Analysis of MAC-level throughput in LTE systems with link rate adaptation and HARQ protocols

LTE is rapidly gaining momentum for building future 4G cellular systems, and real operational networks are under deployment worldwide. To achieve high throughput performance, in addition to an advanced physical layer design LTE exploits a combination of sophisticated mechanisms at the radio resource management layer. Clearly, this makes difficult to develop analytical tools to accurately assess and optimise the user perceived throughput under realistic channel assumptions. Thus, most existing studies focus only on link-layer throughput or consider individual mechanisms in isolation. The main contribution of this paper is a unified modelling framework of the MAC-level downlink throughput of a sigle LTE cell, which caters for wideband CQI feedback schemes, AMC and HARQ protocols as defined in the LTE standard. We have validated the accuracy of the proposed model through detailed LTE simulations carried out with the ns-3 simulator extended with the LENA module for LTE.

[1]  Neelesh B. Mehta,et al.  An Accurate Model for EESM and its Application to Analysis of CQI Feedback Schemes and Scheduling in LTE , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[2]  Markku J. Juntti,et al.  Capacity Analysis of Downlink MIMO-OFDMA Resource Allocation with Limited Feedback , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Communications.

[3]  Yu Ted Su,et al.  Performance analysis of equalized OFDM systems in Rayleigh fading , 2002, IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun..

[4]  Hui Song,et al.  General results on SNR statistics involving EESM-based frequency selective feedbacks , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[5]  Byeong Gi Lee,et al.  Proportional-fair power allocation with CDF-based scheduling for fair and efficient multiuser OFDM systems , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[6]  Branka Vucetic,et al.  SINR distribution for LTE downlink multiuser MIMO systems , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.

[7]  Helmut Bölcskei,et al.  On the capacity of OFDM-based spatial multiplexing systems , 2002, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[8]  Neelesh B. Mehta,et al.  Joint Performance Analysis of Channel Quality Indicator Feedback Schemes and Frequency-Domain Scheduling for LTE , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[9]  Angeliki Alexiou,et al.  Link performance models for system level simulations of broadband radio access systems , 2005, 2005 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications.

[10]  Olav Tirkkonen,et al.  LTE, the radio technology path towards 4G , 2010, Comput. Commun..

[11]  Paolo Banelli,et al.  Theoretical analysis and performance of OFDM signals in nonlinear fading channels , 2003, IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun..

[12]  Fei Zhao,et al.  Performance of HARQ with AMC Schemes in LTE Downlink , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Communications and Mobile Computing.

[13]  Wai Ho Mow,et al.  Adaptive Resource Allocation and Capacity Comparison of Downlink Multiuser MIMO-MC-CDMA and MIMO-OFDMA , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[14]  Giuseppe Piro,et al.  Downlink Packet Scheduling in LTE Cellular Networks: Key Design Issues and a Survey , 2013, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[15]  Babak Hassibi,et al.  On the capacity of MIMO broadcast channel with partial side information , 2003, The Thrity-Seventh Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems & Computers, 2003.

[16]  Matías Toril,et al.  Analysis of Throughput Performance Statistics for Benchmarking LTE Networks , 2014, IEEE Communications Letters.

[17]  Hui Liu,et al.  OFDMA Capacity Analysis in MIMO Channels , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

[18]  Marco Miozzo,et al.  A lightweight and accurate link abstraction model for the simulation of LTE networks in ns-3 , 2012, MSWiM '12.

[19]  Ayman Elnashar,et al.  Looking at LTE in Practice: A Performance Analysis of the LTE System Based on Field Test Results , 2013, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine.

[20]  Babak Hassibi,et al.  On the capacity of MIMO broadcast channels with partial side information , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

[21]  Norman C. Beaulieu,et al.  Effect of Channel Estimation Error on Bit Error Probability in OFDM Systems over Rayleigh and Ricean Fading Channels , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Communications.

[22]  Umberto Spagnolini,et al.  On the Asymptotic Throughput of OFDMA Systems with Best-M CQI Feedback , 2012, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.