Fractional Power Control in LTE Cellular

Networks
by

Ali Akbar
B.Sc., Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2007

A Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

MASTER OF ENGINEERING

in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

 Ali Akbar, 2016

University of Victoria

All rights reserved. This report may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy
or other means, without the permission of the author.
 ii
Supervisory Committee

Dr. T. Aaron Gulliver, Supervisor

(Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Dr. Michael McGuire, Departmental Member

(Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)

 iii
Abstract

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) uplink power control in cellular networks consist of a

closed loop power control component and an open loop power control component. The

open loop component is also called Fractional Power Control (FPC) because it allows the

User Equipment (UE) to partially compensate for the path loss. This report focuses on

fractional power control which is characterized by two main parameters: a target received

power and a fractional compensation factor. Results are presented which show user

throughput, cell mean throughput, cell edge user throughput, and SINR are key

performance indicators of fractional power control.

 iv
Table of Contents

Supervisory Committee ...................................................................................................... ii

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................. vii
Dedication ........................................................................................................................ viii
Glossary ............................................................................................................................. ix
List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................... xi
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Wireless Communication Systems ..................................................................... 1
1.2 Long Term Evolution (LTE) ............................................................................... 3
1.3 Power control ...................................................................................................... 5
1.4 Project objectives ................................................................................................ 6
1.5 Scope of investigation and methodology ............................................................ 6
1.6 Project outline ..................................................................................................... 7
2 Fractional Power Control......................................................................................... 8
2.1 Uplink power control in LTE cellular networks ................................................. 8
2.2 Fractional power control and its basic parameters .............................................. 9
2.3 The network model ........................................................................................... 12
2.4 Key performance indicators .............................................................................. 14
3 Performance results ................................................................................................ 17
3.1 Simulation model .............................................................................................. 17
3.2 Discussions and results ..................................................................................... 19
4 Conclusions and Future Work ............................................................................... 39
4.1 Conclusions ....................................................................................................... 39
4.2 Future work ....................................................................................................... 40
References ........................................................................................................................ 41
 v
List of Figures

Figure 1: A wireless network showing refraction, shadowing and multipath. ................... 2

Figure 2: The LTE frame structure [7] [9]. ......................................................................... 4
Figure 3: The LTE uplink resource grid [7] [9]. ................................................................. 5
Figure 4: Transmit power 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 and Path Loss (𝑃𝐿) for 𝛼 = 1, 0.8, 0.6, and 0.4. ......... 11
Figure 5: Power control based on the value of 𝛼 [7]. ....................................................... 12
Figure 6: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.6 and 𝑃𝑜 = -67 and -57 dBm. ........................................... 22
Figure 7: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.6 and 𝑃𝑜 = -91 and -81 dBm. ........................................... 22
Figure 8: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.8 and 𝑃𝑜 = -67 and -57 dBm. ........................................... 23
Figure 9: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.8 and 𝑃𝑜 = -91 and -81 dBm. ........................................... 23
Figure 10: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values. ...... 24
Figure 11: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values. ...... 25
Figure 12: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values. .... 26
Figure 13: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm with four interferers. ........................................ 27
Figure 14: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm with four interferers. ........................................ 28
Figure 15: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm with four interferers. ...................................... 29
Figure 16: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm. ................ 30
Figure 17: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm. ................ 31
Figure 18: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm. .............. 32
Figure 19: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm. ............................... 36
Figure 20: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm. ............................... 37
Figure 21: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm. ............................. 38
 vi
List of Tables

Table 1: Simulation parameters used in MATLAB. ......................................................... 18

Table 2: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm. .................................... 33
Table 3: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm. ................................... 34
Table 4: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm. ................................. 35
 vii
Acknowledgments

I would not have been able to complete this project without the kind support of many

individuals. I would like to express my deepest and sincere thanks to all of them. I am very

thankful to my supervisor Dr. T. Aaron Gulliver for his guidance, knowledge, constant

supervision, and continuous support during the project and throughout my academic

journey. I would also like to thank Mr. Mohammad Hanif for his generous support during

this project.

