A Fast Automatic Gain Control Scheme for 3GPP

LTE TDD System

Jun Hee Jang, Hyung Jin Choi
School of Information and Communication Engineering
Sungkyunkwan University
Suwon, Korea
{hellojjh, hjchoi}@ece.skku.ac.kr

AbstractIn this paper, we propose a fast AGC (Automatic Gain

Control) scheme for 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project)
LTE (Long Term Evolution) TDD (Time Division Duplex)
system. Since the received signal has a large signal power
difference between uplink and downlink subframe in wireless
communication systems using a TDD scheme, conventional AGC
scheme cannot sufficiently adjust the AGC gain because the AGC
gain cannot converge fast enough to properly respond. Therefore,
conventional scheme leads to increased AGC gain variation, and
the received signal will be attenuated by large AGC gain
variation. To overcome this limitation, we propose an AGC
scheme based on the average amplitude ratio calculation which
can not only effectively increase convergence speed of the AGC
gain but also maintain the stability of AGC operation in LTE
TDD system. By using extensive computer simulation in various
channel environments, we show that the proposed method can
obtain a good behavior in terms of convergence speed for LTE
TDD system and verify that the proposed method is attractive
and suitable for implementation with stable operation.
Keywords-AGC; LTE; TDD; OFDMA

I.

INTRODUCTION

The LTE which is a significant increase in spectrum

efficiency compared to previous cellular system as defined by
the 3GPP is a highly flexible radio interface. One of the major
requirements on LTE is frequency flexibility and for this
reason bandwidths between 1.4 MHz and 20 MHz are
supported. Furthermore, to be able to exploit both paired and
unpaired spectrum, both FDD (Frequency Division Duplex)
and TDD are supported [1].
In wireless communication systems such as LTE, the
received signal has an unpredictable signal power and varies
over a wide dynamic range caused by multi-path fading
channel and unwanted signals such as strong interferer signal.
Therefore, an AGC is necessary for reducing unwanted signals
and dynamically adjusting the AGC gain of the incoming
signal to prevent the quantization error or saturation at the
ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter).
A typical AGC scheme which is continuously operational
for the received signal is applied to the receiver regardless of
the transmission path in the FDD system. However, in TDD
system, where the same frequency band is used for downlink
and uplink subframe, where they are separately transmitted by
a time division, it leads to significant performance degradation

by applying common AGC scheme due to large AGC gain

variation which is caused by signal level difference between
downlink and uplink subframe.
In general, it can be overcome by considering the training
symbol or GP (Guard Period) at the beginning of a downlink
transmission in which no information is sent, even though the
transceiver is active [2]. However, it is not appropriate for LTE
system in contrast to packet-oriented networks. Moreover, it is
an important AGC strategy to converge efficiently for the
accurate radio frame timing detection during the subsequent
initial cell search procedure. Therefore, we propose an efficient
AGC scheme based on the average amplitude ratio calculation
which can not only effectively increase the convergence speed
of the AGC gain but also maintain the stability of AGC
operation in LTE TDD system.
This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2, we introduce
PHY (Physical layer) specifications of LTE downlink for TDD
system, and the signal model considered in this paper. A brief
description of the conventional AGC method and the problem
of the conventional AGC method in LTE TDD system are
described in Sec. 3. The requirement of LTE system for
maintaining the stability of AGC operation and the proposed
AGC scheme are described in Sec. 4. The results of
performance comparison are presented in Sec. 5 and a
conclusion is drawn in Sec. 6.
II.

LTE FRAME STRUCTURE AND SIGNAL MODEL

A. LTE Frame Structure

According to 3GPP LTE specification [3], OFDMA
(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) and SCFDMA (Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access)
are selected to efficiently meet LTE performance requirements
for downlink and uplink transmission, respectively. Downlink
and uplink transmission are organized into radio frames with
Tf=307200Ts=10 ms duration where Ts is a basic time unit as
shown in (1).
Ts = 1 ( f N )

(1)

where f is subcarrier spacing and N is FFT (Fast Fourier

Transform) size. A frame is divided into 10 subframes, each
subframe being 1 ms long. Each subframe is further divided
into two slots, each of 0.5 ms duration.

