4G Technology Pratik

4G Technology
Introduction
4G refers to the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to 3G and 2G
families of standards. The nomenclature of the generations generally refers to a change in the
fundamental nature of the service, non-backwards compatible transmission technology, and new
frequency bands. The first was the move from 1981 analog (1G) to digital (2G) transmission in 1992.
This was followed, in 2002, by 3G multi-media support, spread spectrum transmission and at least
200 kbit/s, soon expected to be followed by 4G, which refers to all-IP packet-switched networks,
mobile ultra-broadband (gigabit speed) access and multi-carrier transmission. Pre-4G technologies
such as mobile WiMAX and first-release 3G Long term evolution (LTE) have been available on the
market since 2006 and 2009 respectively.
4G features
According to the members of the 4G working group, the infrastructure and the terminals of 4G will
have almost all the standards from 2G to 4G implemented. However, the first LTE USB dongles do
not support any other radio interface. Although legacy systems are in place to adopt existing users, the
infrastructure for 4G will be only packet-based (all-IP). Some proposals suggest having an open
Internet platform. At an early stage, technologies considered to be 4G were: Flash-OFDM, the
802.16e mobile version of WiMax (also known as WiBro in South Korea), HC-SDMA (see iBurst),
and LTE.
Components
Access schemesAs the wireless standards evolved, the access techniques used also
exhibited increase in efficiency, capacity and scalability. The first generation wireless
standards used plain TDMA and FDMA. In the wireless channels, TDMA proved to be less
efficient in handling the high data rate channels as it requires large guard periods to alleviate
the multipath impact. Similarly, FDMA consumed more bandwidth for guard to avoid inter
carrier interference. So in second generation systems, one set of standard used the
combination of FDMA and TDMA and the other set introduced an access scheme called
CDMA. Usage of CDMA increased the system capacity, but as a theoretical drawback placed
a soft limit on it rather than the hard limit (i.e. a CDMA network setup does not inherently
reject new clients when it approaches its limits, resulting in a denial of service to all clients
when the network overloads; though this outcome is avoided in practical implementations by
admission control of circuit switched or fixed bitrate communication services). Data rate is
also increased as this access scheme (providing the network is not reaching its capacity) is
efficient enough to handle the multipath channel. This enabled the third generation systems,
such as IS-2000, UMTS, HSXPA, 1xEV-DO, TD-CDMA and TD-SCDMA, to use CDMA as
the access scheme. However, the issue with CDMA is that it suffers from poor spectral
flexibility and computationally intensive time-domain equalization (high number of
multiplications per second) for wideband channels.
Recently, new access schemes like Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), Single Carrier FDMA
(SC-FDMA), Interleaved FDMA and Multi-carrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) are gaining more
importance for the next generation systems. These are based on efficient FFT algorithms and
frequency domain equalization, resulting in a lower number of multiplications per second.
They also make it possible to control the bandwidth and form the spectrum in a flexible way.
However, they require advanced dynamic channel allocation and traffic adaptive scheduling.
WiMax is using OFDMA in the downlink and in the uplink. For the next generation UMTS,
OFDMA is used for the downlink. By contrast, IFDMA is being considered for the uplink
since OFDMA contributes more to the PAPR related issues and results in nonlinear operation
of amplifiers. IFDMA provides less power fluctuation and thus avoids amplifier issues.
Similarly, MC-CDMA is in the proposal for the IEEE 802.20 standard. These access schemes
offer the same efficiencies as older technologies like CDMA. Apart from this, scalability and
higher data rates can be achieved.
The other important advantage of the above mentioned access techniques is that they require
less complexity for equalization at the receiver. This is an added advantage especially in the
MIMO environments since the spatial multiplexing transmission of MIMO systems
inherently requires high complexity equalization at the receiver.
In addition to improvements in these multiplexing systems, improved modulation techniques