I am thankful and grateful to my wife, son, daughter, parents, siblings and the staff of the

UVIC ECE department for their kind support, cooperation and motivation which helped

me complete this project. My thanks and appreciation also go to my friends Atique,

Manzoor, Ahsan and all the amazing people who have supported me during my stay at the

University of Victoria.
 viii
Dedication

This work is dedicated to Raahim (son), Waniya (daughter) and my loved ones, who

motivate and support me every step of the way.

 ix
Glossary

3GPP Third generation partnership project

ARQ Automatic repeat request
CDF Cumulative distribution function
CDMA Code division multiple access
DL Downlink
eNodeB Evolved NodeB
FDD Frequency division duplex
FDMA Frequency division multiple access
FPC Fractional power control
HARQ Hybrid ARQ
LOS Line of sight
LTE Long term evolution
MATLAB Matrix laboratory
MCS Modulation and coding scheme
MIMO Multiple input, multiple output
OFDM Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
OFDMA Orthogonal frequency division multiple access
PAPR Peak to average power ratio
PHY Physical layer
PL Path loss
PRB Physical resource block
PSD Power spectrum density
PUSCH Physical uplink shared channel
QAM Quadrature amplitude modulation
QPSK Quadrature phase shift keying
RF Radio frequency
RRC Radio resource control
RRM Radio resource management
RSRP Reference signal received power
 x
RTT Round trip time
SINR Signal to interference and noise ratio
SNR Signal to noise ratio
TDD Time division duplex
TDM Time division multiplexing
TDMA Time division multiple access
TPC Transmit power control
TTI Transmission time interval
UE User equipment
UL Uplink
UTRA Universal terrestrial radio access
UTRAN Universal terrestrial radio access network
 xi
List of Acronyms

Acronym Definition
𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 Received power spectrum density
𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑡𝑥 Transmit power spectrum density
𝐵𝑊𝑃𝑅𝐵 Bandwidth of one PRB
𝐵𝑊𝑒𝑓𝑓 Bandwidth efficiency
𝑁𝑃𝑅𝐵 Number of PRBs in the working bandwidth
𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 UE transmit power spectrum density (dB)
𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥 Maximum power allowed by UE in UL (dB)
𝑃𝑜 Power in one PRB (dB)
𝑆𝑒𝑓𝑓 SNR efficiency
𝑈𝐸𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 Number of users in a cell
𝑝𝑜 Power contained in one PRB
𝑠 SINR
𝛿𝑚𝑐𝑠 MCS dependent offset
𝐶 User throughput
𝐸(𝐶) Average user throughput
𝐼 Interference
𝐼𝑜𝑇 Interference over thermal noise power
𝑀 Number of allocated PRBs per user
𝑁 Thermal noise power (dB)
𝑃𝐿 Path loss (dB)
𝑆 SINR (dB)
𝑇 Cell mean throughput
𝑓(∆) Closed loop correction function
𝑛 Thermal noise power density
𝑝𝑙 Total path loss
𝑣 Correction factor
𝛼 Path loss compensation factor
1 Introduction

This chapter presents the fundamentals of cellular networks and the background on channel

impairments in wireless communications. This chapter includes an overview of Long Term

Evolution (LTE) and its Physical Layer (PHY), which are fundamental components of the

power control problem in wireless communications.

1.1 Wireless Communication Systems

In wireless communications, the channel changes with time due to changes in the

environment between the transmitter and receiver, and user mobility. Some key channel

impairments will be discussed in this chapter.

In a wireless system, the radio signals are attenuated as they travel through the air. When

a transmitted signal propagates through the air it encounters different objects, and the signal

will be attenuated, delayed in time and phase shifted due to reflection, diffraction and

scattering. The attenuation caused by distance is modeled as path loss. The signal variations

due to diffraction are modeled as shadow fading (shadowing), whereas the effects of

reflections are taken as multipath fading (multipath), as shown in Figure 1 [10].

 2

Figure 1: A wireless network showing refraction, shadowing and multipath.

A geographical area covered by a cellular network is divided into cells. Each cell has an

eNodeB which is a fixed terminal which communicates with mobile terminals using

transceiver antennas. Mobile users close to the eNodeB are called cell center users and on

the edge of the cell coverage are called cell edge users. The eNodeB connects the user

equipment (UE) to the network [7]. The communication from eNodeB to UE is called the

downlink (DL) and from UE to eNodeB is known as the uplink (UL).