This research was supported by the MKE (The Ministry of Knowledge

Economy), Korea, under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center)
support program supervised by the NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion
Agency) (NIPA-2010-(C1090-1011-0005))

978-1-4244-3574-6/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

Figure 1. Frame structure for TDD mode

Figure 2. The functional structure of the digital feedback AGC

Frame structure for TDD mode is shown in Fig. 1. For

TDD, a subframe is either allocated to downlink or uplink
transmission. As shown in Fig. 1, the total length of DwPTS
(Downlink Pilot Time Slot), GP, and UpPTS (Uplink Pilot
Time Slot) fields is equal to 1 ms duration. However, within
the special subframe the length of each field may vary
depending on co-existence requirement with legacy TDD
systems and supported cell size.
B. Signal Model
The n-th time-domain sample of the m-th transmitted
symbol can be expressed as

x m ( N + N cp ) Ts + N cpTs + nTs = xm , n
=

N 2

1
N

X m , k e j 2 nk N , n = N cp ," N 1

(2)

k = N 2 +1

where x(t) is the transmitted signal, and Xm,k is the k-th

complex-value frequency-domain signal of the m-th symbol.
Note that in order to prevent ISI (Inter Symbol Interference), a
CP (Cyclic Prefix) of Ncp sample is inserted at the beginning of
each symbol.
Further assuming that the channel is almost stationary, the
n-th time-domain sample of the m-th received symbol can be
expressed as [4].

y m ( N + Ncp ) Ts + NcpTs + nTs = ym, n

(3)

In wireless communication systems such as LTE, the

received signal in (3) has an unpredictable signal power and
varies over a wide dynamic range caused by multi-path fading
channel and unwanted signals such as strong interference
signal. Therefore, an AGC is necessary for reducing unwanted
signals and dynamically adjusting the AGC gain of the
incoming signal to prevent the quantization error or saturation
at the ADC. In addition, in order to maintain the average power
of the received signal close to a desired level and accurately
demodulate a received signal, the AGC should be able to track
the signal power and set the gain accordingly [5], [6].
III.

CONVENTIONAL AGC SCHEME

In this section, we describe a conventional AGC scheme

based on feedback structure and analyze the problem when it is
applied to the LTE TDD system.
A. Description of the Conventional AGC Scheme
Fig. 2 shows the functional structure of the digital feedback
AGC which is the most commonly used one for wireless
communication receiver [7].

1) Average Amplitued Estimator: By defining that y m,n is

the received sample signal after ADC operation, the average
amplitude of is continuously estimated by using (4).
Am,n = ym,n + (1 ) Am, n 1, where = 2L

(4)

The average amplitude Am,n determines whether the

received signal is within the dynamic range of ADC before
adjusting the AGC gain Gm,n of GCA (Gain Controlled
Amplifier).
2) Comparator: In order to calculate the gain control value
Sm,n such as the step size Si, the average amplitude Am,n is
compared to the reference amplitude Aref,i corresponding the
reference gain Gref,i which is increased by i dB from the
primary gain Gref,0. The step size Si which is easily obtained by
using a LUT (Look-Up Table) can be described as
Sm, n = Si = arg min Am, n Aref ,i , i = 0,1,"
i

(5)

3) GCA: The GCA is a linear-in-dB gain control circuitry

that adjusts the level of incoming signal with AGC gain Gm,n.
The AGC gain Gm,n is determined with the average amplitude
Am,n and gain control value Sm,n, and it can be described as
Gm , n 1 + Sm , n , Am , n Aref ,i < 0

Gm , n =
Gm , n 1 S m , n , Am , n Aref ,i > 0

(6)

For stable AGC operation, suitable AGC parameters such

as the primary gain Gref,0, the L in (4), and the step size Si in (6)
should be determined. In case of the Gref,0 is very important
parameter for overall receiver performance. A large Gref,0 will
saturate the ADC and clip the signal and a small Gref,0 will
cause quantization noise. In case of the L, it has a trade-off
between complexity and performance. Although a small L may
require less memory, estimation must be stable and avoid
impulse noise and therefore a large L is better. Also, the step
size Si has a trade-off between jitter and convergence speed. As
the step size becomes smaller, the convergence speed gets
slower, even though the jitter performance is better. Slow
convergence causes loss of symbol [8]. Therefore, in next
section, we determine suitable AGC parameters by using
computer simulation because it is difficult to find optimal AGC
parameters by theoretical means.
B. AGC Parameter Design
In this section, we propose a 12 bits resolution ADC and
three reference gains. One of the three reference gains is the

100

primary gain Gref,0 and other gains have 1 dB and 2 dB margin

compared to primary gain Gref,0, respectively, to allow
variations in the input signal level.

