PDSCH resources. etNets
H ceiver frontend to support multiple band combinations.
with cross-carrier scheduling will be deployed in a second This requires highly flexible switches, a wideband power
phase. amplifier and tunable antenna elements. As described
earlier, other aspects are the Physical Layer (PHY) design,
Carrier aggregation and LTE-Advanced support RRC signaling and mobility. For testing physical layer as-
with test solutions from Rohde & Schwarz pects of LTE-Advanced, Rohde & Schwarz has created a
Rohde & Schwarz offers a multitude of solutions for testing new test case package, the R&S®CMW-KF513. Test cases
LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation implementations. The in a first release focus on carrier aggregation. This pack-
broad offering includes signal generators and analyzers for age will be continually enhanced to cover all upcoming
performing physical layer tests on base stations, mobile physical layer aspects for LTE-Advanced. From an RRC
devices or components as well as base station emulators signaling and mobility perspective, Rohde & Schwarz has
for physical layer and protocol tests on all kinds of wireless defined multiple test scenarios, which are found in the
devices and chipsets. R&S®CMW-KF514 test case package. For flexible mobil-
ity testing of carrier aggregation with 2x2 MIMO (intra
The Rohde & Schwarz universal hardware platform for frequency or inter requency), Rohde & Schwarz utilizes
f
multiband, multimode wireless device and chipset de- its R&S®CMW500 multibox setup ( igure 7). This setup is
F
velopment, for R & D, production and service, is the
The exact label of the information element is pdsch-Start-r10,
7)

R&S®CMW500 wideband radio communication ester. t see 3GPP TS 36.331 V10.6.0.

Figure 7 R&S®CMW500 multibox setup
for testing carrier aggregation mobility with
2x2 MIMO.

8


used today in many development labs around the world All in all, the R&S®SMU200A is the right choice for testing
to perform full protocol conformance testing according to receiver modules and algorithms of LTE-Advanced capable
the relevant 3GPP specification 8). A certain number of test handsets during the initial design phase – for both LTE
cases require the simulation of multiple cells of different FDD and TD-LTE.
technologies (e.g. LTE, 3G/WCDMA or 2G/GSM) for mobil-
ity testing, PLMN and cell selection scenarios or neighbor Infrastructure suppliers also have to perform dedicated
cell measurements. Investing in a multibox setup will pay tests for carrier aggregation. One of these is the Time
off as it will be reused for mobility testing for carrier aggre- Alignment Error (TAE) measurement. As the frames of LTE
gation, including 2x2 MIMO or even 4x2 MIMO, which is signals at a base station antenna port are not perfectly
already supported today as defined in LTE as of Rel-8. aligned, they need to fulfill certain timing requirements.
For intraband carrier aggregation, the TAE shall not exceed
Another option for testing the LTE physical layer with a 155 ns; 285 ns for the non-contiguous case. Interband car-
focus on carrier aggregation is the R&S®SMU200A vector rier aggregation allows an error of up to 1325 ns. These
signal generator. This instrument combines two complete requirements are independent of whether TX diversity or
signal generators – each with a baseband section and MIMO is applied per component carrier. Figure 9 shows
RF upconversion – in a single unit, making it ideal for all the required setup to measure the time alignment error
LTE-Advanced interband and intraband carrier aggrega- for interband carrier aggregation. In this example, the new
tion scenarios. With the internal R&S®SMU-K85 software high-end R&S®FSW signal and spectrum analyzer is act-
option, even complex LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation ing as master, controlled by a software application. This
signals are intuitively configured (see Figure 8). Up to program, which resides inside the instrument, is used to
five component carriers with a variable bandwidth of up synchronize the capture of I/Q data from master and slave.
to 20 MHz can be generated. Each carrier is assigned to Here, the slave is represented by the mid-range R&S®FSV
one of the two signal generation paths (path A/path B). signal and spectrum analyzer, the first instrument on the
The paths are mapped to the desired frequency band, market to offer touchscreen operation. For measuring
e.g. 751 MHz and 1.9 GHz. Via relative frequency offsets time alignment error for intraband carrier aggregation, a
for each component carrier, interband, contiguous intra- standalone R&S®FSW is sufficient due to its RF analysis
band as well as non-contiguous intraband scenarios are bandwidth of 160 MHz. Further details can be found in the
easily and flexibly created. Configuration of cross-carrier related 3GPP specification for LTE base station RF confor-
scheduling and the PDSCH start offset of the secondary mance testing [Ref. 02].
component carriers are also supported. Furthermore, the 8)
See 3GPP TS 36.523-1.
R&S®SMU200A vector signal generator can optionally per-
form AWGN, ading and MIMO (up to 4x2, 2x4) simulation.
f

Figure 8 Configuration menu for Carrier
A
ggregation (CA) in R&S®SMU200A vector
signal generator.

9


Figure 9 Setup measuring TAE for interband carrier aggregation with Rohde & Schwarz signal and
spectrum analyzer

Control

[SLAVE]

