lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2

PUCCH format 2 uplink channel estimation

Syntax

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,rxgrid,rxack2)

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,cec,rxgrid,rxack2)

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,cec,rxgrid,rxack2,refgrid)

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,rxgrid,rxack2,refgrid)

Description

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,rxgrid,rxack2) returns an estimate for the channel by averaging the least squares estimates of the reference symbols across time and copying these across the allocated resource elements within the time frequency grid. It returns hest, the estimated channel between each transmit and receive antenna and noiseest, an estimate of the noise power spectral density.

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,cec,rxgrid,rxack2) returns the estimated channel using the method and parameters defined by the user in the channel estimator configuration structure, cec.

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,cec,rxgrid,rxack2,refgrid) returns the estimated channel using the method and parameters defined by the channel estimation configuration structure (cec), and the additional information about the transmitted symbols found in refgrid. The rxgrid and refgrid inputs must have the same dimensions. For cec.InterpType = 'None', values in refgrid are treated as reference symbols and the resulting hest contains non-zero values in their locations.

[hest,noiseest] = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,chs,rxgrid,rxack2,refgrid) returns the estimated channel using the estimation method, as described in TS 36.101, Annex F4 [1]. The method described utilizes extra channel information obtained through information of the transmitted symbols found in refgrid. This additional information allows for an improved estimate of the channel and is required for accurate EVM measurements.

Examples

Estimate Channel Characteristics for PUCCH Format 2

Use the lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2 function to estimate channel characteristics for PUCCH Format 2

Initialize a UE configuration structure, PUCCH settings, and create a resource grid. For the purpose of this example, we bypass the SC-FDMA modulation, channel and SC-FDMA demodulation stages of the system model and copy the txGrid to an rxGrid.

ue = struct('NULRB',6,'NCellID',0,'NSubframe',0,'Hopping','Off');
ue.CyclicPrefixUL = 'Normal';
ue.NTxAnts = 1;
pucch2.ResourceIdx = 0;
pucch2.ResourceSize = 0;
pucch2.CyclicShifts = 0;
txGrid = lteULResourceGrid(ue);
txAck = [1;1];
drsIndices = ltePUCCH2DRSIndices(ue,pucch2);

txGrid(drsIndices) = ltePUCCH2DRS(ue,pucch2,txAck);
rxGrid = txGrid;

The channel estimator uses the PUCCH Format 2 DRS to estimate the channel, so decode the hybrid ARQ indicators from the PUCCH Format 2 DM-RS. Initialize the channel estimation configuration structure and perform channel estimation operation on rxGrid.

rxAck = ltePUCCH2DRSDecode(ue,pucch2,length(txAck),rxGrid(drsIndices));
cec = struct('FreqWindow',12,'TimeWindow',1,'InterpType','cubic');
hest = lteULChannelEstimatePUCCH2(ue,pucch2,cec,rxGrid,rxAck);

Input Arguments

ue — UE-specific configuration settings

structure

UE-specific configuration settings, specified as a structure that can contain the following fields.

Parameter Field	Required or Optional	Values	Description
NULRB	Required	Scalar integer from 6 to 110	Number of uplink resource blocks. ($$N_{\text{RB}}^{\text{UL}}$$)
NCellID	Required	Integer from 0 to 503	Physical layer cell identity
NSubframe	Required	0 (default), nonnegative scalar integer	Subframe number
CyclicPrefixUL	Optional	'Normal' (default), 'Extended'	Cyclic prefix length
NTxAnts	Optional	1 (default), 2, 4	Number of transmission antennas.
Hopping	Optional	'Off' (default), 'Group'	Frequency hopping method.
NPUCCHID	Optional	Integer from 0 to 503	PUCCH virtual cell identity. If this field is not present, NCellID is used as the identity.

Data Types: struct

chs — PUCCH channel settings

structure

PUCCH channel settings, specified as a structure that can contain the following fields.