Fig. 3 shows the uncoded BER (Bit Error Rate)

performance for various parameters (L, S1, S2) by considering
that AGC is applied during the corresponding downlink
subframe such as FDD mode. Also it shows optimal floatingpoint performance which doesnt consider AGC. From Fig. 3,
we can see that AGC parameter (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 2) and (L, S1,
S2)=(8, 1, 3) have same performance and it approaches the
optimal floating-point performance.
Fig. 4 shows AGC tracking performance comparison
between AGC parameter (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 2) and (L, S1, S2)=(8,
1, 3). From Fig. 4, we can see that the AGC parameter (L, S1,
S2)=(8, 1, 3) is faster until it reaches the primary gain value.
Therefore, we choose the optimal AGC parameter (L, S1,
S2)=(8, 1, 3).
0.01
AWGN channel model
QPSK & 16QAM modulation
FFT size : 1024
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

Uncoded BER

1E-3

1E-4
(L, S1, S2)=(6, 1, 1)
(L, S1, S2)=(6, 1, 2)
(L, S1, S2)=(6, 1, 3)
(L, S1, S2)=(7, 1, 1)
(L, S1, S2)=(7, 1, 2)

1E-5

(L, S1, S2)=(7, 1, 3)

(L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 1)
(L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 2)
(L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

QPSK modulation

16QAM modulation

w/o AGC

1E-6

10

11

12

13

14

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 3. Uncoded BER performance of AGC for various parameters

100
One slot, Tslot=15360Ts=0.5ms
One OFDM symbol duration

AGC gain Gm,n (dB)

80

Primary gain : 84 (dB)

60

40

AWGN channel model

Eb/No : 10 (dB)
QPSK modulation
FFT size : 1024
CP type : Normal CP
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

20

(L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 2)

(L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

0
0.0

0.5

1.0

Time (ms)

Figure 4. AGC tracking performance comparison for various paramters

AGC gain Gm,n (dB)

First, we determine the primary gain Gref,0 is 84 dB to

satisfy the full dynamic range of received signal by using
extensive computer simulation (not shown in this paper due to
limited space). Also, we set S0=0 because there is no gain
adjustment if the average amplitude is the same as the Aref,0.
And then, we determine remaining AGC parameters (L, S1, S2)
from Fig. 3 and Fig.4.

UpPTS & Uplink duation

Downlink & DwPTS duation

CP duration

90

AGC gain convergence

Primary gain : 84 (dB)

80
UpPTS & Uplink : No signal
AWGN channel model
Eb/No : 10 (dB)
QPSK modulation
FFT size : 1024
CP type : Normal CP
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

70
2.90

2.95

FDD mode (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

TDD mode (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

3.00

3.05

3.10

3.15

Time (ms)

