2021 IEEE 4th International Conference on Computing, Power and Communication Technologies (GUCON)

University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sep 24-26, 2021

Carrier Aggregation in 5g Using Millimeter Range

Communication
Devidas Chikhale Shankar Deosarkar Mahesh Munde
Department of Electronics and Department of Electronics and Department of Electronics and
2021 IEEE 4th International Conference on Computing, Power and Communication Technologies (GUCON) | 978-1-7281-9951-1/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/GUCON50781.2021.9574017

Telecommunication Engineering, Telecommunication Engineering, Telecommunication Engineering,

Lokmanya Tilak College of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar St. Xavier’s Technical Institute,
Engineering Technological University, Mumbai, India.
Navi-Mumbai, India. Lonere, India. [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— Getting higher data rates always remains a well as noncompromised customer output. Thus, by
challenging task and so is in the fifth generation which may aggregation, it is possible to serve increasing different
launch in 2021 to get seamless connectivity with ultra high demands. Carrier aggregation is smart due to feature of
speed and extremely low latency less than two milliseconds to aggregation of contiguous and noncontiguous carriers and
connect mobile devices along with other physical devices which provides backward compatibility [6-7]. Bandwidth can be
is about to cross the figure of nine billion over the globe. It is increased by aggregating separate spectrum. The Bit rate can
highly essential to get extremely higher data rates to taste the be increased and hence the network performance.
fruits of different kinds of services on the mobile handset using Components are basically of two types. Primary component
technologies like LTE Advanced Pro, Carrier aggregation
carrier (PCC) and Secondary component carrier (SCC).
scheme, and 5G NR. Carrier aggregation will be one of the
Primary component carriers cannot be changed except
better solutions along with massive mimo at the base station to
achieve peak data rates and faster throughput per user. With handover. But secondary components can be added and
5G carrier aggregation, we have 700 MHz bandwidth using removed whenever required. Those are required based on
millimeter-wave frequency range which is much higher user demand. As user demand is fulfilled, they can be
compared to 100MHz of LTE advanced to get higher datarates removed. Whenever there is a requirement of spectrum in one
per user by using advanced higher-order modulation, spatial area of the base station and if it has been found that in
multiplexing, and bigger transport block size. More than 1 another base station area some spectrum is surplus or unused
Gbps data rate can be achieved on downlink and 500 Mbps on it can be used by the needy base station. In five carriers one
the uplink. The research paper gives an overall idea of carrier can, be used as PCC and four can be used as SCC.. Based on
aggregation in 5G and coexistence with legacy LTE and PCC and SCC carrier aggregation are categorized into the
Millimeter-wave system. following types as shown in figure 1 and figure 2
respectively.
Keywords—Carrier Aggregation, Component Carrier,
Massive MIMO, Scheduling, User Equipment. i) Intra-band contiguous: When elements of carriers are
present in the similar frequency range and close to each other
in the frequency domain the type of carrier aggregation is
I. INTRODUCTION
called an intra-band contiguous type of carrier aggregation.
Carrier aggregation is a method in which unused carriers
or spectrum will be detected and added with primary ii) Intra-band non-contiguous: When element of carriers
component carrier [1]. It is a multicarrier technique that is is present in the similar frequency range but are at a distance
used to achieve higher spectral efficiency and peak from one another and not in proximity with each one in the
throughput. Peak throughput can be achieved on downlink frequency domain the type of carrier aggregation is called
and uplink and hence higher data rates per user. As 5G is intra-band non-contiguous type of carrier aggregation.
about to launch full-fledge we are still using the LTE– iii) Inter Band: When the element of carriers is not
Advanced carrier aggregation technique. Every combined present in the similar frequency range and are in a different
carrier is called the component carrier. These are a frequency bands and not adjacent to each other in the
combination of uplink and downlink, downlink only but not frequency domain they are called interband component
uplink only. It uses carrier bandwidth 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 carriers.
MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz. As per 3GPP extreme
of five component carriers can be grouped. In 5G upto 32 iv) Symmetric Intraband: When the elements of carriers
carriers are expected in LTE Advanced Pro.In 5G NR 16 are in a similar frequency range, continuously spaced, also
component carriers can be aggregated [2]. But today 20 * 5 same in number on the uplink and downlink it is called
gives 100 MHz bandwidth is available for carrier aggregation symmetric intraband contiguous carrier aggregation.
using LTE Advanced for bandwidth extension [3-5]. It is v) Non-symmetric Interband: When the component
possible to achieve 640 Mbps per user using LTE advanced carriers are in the different frequency bands, contiguous,
pro. To increase data rate per user multiple frequency higher in number on the downlink, and lower in number on
resource blocks called component carriers are assigned to the uplink it is called non-symmetric interband carrier
each user. Each block size of 110 or 100. As we increase the aggregation.
number of frequency blocks assigned per-user data rate will
be increased. It is powered by radio access network
coordinators to permit whole implementation elasticity as