Reference I/Q data RF
CC #2, e.g.
3GPP Band 5

Control RF

[MASTER] CC #1, e.g.
3GPP Band 1

Outlook: carrier aggregation enhancements with PUCCH format 3 is defined in detail for FDD CA with more
3GPP Releases 11 and 12 than two carriers or TDD carrier aggregation. Thus, Rel-11
While Rel-10 carrier aggregation is currently in the imple- will bring some innovations. For 3GPP Release 12, even a
mentation phase, the 3GPP standardization is working on new carrier type that is not backward compatible is under
new CA features and enhancements for the next release discussion, which would be a major change.
(Rel-11). The core work item “LTE Carrier Aggregation
Enhancements” in all its details will not be finalized before Summary
December 2012. Nevertheless, RAN1 has already decided Carrier aggregation is one key enabler of LTE-Advanced
on the basic functionality, features and changes. We pres- to meet the IMT-Advanced requirements in terms of peak
ent a brief preview here. data rates. It is a highly demanded feature from a network
operator perspective, since it also enables the aggrega-
The support of multiple timing advance groups (TAGs) is tion of different spectrum fragments and offers a way
included, i.e. the PCell and the SCell can have different out of the spectrum crunch. However, the major design
uplink timing if they belong to different TAGs. This is en- challenge is on the terminal side. Support of higher band-
abled in Rel-11 by the introduction of a random access widths and aggregation of carriers in different frequency
procedure on SCells, in contrast to Rel-10 where the PCell bands tremendously increase the complexity of transceiver
determines the timing for all aggregated cells. Further, in circuits, including component designs like wideband pow-
Rel-10 for TDD CA, the UL/DL configuration on all cells er amplifiers, highly efficient switches and tunable antenna
has to be identical. However, in Rel-11, different UL/DL elements. Further, the additional functionality provided in
configurations can be used as long as the CCs are located the PHY/MAC layer and the adaptations to the RRC layer
in different bands. This new feature provides more flex- need to be thoroughly tested. As a premium supplier of
ibility for CA with TDD. Next, transmit diversity for PUCCH test and measurement solutions to the wireless industry,
format 1b with channel selection is introduced using the Rohde & Schwarz already offers today the right tools to
SORTD method for the PUCCH resource allocation. Finally, guide the design engineer through these challenges.
multicell HARQ-ACK and periodic CSI multiplexing for Andreas Roessler; Meik Kottkamp; Sandra Merkel

10


Andreas Roessler is Technology Manager Meik Kottkamp is Technology Manager
within the Test & Measurement Division within the Test & Measurement Division of
of ohde & Schwarz, headquartered in
R Rohde & Schwarz in Munich, Germany. He

M
unich, Germany. He is dedicated to the is responsible for strategic marketing and
North American market (US & Canada) with product portfolio development for LTE,
a ocus on UMTS Long Term Evolution
f L
TE‑Advanced, HSPA+ and EDGE Evolu-
(LTE) and TE-Advanced. He is responsible
L tion. He joined Rohde & Schwarz in August

for strategic marketing and product port- 2007. From 1996 to 2007, he worked at
folio development for LTE/LTE-Advanced. Siemens Mobile Communication Net-
He follows the standardization process works and Terminals. As standardization
in 3GPP very closely, especially with re- manager he headed a group responsible
spect to core specifications and protocol conformance, RRM and RF for the Siemens standardization strategy in 3GPP TSG RAN. Later he
conformance specifications for mobile device testing, but also infra- was involved in predevelopment projects on the broadband technolo-
structure and component testing as well as network performance gies Flash OFDM, WiMAX™ and HSPA+. After the creation of NSN in
measurements (drive tests). Since July 2010 he is an expat, working early 2007, he joined the LTE product management group. He holds
for Rohde & Schwarz USA, Inc. out of Flower Mound, Texas. Previously, a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hannover in

he worked for Willtek Communications, now Aeroflex, as a product Germany.
manager for a radio communication tester supporting various wire-
less technologies. He graduated from Otto-von-Guericke University in
Magdeburg, Germany, and holds a Masters degree in Communications
Engineering. He has more than eight years experience in the wireless
industry.

Sandra Merkel works for the Department of
Predevelopment and Standardization Bodies,

Mobile Radio Testers at ohde & Schwarz.
R
Her focus is on 3GPP standardiza-
tion for Long Term Evolution (LTE) and
L
TE-Advanced. This work includes repre-
senting Rohde & Schwarz as a delegate in
the RAN WG 1 group. Prior to her current
position, she worked as an antenna de-
signer and system engineer in the prede-
velopment department of Kathrein-Werke,
Rosenheim, Germany, and as a research assistant for the University
of Karlsruhe (now known as the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology),
G
ermany. She received Dipl.-Ing. (M.S.E.E.) and Dr.-Ing. (PhD) degrees
in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the Univer-
sity of Karlsruhe and has more than nine years experience in mobile
communications.

REFERENCES
[Ref. 01] 3GPP TR 36.815 Further advancements for E-UTRA; LTE-Advanced
feasibility studies in RAN WG4, V9.1.0, see section 5.3
[Ref. 02] 3GPP TS 36.141 E-UTRA Base Station (BS) conformance testing, V11.1.0
[Ref. 03] 3GPP TS 36.321 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification,
V10.5.0
[Ref. 04] 3GPP TS 36.331 Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol specification,
V10.5.0

The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by
Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Rohde & Schwarz is under license.

11


Regional contact
Europe, Africa, Middle East | +49 89 4129 12345
customersupport@rohde-schwarz.com
North America | 1 888 TEST RSA (1 888 837 87 72)
customer.support@rsa.rohde-schwarz.com
Latin America | +1 410 910 79 88
customersupport.la@rohde-schwarz.com
Asia/Pacific | +65 65 13 04 88
customersupport.asia@rohde-schwarz.com
China | +86 800 810 8228/+86 400 650 5896
customersupport.china@rohde-schwarz.com

Rohde&Schwarz GmbH&Co. KG
Mühldorfstraße 15 | 81671 München
Phone +49 89 41 290 | Fax +49 89 41 29 12 164

www.rohde-schwarz.com

R&S® is a registered trademark of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG
Trade names are trademarks of the owners | Printed in Germany (ch)
PD 3606.7630.62 | Version 01.01 | October 2012 | Carrier ggregation –
a
Subject to change
© 2012 Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG | 81671 München, Germany


Carrier Aggregation - (one) key enabler for LTE-Advanced

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