Parameter Field	Required or Optional	Values	Description
ResourceIdx	Optional	0 (default), integer from 0 to 1185 or vector of integers.	PUCCH resource indices which determine the physical resource blocks, cyclic shift, and orthogonal cover used for transmission. ($$n_{PUCCH}^{(2)}$$). Define one index for each transmission antenna.
ResourceSize	Optional	0 (default), integer from 0 to 98.	Size of resource allocated to PUCCH format 2 ($$N_{RB}^{(2)}$$)
CyclicShifts	Optional	0 (default), integer from 0 to 7	Number of cyclic shifts used for format 1 in resource blocks (RBs) with a mixture of format 1 and format 2 PUCCH, specified as an integer from 0 to 7. ($$N_{cs}^{(1)}$$)

Data Types: struct

rxgrid — Received resource element grid

3-D array

Received resource element grid, specified as an N_SC-by-N_Sym-by-N_R array of complex symbols.

• N_SC is the number of subcarriers

• N_Sym = N_SF × N_SymPerSF

  • N_SF is the total number of subframes. If N_SF is greater than one, the correct region is extracted from the returned hest array. The location of the estimated subframe within hest is specified using the parameter field cec.Window.

  • N_SymPerSF is the number of SC-FDMA symbols per subframe.

    • For normal cyclic prefix, each subframe contains 14 SC-FDMA symbols.

    • For extended cyclic prefix, each subframe contains 12 SC-FDMA symbols.

• N_R is the number of receive antennas

Data Types: double
Complex Number Support: Yes

rxack2 — Hybrid ARQ indicators

logical value

Hybrid ARQ indicators, specified as a row vector of either 1 or 2 indicators, decoded from the PUCCH Format 2 DRS. This is required as the channel estimator uses the PUCCH Format 2 DM-RS to estimate the channel. rxack2 can be obtained for example by using the lteULFrameOffsetPUCCH2 function.

Data Types: logical

cec — Channel estimator configuration

structure

Channel estimator configuration, specified as a structure with these fields.

Parameter Field	Required or Optional	Values	Description
FreqWindow	Optional	Odd scalar integer or a multiple of 12	Size of window used to average over frequency, in resource elements (REs), specified as a scalar integer.
TimeWindow	Optional	Odd scalar integer	Size of window used to average over time, in resource elements (REs), specified as a scalar integer.
InterpType	Optional	'nearest', 'linear', 'natural', 'cubic', 'v4', 'none' See footnote.	Type of 2-D interpolation used during interpolation. For details, see griddata. Supported choices are shown in the following table. Value Description 'nearest' Nearest neighbor interpolation 'linear' Linear interpolation 'natural' Natural neighbor interpolation 'cubic' Cubic interpolation 'v4' MATLAB® 4 griddata method 'none' Disables interpolation
PilotAverage	Optional	'UserDefined' (default), 'TestEVM' See footnote.	Type of pilot averaging
The following parameter is required only if rxgrid contains more than one subframe. See footnote.
Window	Optional	'Left', 'Right', 'Centred', 'Centered'	If more than one subframe is input this parameter is required to indicate the position of the subframe from rxgrid and refgrid containing the desired channel estimate. Only channel estimates for this subframe will be returned. For the 'Centred' and 'Centered' settings, the window size must be odd.
For cec.InterpType = 'none', no interpolation is performed between pilot symbols and no virtual pilots are created. hest will contain channel estimates in the locations of transmitted reference symbols for each received antenna and all other elements of hest are zero. The averaging of pilot symbols estimates described by cec.TimeWindow and cec.FreqWindow are still performed. The 'UserDefined' pilot averaging uses a rectangular kernel of size cec.FreqWindow-by-cec.TimeWindow and performs a 2-D filtering operation upon the pilots. Pilots near the edge of the resource grid are averaged less as they have no neighbors outside of the grid. For cec.FreqWindow = 12×X (i.e. any multiple of 12) and cec.TimeWindow = 1 the estimator enters a special case where an averaging window of (12×X)-in-frequency is used to average the pilot estimates; the averaging is always applied across (12×X) subcarriers, even at the upper and lower band edges; therefore the first (6×X) symbols at the upper and lower band edge have the same channel estimate. This operation ensures that averaging is always done on 12 (or a multiple of 12) symbols. This provides the appropriate despreading operation required for the case multi-antenna transmission where the DM-RS signals associated with each antenna occupy the same time/frequency locations but use different orthogonal cover codes to allow them to be differentiated at the receiver. The 'TestEVM' pilot averaging ignores other structure fields in cec, and follows the method described in TS 36.101, Annex F for the purposes of transmitter EVM testing. When rxgrid contains more than one subframe, cec.Window provides control of the location of the subframe for which channel estimation is performed. This allows channel estimation for the subframe of interest to be aided by the presence of pilot symbols occupying the same resource block in subframes before and/or after that subframe. For example, if rxgrid contains five subframes, 'Left' estimates the last first subframe in rxgrid, 'Centred'/'Centered' estimates the third (middle) subframe, and 'Right' estimates the last subframe. The parameter ue.NSubframe corresponds to the chosen subframe. So, with three subframes and cec.Window = 'Right', rxgrid corresponds to subframes (ue.NSubframe-2, ue.NSubframe-1, ue.NSubframe). The hest output will be the same size as rxgrid and will correspond to the same subframe numbers. All locations other than the estimated subframe will contain zeros.