In a communication system, resource sharing is achieved using multiple access which

divides the resources along the time, frequency or code space axes. Orthogonal Frequency

Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) is a FDMA technique in which the modulated signals

are orthogonal to each other in the frequency domain. A channel is divided into subcarriers,

referred to as subchannels, and these are further split into physical resource blocks which

are allocated to the users by a DL scheduler [7].

 3

1.2 Long Term Evolution (LTE)

3GPP LTE is a significant development in cellular systems. LTE evolved from an earlier

3GPP system known as Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). LTE was

designed to support high speed data and voice for wireless communication systems. LTE

was developed to support flexible carrier bandwidths from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz. The LTE

downlink peak rate can be as high as 300 Mbps and the uplink peak rate up to 75 Mbps in

a 20 MHz channel bandwidth. LTE is compatible with Frequency Division Duplex (FDD)

and Time Division Duplex (TDD) techniques for uplink and downlink transmissions. In

FDD, uplink and downlink transmissions use different frequency bands whereas in TDD

the uplink and downlink transmissions are separated in time but both use the same

frequency band [11] [12].

The LTE Physical Layer (PHY) is different for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL)

transmissions. In the downlink, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is

used as the modulation technique to mitigate multipath fading. A disadvantage of OFDM

is that it has a high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) which requires higher

transmission power to maintain the required Bit Error Rate (BER) [15]. Mobile equipment

has power consumption restrictions. To address the concerns with a high peak to average

power ratio, Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) was

introduced for the uplink. SC-FDMA is a modified form of OFDMA which has similar

throughput performance as OFDMA but with a lower PAPR [11] [12] [13].
 4
In the LTE uplink, data are transmitted in frames. Each frame consists of 10 subframes and

each subframe has two time slots of 1 ms duration. A time slot consists of 7 SC-FDMA

symbols with a time duration of 0.5 ms as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The LTE frame structure [7] [9].

In LTE transmission, a Physical Resource Block (PRB) is the smallest resource element

allocated by the eNodeB scheduler. A PRB is defined as 180 kHz in the frequency domain

and 0.5 ms (1 time slot) in the time domain. Each PRB consists of 12 subcarriers with a 15

kHz subcarrier spacing for a PRB bandwidth of 180 kHz as shown in Figure 3 [12] [13].

The Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is responsible for carrying user

information. The uplink scheduler allocates resources for the PUSCH on a subframe basis.

Subcarriers are assigned in multiples of 12 PRBs and hopped from subframe to subframe.

The PUSCH supports QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM modulation [13].

 5

Figure 3: The LTE uplink resource grid [7] [9].

1.3 Power control

Power is an important resource for mobile devices. To minimize the UE power

consumption, power control is employed in the LTE uplink. Power control plays an

important role in system throughput, capacity, quality and power consumption. In a

wireless multiuser environment, a number of users share the same radio resources.

Frequency reuse is an important feature of a cellular system which improves the network

capacity. LTE supports a frequency reuse factor of one to maximize the spectrum
 6
efficiency for the uplink and downlink transmissions. The presence of interference cannot

be ignored due to this frequency reuse factor. To minimize the effect of interference, Power

Control (PC) is used for the LTE uplink. It enhances system throughput performance and

reduces interference to other cell users [14]. The use of SC-FDMA in the LTE uplink

eliminates interference between users in a cell (intra cell interference). However, the

transmissions in neighboring cells are not orthogonal which causes interference between

users (inter cell interference). This has a significant effect on the system throughput [7].

1.4 Project objectives

The 3GPP standard has defined uplink power control as a combination of open loop power

control and closed loop power control [6]. The open loop term is also known as Fractional

Power Control (FPC) [4]. The objective of this project is to evaluate the performance of

FPC based on two basic parameters, the received power 𝑃𝑜 and the path loss compensation

factor 𝛼. In order to measure the performance gain of FPC, a set of key performance

indicators are employed.