978-1-7281-9951-1/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE 1

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 From network operator’s point of view, carrier aggregation
can be used to club fragmented bandwidth utilization. It
backs cross elementt carrier scheduling, in which the control
Fig. 1. Carrier Elements [1] route at a carrier can be allowed to assign sources to different
carrier. Thus it is a strong technology for the efficient usage
of wireless sources. So macro base staion should provide
system information, RRC control signaling. Small cells like
pico cells, femtocell would serve high datarate requirements.
LTE-A, 5G NR, and LTE Advance Pro are the three
technologies that has paved the way for 5G carrier
aggregation. 5G NR is proposed for 16 component carriers.
improved network efficiency with optimized user experience
can be observed. There is dynamic flow switching across
component carriers. It makes traffic management
straightforward. It increases occupied region and gives stout
enactment in live networks. Both licensed and unlicensed
frequency spectrum can be used. At 60 GHz in millimeter
range, 640 Mbps data rates are achieved using carrier
aggregation.

II. LAYERS SCHEDULING AND SIGNALING

Two protocols do major role in the process of carrier
aggregation and those are the MAC layer and PHYSICAL
layer.

A. MAC Layer
To keep compatibility with release 8 & 9 changes in the
Fig. 2. Carrier Aggregation [1]
protocols are required to be kept minimum. Medium Access
Carrier aggregation is used for FDD and TDD. In FDD Control layer must be able to handle new radio resource
count of carriers in downlink is always greater than or equal control messages to handle SCC and scheduling on several
to uplink. In TDD count of carriers in UL and DL are the component carriers. It configures hybrid automatic repeat
similar. requests ie. HARQ for each secondary cell. It intimates the
status of the buffer for the secondary cell. It also intimates the
Each component carrier used in LTE-A for data transfer is power headroom. Whenever required it activates and
also called a serving cell. In carrier aggregation, we have deactivates secondary cells. There is a timer to monitor data
multiple serving cells. In idle mode, user listens to system inactivity. The timer “sCell Deactivation Timer” is
information broadcast messages through the primary serving maintained by mac layer [10]. It aggregates data coming from
cell and sends uplink control information through the uplink different cells. Thus, multiple carrier habit of the physical
channel of it (PUCCH). These messages are handled by the stratum is only open to the mac stratum and all remaining
primary component carrier. Radio resource control layers such as radio link control (RLC), physical data
connection will always be handled by the primary serving convergence protocol (PDCP) remains unchanged. Multiple
cell. Multicarrier signals can’t be treated as a single signal. component carriers are controlled by the MAC stratum in the
Therefore it requires a more advanced transceiver in the user scheduler of e-NodeB.
equipment. Carrier aggregation concept first released in
rel.10 for LTE Advanced that increases flexibility for B. PHYSICAL Layer
scheduling in uplink [8].
It is used to provide signaling information about
Which is backward compatible with rel. 8 and rel. 9 of scheduling on component carriers. HARQ positive and
LTE. In 2013, 3GPP rel.11 expanded the deployment options negative acknowledgment per component carrier must be
and capabilities of carrier aggregation. It has introduced intra- delivered to uplink and downlink. The formats 1b and 3 are
band non-contiguous carrier aggregation. It has supported used for two-component carriers and five component carriers,