Figure 5. Convergence of AGC gain adjustment for FDD and TDD mode

C. The Problem of Conventional AGC Scheme

The conventional AGC scheme is continuously applied to
the receiver regardless of the transmission path in FDD mode,
because both downlink and uplink transmission are isolated
from each other by different frequency bands and downlink
subframe transmission is continuous. However, in TDD mode,
where the same frequency band is used for downlink and
uplink subframe which are separately transmitted by a time
division, applying the conventional AGC scheme may lead to
significant performance degradation due to large AGC gain
variation which is caused by signal level difference between
downlink and uplink subframe as shown in Fig. 5. As shown in
Fig. 5, in TDD mode, it takes more than one OFDM symbol
duration for AGC gain convergence, where as in FDD mode,
the AGC gain remains stable.
In general, it can be overcome by considering the training
symbol or GP at the beginning of a downlink subframe.
However, it is not appropriate for LTE system in contrast to
packet-oriented networks. Also, reference [8] and [9] give the
basic solution to overcome this limitation by using the hybrid
gamma parameter. It is well known that large gamma
parameter can result in fast convergence and small gamma
parameter can reduce the amount of jitter in the gain
adjustment process. However, the most serious disadvantages
of the design of [8] and [9] are the heuristic parameterchanging-point, the application of optimal parameter according
to circumstances and the need of synchronization signal offered
by the subsequent initial cell search procedure and digital
decoder. In general, it is difficult to find and employ the factors
mentioned above accurately in the TDD mode with large signal
power variation and the error of synchronization signal causes
serious performance degradation; therefore this scheme will
not work in practice.
Moreover, in LTE TDD system, according to
the
configured maximum UE (User Equipment) output power and
reference sensitivity power level for transmission bandwidth as
defined in [10], in worst case where target UE is located at cell
edge and closed other UE, the difference of the received signal
power between downlink and uplink subframe exceeds over
100 dB. Therefore, we propose an enhanced AGC scheme
which has stable operation not only in FDD mode but also in
TDD mode even though the received signal power between

downlink and uplink subframe exceeds over 100 dB in LTE

system.
IV.

THE PROPOSED AGC SCHEME

In this section, we describe the proposed AGC scheme and

the application for LTE TDD system.
A. Requirement of LTE System for AGC
In order to determine the response time of the AGC gain,
the proposed digital AGC algorithm is concerned with respect
to gain accuracy and tight time budget based on transmitter
transient period, simultaneously. The transmitter transient
period is illustrated in Fig. 6.
It is the time period during which the transmitter is
changing from the transmitter OFF power period to the
transmitter ON power period or vice versa. The transmitter ON
and OFF power is defined as the configured maximum UE
output power and the mean power in a duration of at least one
subframe excluding any transient periods, respectively. The
transmitter OFF power spectral density shall be less than -85
dBm/MHz and the transmitter transient period shall be shorter
than 17 s [10], [11]. Therefore, the AGC procedure has to
converge within the transient period to correctly demodulate
the received data.
B. Description of the Proposed AGC Scheme
Fig. 7 shows the functional structure of the proposed AGC
scheme which can satisfy the convergence time requirement of
the AGC gain considering the transmitter transient period in
LTE TDD system.
For stable AGC operation, the variation of the received
signal should be quickly reflected. Therefore, we consider the
signal amplitude ratio of the received sample signal after ADC
operation for the proposed AGC scheme. The proposed AGC
scheme has additional blocks such as signal amplitude ratio
calculator, discriminator, and selector compared to
conventional AGC scheme.

1) Signal Amplitued Ratio Calculator: After ADC

operation, the average amplitude ratio of the received sample
signal is measured by accumulating the amplitude component
of each duration and is nomalized by dividing the AGC gain
Gm,n of GCA to eliminate the effect of AGC, and it is shown as
Sp =

y m , n i

i =1

=
i =1

y m , n i

i =1

m, n i

y m , n i
Gm, n i

i =1

m,n i

(7)

y m , n i
, where = 1 = 2 L
Gm , n i

2) Discriminator: The discriminator decides whether the

signal amplitude ratio as shown in (7) will be applied to
control the AGC gain by comparing to which is the
maximum control capability of the AGC.
The which can adjust and guarantee the AGC quality at
any point in time such as the switching point between downlink
and uplink transmission is described as
= Aref ,max [i] Aref ,0

(8)

3) Selector: The selector chooses gain control value; that

is, if the signal amplitude ratio Sp is larger than the ,
discriminator output is applied, and if the signal amplitude
ratio Sp is smaller than the , comparator output is applied.
The variable AGC gain at the GCA is updated by using the
selector output, and it can be described as
S p , S p >

S m, n =
Si , S p <

(9)

Fig. 8 shows the BER performance comparisons between

the conventional AGC and the proposed AGC in LTE TDD
system. From Fig. 8, we can see that the proposed AGC
scheme has better performance that the conventional AGC
scheme, although both scheme has performance degradation
due to saturation effect at ADC caused by decreasing
downlink to uplink signal power ratio.
Conventional AGC scheme (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3), 16QAM, Eb/No=14 (dB)