1.5 Scope of investigation and methodology

The scope of this report is limited to fractional power control for the LTE uplink to mitigate

inter cell interference and enhance system throughput. The users are randomly distributed

to evaluate FPC behavior [8]. Simulation is done using MATLAB to determine the path

loss, interference and SINR at the eNodeB to set the UE transmit power.
 7
1.6 Project outline

Chapter 2 provides the mathematical expressions for the performance analysis of fractional

power control and the influence of the two main parameters, the received power 𝑃𝑜 and the

path loss compensation factor 𝛼. Chapter 3 covers the methodology and simulation

parameters involved in the implementation of FPC in MATLAB. Simulation results and a

comparative analysis for different values of 𝑃𝑜 and 𝛼 are given to examine FPC

performance. The SINR, cell mean throughput, and cell edge throughput are the

performance indicators used to evaluate the system. Chapter 4 provides conclusions and

some possible directions for future work.

 8
2 Fractional Power Control

This chapter describes LTE uplink fractional power control and provides the mathematical

equations for the model.

2.1 Uplink power control in LTE cellular networks

Power control in wireless systems sets output power levels for eNodeBs in the downlink

and User Equipment (UE) in the uplink. The LTE uplink power control contains a closed

loop power control term and an open loop power control term. The open loop term

compensates for path loss and shadowing. The closed loop term gives further performance

improvements by compensating for variations in the channel. The UE transmitted power

𝑃𝑡𝑥 for the uplink transmission is defined in dB as

𝑃𝑡𝑥 = min{𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥 , 𝑃𝑜 + 10 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑀) + 𝛼𝑃𝐿 + 𝛿𝑚𝑐𝑠 + 𝑓(∆)} (1)

where

𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum power allowed by the UE in uplink transmission,

𝑀 is the number of allocated Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) per user,

𝑃𝑜 is the power contained in one PRB,

𝛼 is the path loss compensation factor,

𝑃𝐿 is the estimated uplink path loss at the UE,

𝛿𝑚𝑐𝑠 is a MCS dependent offset which is UE specific, and

𝑓(∆) is a closed loop correction function.

 9
The uplink power control can be broken into five parts. The first part is the amount of

additional power needed based on the number (𝑀) of PRBs. The higher the number of

PRBs, the higher the power required. The second part is the received power 𝑃𝑜 which is a

cell specific parameter. The third part is the product of Path Loss (PL) and α. The fourth

part is a MCS dependent offset value which is UE specific and is used to adjust the power

based on the MCS assigned by the eNodeB. Last, 𝑓(∆) is the closed loop correction value

which is closed loop feedback. It is the additional power that the UE adds to the

transmission based on feedback from the eNodeB [6].

The values of 𝑃𝑜 and 𝛼 are the same in the cell and are signalled from the eNodeB to the

UE as broadcast information. The path loss is measured at the UE and is based on the

Reference Symbol Received Power (RSRP). This information is sufficient for the UE to

initially set its transmit power. 𝛿𝑚𝑐𝑠 is a UE specific parameter dependant on the

modulation and coding employed. 𝑓(∆𝑖 ) is a correction function that uses a correction

value ∆ which is signaled by the eNodeB to a user after it sets its initial transmit power [6]

[14] [16].

2.2 Fractional power control and its basic parameters

When the value of 𝛼 is between 0 and 1 it means only a fraction of the path loss is

compensated to control the UE transmit power. Such a mechanism is called open loop

power control or fractional power control. This study is focused on evaluating the

performance of fractional power control. Some assumptions are used to obtain the results.
 10
The measured path loss at the UE together with 𝑃𝑜 and 𝛼 broadcast by the eNodeB are

sufficient to set the initial transmit power for open loop power control. The closed loop

term has the ability to adjust the uplink transmit power with the closed loop correction

value, also known as Transmit Power Control (TPC) commands. TPC commands are

transmitted by the eNodeB to the UE based on the target SINR and the measured SINR.