Data Types: struct

refgrid — Reference array of known transmitted data symbols in their correct locations

3-D numeric array

Reference array of known transmitted data symbols in their correct locations, specified as an N_SC-by-N_Sym-by-N_T array of complex symbols. All other locations, such as DM-RS Symbols and unknown data symbol locations, must be represented by a NaN. The first two dimensions of rxgrid and refgrid must be the same.

• N_SC is the number of subcarriers.

• N_Sym = N_SF × N_SymPerSF

  • N_SF is the total number of subframes. If N_SF is greater than one, the correct region is extracted from the returned hest array. The location of the estimated subframe within hest is specified using the parameter field cec.Window.

  • N_SymPerSF is the number of SC-FDMA symbols per subframe.

    • For normal cyclic prefix, each subframe contains 14 SC-FDMA symbols.

    • For extended cyclic prefix, each subframe contains 12 SC-FDMA symbols.

• N_T is the number of transmit antennas, ue.NTxAnts

For cec.InterpType = 'None', values in refgrid are treated as reference symbols and the resulting hest contains non-zero values in their locations. A typical use for refgrid is to provide values of the SRS transmitted at some point during the time span of rxgrid. The SRS values can be used to enhance the channel estimation.

Data Types: double
Complex Number Support: Yes

Output Arguments

hest — Channel estimate between each transmit and receive antenna

3-D array

Channel estimate between each transmit and receive antenna, returned as an N_SC-by-N_Sym-by-N_R array of complex symbols. N_SC is the total number of subcarriers, N_Sym is the number of SC-FDMA symbols, and N_R is the number of receive antennas.

noiseest — Noise estimate

numeric scalar

Noise estimate, returned as a numeric scalar. This output is the power spectral density of the noise present on the estimated channel response coefficients.

Algorithms

The channel estimation algorithm functions as described in the following steps.

1. Extract the PUCCH format 2 demodulation reference signals (DM-RS), or pilot symbols, for a transmit-receive antenna pair from the allocated physical resource blocks within the received subframe.

2. Average the least-squares estimates to reduce any unwanted noise from the pilot symbols.

3. Using the cleaned pilot symbol estimates, interpolate to obtain an estimate of the channel for the allocated subframe slot.

Least-Squares Estimation

The least-squares estimates of the reference signals are obtained by dividing the received pilot symbols by their expected value. The least-squares estimates are affected by any system noise. This noise needs to be removed or reduced to achieve a reasonable estimation of the channel at pilot symbol locations.

Noise Reduction and Interpolation

To minimize the effects of noise on the pilot symbol estimates, the least-squares estimates are averaged. This simple method produces a substantial reduction in the level of noise found on the pilot symbols. The pilot symbol averaging method uses an averaging window defined by the user. The averaging window size is measured in resource elements; any pilot symbols located within the window are used to average the value of the pilot symbol found at the center of the window.

Then, the averaged pilot symbol estimates are used to perform a 2-D interpolation across the slot of the subframe that was allocated to the PUCCH format 2 data. The location of pilot symbols within the subframe is not ideally suited to interpolation. To account for this positioning, virtual pilots are created and placed out with the area of the current subframe. This placement allows complete and accurate interpolation to be performed.

References

[1] 3GPP TS 36.101. “Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); User Equipment (UE) Radio Transmission and Reception.” 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network. URL: https://www.3gpp.org.

Version History

Introduced in R2013b