0.1

Proposed AGC scheme (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3), 16QAM, Eb/No=14 (dB)
Conventional AGC scheme (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3), QPSK, Eb/No=10 (dB)
Proposed AGC scheme (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3), QPSK, Eb/No=10 (dB)

0.01

Uncoded BER

16QAM modulation

Figure 6. Illustration of the relations of transmitter ON/OFF/transient period

1E-3
QPSK modulation

1E-4

1E-5

1E-6

AWGN channel model

QPSK & 16QAM modulation
FFT size : 1024
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

-100

-90

-80

-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

Downlink to uplink signal power ratio (dB)

Figure 7. The functional structure of the proposed AGC scheme

Figure 8. Uncoded BER performance comparisons for various downlink to

uplink signal power ratio [Conventional vs. Proposed].

50

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

The simulation parameters based on LTE specifications are

listed in Table I [3]. For the multi-path fading environments,
both EVA (Extended Vehicular A) and ETU (Extended
Typical Urban) with mobile speed 60 km/h are considered [10].
Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 show the comparisons for average
convergence time and variation of AGC gain between the
proposed AGC scheme and the conventional AGC scheme in
variable channel environment of LTE TDD system,
respectively. Average convergence time is measured from the
start of switching point between uplink and downlink
transmission to the steady-state of AGC gain, and variation of
AGC gain is measured during downlink and DwPTS
transmission.
As shown in Fig. 9 and Fig 10, we can see that the
proposed AGC scheme using the average amplitude ratio has
much faster convergence time than the conventional AGC
scheme within the target transient period with small AGC
variation, although average transient time is increased due to
saturation effect at ADC caused by decreasing downlink to
uplink signal power ratio.
From these results, we can verify that the proposed AGC
scheme reflects the signal variation quickly and has stable
operation by applying the average amplitude ratio even in LTE
TDD mode which has nearly 100 dB difference of the received
signal power between downlink and uplink subframe.
TABLE I.

SIMULATION PARAMETERS

Parameter
Carrier frequency
Bandwidth (FFT size N)
Sampling frequency
Uplink-downlink configuration
Special subframe configuration
Guard interval type
Channel environment
Mobile speed
18

Value
2.6 GHz
10 MHz (1024)
15.36 MHz
#0
#3
Normal cyclic prefix
AWGN / EVA / ETU
60 km/h

Transmitter transient period

Average transient time (s)

Extended Typical Urban channel model

10
Extended Vehicualr A channel model

4
2
0

AGC parameter (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

16QAM modulation
FFT size : 1024
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

AWGN channel model

Conventional method, AWGN, Eb/No=14 (dB)

Proposed method, AWGN, Eb/No=14 (dB)
Conventional method, EVA, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Proposed method, EVA, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Conventional method, ETU, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Proposed method, ETU, Eb/No=30 (dB)

-100

-90

-80

-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

35

AGC parameter (L, S1, S2)=(8, 1, 3)

Extended Typical Urban channel model

16QAM modulation
FFT size : 1024
Primary gain : 84 (dB)

30
25
Extended Vehicualr A channel model

20
15
10
AWGN channel model

5
0
-100

-90

-80

-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

Downlink to Uplink signal power ratio (dB)

Figure 10. AGC gain variation comparisons for various downlink to uplink
signal power ratio [Conventional vs. Proposed]

VI.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, we proposed a digital AGC scheme based on

feedback structure which can not only effectively increase the
convergence speed of the AGC gain by using the current signal
amplitude ratio adaptively but also maintain the stability of
AGC operation. By using extensive computer simulation in
various channel environments, we show that the proposed
method can obtain a good behavior in terms of convergence
speed for LTE TDD system and verify that the proposed
method is attractive and suitable for implementation with stable
operation.

[1]

14

40

REFERENCES

16

12

Conventional method, AWGN, Eb/No=14 (dB)

Proposed method, AWGN, Eb/No=14 (dB)
Conventional method, ETU, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Proposed method, ETU, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Conventional method, EVA, Eb/No=30 (dB)
Proposed method, EVA, Eb/No=30 (dB)

45

AGC gain variation (dB)

V.

Downlink to Uplink signal power ratio (dB)

Figure 9. Average convergence time comparisons for various downlink to

uplink signal power ratio [Conventional vs. Proposed]

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