Downlink Control Signaling

Genuino, Miguel Louis | Meregildo, Nervin

Three downlink control channels: Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH) - carries information on the number of OFDM symbols used for PDCCH.

Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) - used to inform the UEs about the resource allocation as well as modulation, coding, and hybrid ARQ control information.

Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) - used to carry hybrid ARQ ACK/NACK feedback for uplink transmissions.

Introduction

Design goal for control information transmission: High RELIABILITY Why?

Data transmission FAILS when control Information is in error!

Why? Control information carries UE identity as well as transmission format and resource allocation information. How? Broadcast with sufficiently high power. (Targets all UEs in the cell)

Introduction

Consider: UE waking up from sleep mode

1. The UE needs to acquire system parameters by receiving broadcast and synchronization signals. 2. The network is unaware of this UE so the broadcast needs to be transmitted with enough power to reach the UE.

***The amount of power transmitted can be controlled if eNB has channel quality information for the UEs.

Introduction

Power Control
PBCH is always transmitted at the cell end coverage.

Introduction

****Similar to data control multiplexing in the uplink, both time-multiplexing and frequency-multiplexing can be considered for the downlink.
Difference

Uplink: TDM keeps single carrier frequency property of SC-FDMA achieving low PAPR.
Downlink: multiple access scheme is OFDMA, low PAPR does not apply. - UE can decode control information in the beginning of the subframe and can go to a short term sleep-mode if there is no data scheduled for it in the sub-frame. (reducing delay) - micro-sleep, short-term sleep, can save battery consumption!

Data Control Multiplexing

Data Control Multiplexing

****Downlink physical channels are mapped to resource units smaller than a resource block. - to distribute the transmission over a larger bandwidth to capture frequency diversity Control information messages are generally much smaller than data messages!

Resource elements group unit of resource that is used for transmission of control information. -- a resource block contains three of more REGs depending upon whether the resource block carries reference signals or not.

Resource Elements Group

***When reference signals are present in the resource block, 4 out of 12 carriers are used as reference signals and the other 8 form 2 REGs.

Resource Elements Group

Control format indicator channel - used to dynamically indicate resources used for downlink control information transmission on a sub-frame-by-sub-frame basis.
***The CF indication is performed in units of OFDM symbols. Remember that the number of resource depends on the number of users scheduled and the transmission formats of these users.

The IDEA
When OFDM symbols needed for downlink control information are less than the maximum number of OFDM symbols that can be used for control, this information can be conveyed to the scheduled UEs and the unused OFDM symbols can instead be used for data transmissions.

UE first needs to decode CFI before decoding the downlink control information based on CFI.

Control Format Indicator Channel

Table 15.1 summarizes the number of OFDM symbols used for PDCCH in various sub-frame types.

The 4 CFI codewords given are obtained by using a (3,2) simplex code with 10 repetitions and appending 2 systematic bits at the end. In order to randomize the inter cell interference, the block of coded bits b(0)..b(31) is scrambled with a cell-specific sequence resulting to a block of scrambled bits.

Control Format Indicator Channel

Uplink (SC-FDMA) the allocated resources must be contiguous to guarantee single carrier property. Downlink (OFDM) - non-contiguous resource blocks can be allocated thus providing maximum scheduling flexibility. - signaling overhead also increases! contiguous alternative can be used to have low overhead but limiting the scheduling flexibility.

Three types of resource allocations: 1. Resource allocation type 0 2. Resource allocation type 1 3. Resource allocation type 2

Downlink Resource Allocation

Resource allocation type 0 - allows allocation of non-touching group of resource blocks referred to as resource block groups (RBGs) using bitmap where a RBG is a set of consecutive physical resource blocks (PRBs).

Downlink Resource Allocation

Resource allocation type 1 - allows allocating resources on an RB level even for larger bandwidths using the same number of resource allocation bits as in type 0 resource allocation.
Resource allocation type 2 - used for uplink assignments that require a set of neighboring resource blocks as well as compact downlink assignments.

Example of type 2 signaling for NRB=6 + 1 6 6+1 = = 21 2 2

Downlink Resource Allocation

Hybrid ARQ Indicator - with corresponding physical channel referred to as physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel provides ACK/NACK feedback for uplink data transmissions on PUSCH.
- maximum of single codeword can be transmitted on PUSCH, 1-bit binary is enough to denote 1 as positive acknowledgement and 0 negative acknowledgement. - for a single bit transmission, the bit is repeated three times as shown:

Hybrid ARQ Indicator

***When transmitting a large message, the total number of coded bits is fairly large. These bits can be distributed over a large bandwidth. A single bit transmission in a distributed fashion over a large bandwidth requires a large number of repetitions thus making the inefficient use of the resources.
***PHICH is power controlled to make it reliable. If PHICH is transmitted on a very narrow bandwidth, it will create interference peaks in the neighboring cells. Solution:

Hybrid ARQ Indicator

Short approach on Hybrid ARQ Indicator The hybrid ARQ ACK/NACK information uses the concepts of groups where ACK/NACKs within a group are code-multiplexed. The code multiplexing approach allows for the carrying of multiple ACK/NACKs on the same set of frequency diversity as well as randomize intercell interference.

Hybrid ARQ Indicator