are being used. Whereas earlier standards largely used Phase-shift keying, more efficient
systems such as 64QAM are being proposed for use with the 3GPP Long Term Evolution
standards.
IPv6 support
Unlike 3G, which is based on two parallel infrastructures consisting of circuit switched and
packet switched network nodes respectively, 4G will be based on packet switching only. This
will require low-latency data transmission.
By the time that 4G is deployed, the process of IPv4 address exhaustion is expected to be in
its final stages. Therefore, in the context of 4G, IPv6 support is essential in order to support a
large number of wireless-enabled devices. By increasing the number of IP addresses, IPv6
removes the need for Network Address Translation (NAT), a method of sharing a limited
number of addresses among a larger group of devices, although NAT will still be required to
communicate with devices that are on existing IPv4 networks.
As of June 2009, Verizon has posted specifications that require any 4G devices on its
network to support IPv6.[16]
Advanced Antenna Systems
The performance of radio communications depends on an antenna system, termed smart or

intelligent antenna. Recently, multiple antenna technologies are emerging to achieve the goal
of 4G systems such as high rate, high reliability, and long range communications. In the early
1990s, to cater for the growing data rate needs of data communication, many transmission
schemes were proposed. One technology, spatial multiplexing, gained importance for its
bandwidth conservation and power efficiency. Spatial multiplexing involves deploying
multiple antennas at the transmitter and at the receiver. Independent streams can then be
transmitted simultaneously from all the antennas. This technology, called MIMO (as a branch
of intelligent antenna), multiplies the base data rate by (the smaller of) the number of transmit
antennas or the number of receive antennas. Apart from this, the reliability in transmitting
high speed data in the fading channel can be improved by using more antennas at the
transmitter or at the receiver. This is called transmit or receive diversity. Both
transmit/receive diversity and transmit spatial multiplexing are categorized into the space-
time coding techniques, which does not necessarily require the channel knowledge at the
transmitter. The other category is closed-loop multiple antenna technologies, which require
channel knowledge at the transmitter.
Software-Defined Radio (SDR)
SDR is one form of open wireless architecture (OWA). Since 4G is a collection of wireless
standards, the final form of a 4G device will constitute various standards. This can be
efficiently realized using SDR technology, which is categorized to the area of the radio
convergence.
Beyond 4G research
A major issue in 4G systems is to make the high bit rates available in a larger portion of the
cell, especially to users in an exposed position in between several basestations. In current
research, this issue is addressed by macro-diversity techniques, also known as group
cooperative relay, and also by beam-division multiple access.[43]
Pervasive networks are an amorphous and at present entirely hypothetical concept where the
user can be simultaneously connected to several wireless access technologies and can
seamlessly move between them (See vertical handoff, IEEE 802.21). These access
technologies can be Wi-Fi, UMTS, EDGE, or any other future access technology. Included in
this concept is also smart-radio (also known as cognitive radio technology) to efficiently
manage spectrum use and transmission power as well as the use of mesh routing protocols to
create a pervasive network.
4G wireless standards
In September 2009, the technology proposals have been submitted to ITU-R as 4G

candidates.[44] Basically all proposals are based on two technologies:
• LTE Advanced standardized by the 3GPP

• 802.16m standardized by the IEEE (i.e. WiMAX)
First set of 3GPP requirements on LTE Advanced has been approved in June 2008.[45] LTE
Advanced will be standardized in 2010 as part of the Release 10 of the 3GPP specification.
LTE Advanced will be fully built on the existing LTE specification Release 10 and not be
defined as a new specification series. A summary of the technologies that have been studied
as the basis for LTE Advanced is summarized in a technical report.[46]

4G Technology Pratik

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4G Technology

In addition to improvements in these multiplexing systems, improved modulation techniques

Advanced Antenna Systems

The performance of radio communications depends on an antenna system, termed smart or

Software-Defined Radio (SDR)

In September 2009, the technology proposals have been submitted to ITU-R as 4G

• LTE Advanced standardized by the 3GPP

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