The correction function 𝑓(∆) and modulation and coding scheme (𝛿𝑚𝑐𝑠 ) are not considered

in this report. The UE transmitted power in the UL is then [14] [15]

𝑃𝑡𝑥 = 𝑃𝑜 + 10 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑀) + 𝛼𝑃𝐿 (dBm) (2)

The UE performs the transmission in such a way that each PRB contains an equal amount

of power. For a single PRB (𝑀 = 1), the UE assigned power spectrum density is

𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 = 𝑃𝑜 + 𝛼𝑃𝐿 (dBm) (3)

To explore fractional power control, first the effect of the parameters 𝑃𝑜 and α on 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 is

studied. 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 is linearly dependent on 𝑃𝑜 and 𝑃𝐿. Parameters 𝑃𝑜 and 𝛼 are constant for

the users in a cell while the term 𝛼𝑃𝐿 varies for each UE according to the path loss and so

is the term which differentiates user throughput.

 11

Figure 4: Transmit power 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 and Path Loss (𝑃𝐿) for 𝛼 = 1, 0.8, 0.6, and 0.4.

Figure 4 shows the effect of α on 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 for a range of 𝑃𝐿 values. For α = 1, 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 provides

full compensation for the degradation caused by the path loss. For 𝛼 = 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8,

𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 shows the same trend but with different slopes and different values at the cell center

and cell edge. The difference in 𝑃𝑆𝐷𝑡𝑥 for 𝛼 values at 75 dB path loss is less than that at

125 dB path loss. It is observed that the cell edge users have more path loss compared to

the cell center users [8] [14].

Figure 5 shows the compensation for 𝛼 from 0 to 1. A value between 0 and 1 represents

fractional compensation for the path loss. There is no power control for 𝛼 = 0 and all users

transmit with the same power, while with α = 1 users transmit with a power that completely
 12
compensates for the path loss, which is referred to as full compensation or conventional

power control.

Figure 5: Power control based on the value of 𝛼 [7].

2.3 The network model

Equation (3) can be expressed as

𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑡𝑥 = 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑙𝛼 ) (mW/PRB) (4)

where

𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑡𝑥 is the UE power spectrum density,

𝑝𝑜 is the power contained in one PRB, and

𝑝𝑙 is the path loss of the user to the serving eNodeB.

The SINR determines the performance with fractional power control. Therefore, an

investigation of the impact of 𝑝𝑜 and 𝛼 on the signal to interference and noise ratio would

be helpful to understand fractional power control. The SINR is given by [14]

𝑠 = 𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 /(𝐼 + 𝑛) (5)

 13
where

𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 is the received power spectrum power density of the user at the serving eNodeB,

𝐼 is the interference power density, and

𝑛 is the thermal noise power density,

The received power spectrum density is [14]

𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 = 𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑡𝑥 /𝑝𝑙 (6)

From (4) and (6), 𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 is

𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 = 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑙 𝛼−1 ) (mW/PRB) (7)

With conventional power control, 𝛼 = 1 and the received power spectrum density at the

eNodeB is 𝑝𝑜 , which is the same for all users in a cell. For 0 < 𝛼 < 1, the received power

spectrum density depends on the path loss of the user, so 𝑝𝑠𝑑𝑟𝑥 will be different for each

user in the case of fractional power control. By replacing the received power spectrum

density in (6), the SINR is [14]

𝑠 = 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑙 𝛼−1 ) /(𝐼 + 𝑛) (8)

The numerator of (8) can be written as

(𝐼 + 𝑛) = 𝑛(𝐼 + 𝑛)/𝑛 (9)

= 𝑛(𝐼/𝑛 + 1)
 14
where (𝐼 + 𝑛/𝑛) is the interference over thermal noise which is calculated as the ratio of

interference plus thermal noise over thermal noise.

Equation (9) can be written in dB as

𝐼
10 log(𝐼 + 𝑛) = 10 log (𝑛 (𝑛 + 1)) = 𝑁 + 𝐼𝑜𝑇 (10)

where

𝐼𝑜𝑇 is the interference over thermal noise (dB), and

𝑁 is the thermal noise power (dB).

