Exploring the Physical Layer Frontiers of Cellular Uplink - The Vienna LTE-A Simulator

TL;DR

This paper reviews research using the Vienna LTE-A Uplink Simulator, highlighting the impact of signal processing algorithms, uplink pilot patterns, and link adaptation in LTE-A uplink communications, and discusses future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of research results obtained with the Vienna LTE-A Uplink Simulator, emphasizing practical insights into uplink signal processing and system design.

Findings

Effects of Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiplexing on LTE-A uplink performance

Extension of link adaptation concepts to uplink transmission

Implications of uplink pilot patterns for channel state information gathering

Abstract

Communication systems in practice are subject to many technical/technological constraints and restrictions. MIMO processing in current wireless communications, as an example, mostly employs codebook based pre-coding to save computational complexity at the transmitters and receivers. In such cases, closed form expressions for capacity or bit-error probability are often unattainable; effects of realistic signal processing algorithms on the performance of practical communication systems rather have to be studied in simulation environments. The Vienna {LTE-A} Uplink Simulator is a 3GPP {LTE-A} standard compliant link level simulator that is publicly available under an academic use license, facilitating reproducible evaluations of signal processing algorithms and transceiver designs in wireless communications. This paper reviews research results that have been obtained by means of the Vienna LTE-A Uplink Simulator, highlights the effects of Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiplexing (as the distinguishing feature to LTE-A downlink), extends known link adaptation concepts to uplink transmission, shows the implications of the uplink pilot pattern for gathering Channel State Information at the receiver and completes with possible future research directions.