Equation (8) can rewritten using (9) as

𝑠 = 𝑝𝑜 (𝑝𝑙 𝛼−1 ) /𝑛(𝐼/𝑛 + 1) (11)

Equation (11) can be written in dB as

𝑆 = 𝑃𝑜 + (𝛼 + 1)𝑃𝐿 − 𝐼𝑜𝑇 − 𝑁 (dB) (12)

2.4 Key performance indicators

The user throughput of a cellular network is calculated for a user from its SINR and

allocated bandwidth [3] [14] and is given by [15]

𝑆𝐼𝑁𝑅
𝐶 = 𝐵𝑊𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝑣 𝑀 𝐵𝑊𝑃𝑅𝐵 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (1 + ) (bps) (13)
𝑆𝑒𝑓𝑓

where
 15
𝐵𝑊𝑒𝑓𝑓 is the bandwidth efficiency. It is the information bit rate per unit bandwidth

occupied which is set to 0.72 [15],

𝑣 is a correction factor. It is a value that is applied to the estimated received signal power

to account for the propagation which is set to 0.68 [15],

𝐵𝑊𝑃𝑅𝐵 is the bandwidth of one PRB equal to 180 kHz [6][15], and

𝑆𝑒𝑓𝑓 is the SNR efficiency of the system which is set to 0.2 dB [15].

The cell mean throughput is calculated by multiplying the average user throughput by the

number of users allocated in a single Transmission Time Interval (TTI) [15]. The cell mean

throughput is calculated as

𝑇 = 𝐸(𝐶)𝑈𝐸𝑇𝑇𝐼 (bps) (14)

where

𝐸(𝐶) is the average user throughput, and

𝑈𝐸𝑇𝑇𝐼 is the number of users allocated in a single TTI.

The number of allocated users in a single TTI is [15]

𝑈𝐸𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙
𝑈𝐸𝑇𝑇𝐼 = (15)
𝑁𝑃𝑅𝐵

where

𝑈𝐸𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 is the number of users in a cell, and

𝑁𝑃𝑅𝐵 is the number of PRBs used in a TTI for the available bandwidth.
 16
The cell edge throughput is defined as the lowest 5% of the Cumulative Distribution

Function (CDF) of the total cell throughput. It is also known as the cell outage throughput

[14].
 17
3 Performance results

3.1 Simulation model

A path loss propagation model was employed to evaluate the performance of fractional

power control. A honeycomb pattern is used with 50 uniformly distributed users per cell,

where each cell has the same number of users. The target eNodeB experiences four strong

inter cell interferers from neighbouring cells. MATLAB was used to calculate the path loss,

interference and SINR using the Cost 231 path loss model which was designed for dense

urban city areas with high user densities and traffic loads [16]. The shadowing follows a

lognormal distribution. The signal attenuation measured in dB is lognormally distributed

with zero mean and an 8 dB standard deviation [13]. The simulation parameters are given

in Table 1. In this report, the performance is evaluated by considering uplink received

SINR, user throughput, cell mean throughput and cell edge throughput. These indicators

are studied to measure the gain with fractional power control. 𝑃𝑜 is a cell specific parameter

which ranges from -126 dBm to 24 dBm with lower values assigned for a low interference

environment and vice versa [6] [13]. The performance gain of FPC is evaluated for low,

mid and high values of 𝑃𝑜 , which are represented by -57, -81 and -102 dBm, respectively.

These values have been used in the literature to evaluate FPC performance. The received

SINR, user throughput, cell mean throughput and cell edge throughput are comparable to

the results in [14]. The path loss model used in the simulations is [16]

𝑃𝐿 = 57.92 + 20 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑓𝑐 ) + 37.6 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑑) (16)

where

𝑓𝑐 is the carrier frequency in Hz, and

 18
𝑑 is the distance in meters.

SIMULATION PARAMETERS

Parameter Value

Carrier frequency (𝑓𝑐 ) 2.0 GHz

System bandwidth (𝐵𝑊) 10 MHz

Thermal noise per PRB (𝑁) -116 dBm/PRB

Maximum UE Transmit Power (𝑃𝑜 ) [13] 23 dBm

Bandwidth efficiency (𝐵𝑊𝑒𝑓𝑓 ) [15] 0.72

PRB bandwidth (𝐵𝑊𝑃𝑅𝐵 ) 180 kHz

Number of PRBs per user (𝑀) 5

Correction factor (𝑣) [15] 0.68

SINR efficiency of the system (𝑆𝑒𝑓𝑓 ) [15] 0.2 dB

Shadowing [13][14] Lognormal distribution

Standard deviation of the signal (𝜎) [13] 8 dB

Path loss model [13] [14] Cost 231

Number of trials 2000

Table 1: Simulation parameters used in MATLAB.

 19

3.2 Discussions and results

The results in this report show the performance of FPC and conventional power control.

The SINR performance is presented for low, mid and high values of 𝑃𝑜 . It is observed that

a change in 𝑃𝑜 shifts the SINR distribution. Figures 6 to 9 show the SINR distribution for

𝛼 = 0.6 and 0.8 and different values of 𝑃𝑜 . A higher 𝑃𝑜 shifts the SINR distribution to the

right and thus increases the overall SINR. An increase in 𝑃𝑜 will increase the power of all

users and thus the level of interference. An increase of 10 dB in 𝑃𝑜 results in approximately

a 1 dB shift in the SINR distribution. These results are similar to those in [8] [14].

Figures 10 to 12 show how a change in 𝛼 changes the UE transmit power. A lower 𝛼 lowers

the UE transmit power and vice versa. A lower 𝛼 not only decreases the SINR but also

spreads the distribution which results in a greater difference in the SINR between the cell

edge and cell center users. Thus, 𝑃𝑜 controls the SINR mean and 𝛼 controls the SINR

variance. Figures 10 to 12 show similar performance compared to that in [8] [14].

Figures 13 to 15 show the SINR performance with 𝛼 = 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8. It can be observed

that the SINR distribution is wider with a lower 𝛼. For 𝛼 = 1, the received power spectrum

density is greater than with 𝛼 = 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 because of full compensation for the path

loss. This reduces the SINR distribution variance. A lower 𝛼 changes the received power

spectrum density of the UE according to the path loss from the eNodeB. A lower α gives a

greater SINR difference between the cell edge and cell center users. These results are

similar to those in [14].

 20
Figures 16 to 18 show that cell edge users have more path loss compared to cell center

users because of the distance. A lower 𝛼 when multiplied by the path loss decreases the

effect of path loss on users located at the cell edge more than those located close to the cell

center. Hence a lower 𝛼 increases the cell mean throughput as the cell center users have a

higher SINR. This improvement is at the cost of a decrease in the power of cell edge users,

and thus their throughput. Figures 16 to 18 show that the cell edge throughput is slightly

better with 𝛼 = 1 than 𝛼 = 0.8, 0.6 and 0.4, but 𝛼 less than one provides better cell mean

throughput. The results in Figures 16 to 18 are similar to those in [14].

Tables 2 to 4 give the throughput with fractional power control for different values of 𝛼

and 𝑃𝑜 . Fractional power control reduces the effect of path loss on cell edge users in order

to improve the cell mean throughput. A value of 𝛼 less than 1, when multiplied with the

path loss, lowers the effect of path loss more for cell edge users than for users located close

to the cell center. Hence, a lower 𝛼 means a better SINR for cell center users. FPC allows

the cell center users to achieve a higher SINR at the cost of a decrease in the power of the

cell edge users and hence a lower interference to other cells. This SINR improvement is at

the cost of a decrease in the power of the cell edge users, which results in a lower

throughput at the cell edge.

Figures 19 to 21 show that as 𝛼 gets close to one, the SINR difference decreases which

decreases in the cell mean throughput and increases the cell edge throughput. Values of 𝛼

below 0.4 have no practical use due to very low cell edge throughput. A value of 𝛼 = 0.4

has a high cell mean throughput which is 15% more than with conventional power control.

Further, using a value of 𝛼 = 0.4 significantly decreases the cell edge throughput by 83%.

A value of 𝛼 = 0.8 provides a more balanced trade-off with an increase in cell mean
 21
throughput of 6% and a decrease in cell edge throughput of 37%. A value of 𝛼 = 0.8 was

proposed in [5] and [14]. In conclusion, there is a trade-off with FPC which can be used to

tune the system performance according to the deployment scenario. A value of 𝛼 lower

than one reduces the inter cell interference. The results in [14] for the cell mean throughput

and cell edge throughput are similar to those presented in this report.
 22

Figure 6: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.6 and 𝑃𝑜 = -67 and -57 dBm.

Figure 7: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.6 and 𝑃𝑜 = -91 and -81 dBm.
 23

Figure 8: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.8 and 𝑃𝑜 = -67 and -57 dBm.

Figure 9: SINR CDF for 𝛼 = 0.8 and 𝑃𝑜 = -91 and -81 dBm.
 24

Figure 10: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values.
 25

Figure 11: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values.
 26

Figure 12: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm with one interferer and different 𝛼 values.
 27

Figure 13: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm with four interferers.
 28

Figure 14: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm with four interferers.
 29

Figure 15: SINR CDF for 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm with four interferers.
 30

Figure 16: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm.
 31

Figure 17: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm.
 32

Figure 18: User throughput CDF for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm.
 33

Cell mean Cell edge

𝑃𝑜
𝛼 throughput Throughput
[dBm/PRB]
[Mbps] [kbps]

1 -57 12.5 619

0.9 -57 12.7 496

0.8 -57 13.1 391

0.7 -57 13.3 305

0.6 -57 13.4 209

0.5 -57 13.8 147

0.4 -57 13.6 106

0.3 -57 14.3 62

0.2 -57 14.8 45

0.1 -57 14.8 28

0 -57 15.1 14

Table 2: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm.

 34

Cell mean Cell edge

𝑃𝑜
𝛼 throughput Throughput
[dBm/PRB]
[Mbps] [kbps]

1 -81 12.3 618

0.9 -81 12.8 498

0.8 -81 13.0 385

0.7 -81 13.4 286

0.6 -81 13.4 204

0.5 -81 13.9 150

0.4 -81 14.1 101

0.3 -81 14.2 59

0.2 -81 14.3 41

0.1 -81 14.5 24

0 -81 15.3 16

Table 3: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm.

 35

Cell mean Cell edge

𝑃𝑜
𝛼 throughput Throughput
[dBm/PRB]
[Mbps] [kbps]

1 -102 12.3 618

0.9 -102 12.7 488

0.8 -102 13.1 389

0.7 -102 13.4 294

0.6 -102 13.3 210

0.5 -102 13.7 152

0.4 -102 13.8 90

0.3 -102 14.0 61

0.2 -102 14.1 41

0.1 -102 14.3 20

0 -102 15.2 17

Table 4: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm.

 36

Figure 19: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -57 dBm.

 37

Figure 20: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -81 dBm.

 38

Figure 21: Throughput for different values of 𝛼 and 𝑃𝑜 = -102 dBm.

 39
4 Conclusions and Future Work

4.1 Conclusions

The uplink power control in LTE is flexible and simple. It consists of a closed loop term

and an open loop term. This report focused on the open loop term which is also known as

fractional power control. The path loss compensation factor of fractional power control is

used to improve cell mean throughput. Simulation results were presented which indicate

that fractional power control can improve the cell mean throughput up to 15% compared

to conventional power control by decreasing the transmit power of cell edge users more

than cell center users. It also improved the network throughput up to 15% and reduced the

power consumption at the UE. A value of 𝛼 = 0.8 was considered to provide the good

performance with an increase in cell mean throughput of 6% and a decrease in the cell edge

throughput of 37% compared to conventional power control. It was concluded in [5] and

[14] that 𝛼 = 0.6 to 0.8 is appropriate for good| performance. In [5] it was shown that closed

loop power control with FPC provides better performance than closed loop power control

with conventional power control. The results in [5] [14] show that FPC is the key

component for power control in the LTE uplink compared to the closed loop component.

In a sparse user environment, a larger 𝛼 should be employed to increase cell edge

throughput whereas in a dense user environment a smaller 𝛼 should be used to increase cell

mean throughput. Thus, FPC supports different deployment scenarios. FPC enables a trade-

off between the cell edge throughput and cell center throughput. It also decreases inter cell

interference and reduces the power consumption at the UE.

 40
4.2 Future work

Uplink power control is a combination of a closed loop term and an open loop term. The

closed loop term adjusts the uplink transmit power with the closed loop correction value

also known as Transmit Power Control (TPC) commands. TPC commands are transmitted

by the eNodeB to the UE based on the target SINR and measured SINR. The closed loop

term is cell specific and can be studied with different target SINRs. LTE has different

modulation and coding techniques which could be studied with the closed loop term in

conjunction with the open loop term.

 41
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