multiple time advances ie. cells belonging to different sites. respectively. As far as physical layer control signaling is
In 2014, 3GPP rel.12 uplink inter-band carrier aggregation concerned, in downlink scheduling, DCI formats used are 1-0
was defined. The requirement of three-component carriers & 1-1. 1-0 represents feedback format and 1-1 represents
was there in the downlink. It supports maximum aggregated non-feedback format which supports 5G NR features. The
bandwidth of 50 MHz. First commercial carrier aggregation use of fallback DCI is to handle waving overhead. In most of
deployed in south Korea, and the UK.OPTUS in Australia the scenario fallback DCI format supplies enough elasticity
was the first to deploy carrier aggregation in TD-LTE. Carrier for scheduling reduced packets. Physical layer control
aggregation technology deployed throughout the world. signaling also consist identifier of DCI format (1 bit), Carrier
North America, China, Japan, and India later implemented it. Indicator (0 or 3 bit), Bandwidth Part Indicator (0 to 2 bits),
Devices point of view it provides a bandwidth of upto 100 frequency and time domain resource allocation, reserved
MHz which means that users can get more data rates. resources (0 to 2 bit), PRB Structure Indicator (0/1 bit), Zero
However, carrier aggregation activity requires more receiver Power CSI-RS Trigger (0-2 bit), Modulation & Coding
activity and processing. So the power consumption is higher. scheme (5 bit), New Data Indicator (1 bit), Redundancy

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 Version (2 bit), Hybrid ARQ Process Number (4 bit), capacity are the key elements of an optimal 5G user
Downlink Assignment Index (0, 2 or 4 bit), HARQ Feedback experience. It is a tool to extend the coverage of mid and high
Timing (3 bit), CBG Transmission Indicator (0/2/4/6/8 bit), bands that also leads to an increased capacity. It expands the
Antenna Ports (4-6 bit), Transmission Configuration cell coverage area of mid-band TDD. Uplink operates on a
Indication (0/3 bit), Sound Reference Signal (2 bit), DM-RS lower band with a downlink operating on mid and high band
Sequence Initialization (0/1 bit), PUCCH power control (2 thereby providing the best of all worlds enhanced occupied
bit), PUCCH Resource Indicator (3 bit) [2]. region, improved capability, and greater message velocities.
On-time modulation with smaller than 1ms delay between the
C. Cross Carrier Scheduling baseband units is needed to get all merits of 5G carrier
It is mainly developed to support HetNet consist of aggregation. E5 is the interface to excite immediate inter-
macrocells, picocells, femtocells, and radio resource heads baseband coordination with a delay of smaller than 1ms. This
(RRH). Whenever control information is sent from different gives the close, on-time adjustment of the baseband apparatus
bands operating on the same frequency inter-cell interference exciting 5G carrier aggregation with great performance, small
may get created. When all controls are handled by single delay, and larger spectral efficiency. Combining a 5G low
band interference can be controlled. It is shown in fig. 3 band with a 5G mid band can enhance mid-band occupancy
below as without and with cross-carrier scheduling, by up to 7 dB increasing the cell area by up to 2.5 times and
respectively. As the physical DL control path is routed across rising the count which can be supported by the mid band by
the whole frequency range of the relative carrier, interference up to 25%. The larger present capability means that rising
coordination techniques depend on partial reuse might not be traffic can be offloaded onto midband 5G which uses
sufficient to prevent interference. With cross scheduling, only spectrum more economically than 4G causes to an overall
single element carrier required to be saved and it can be used capability rise of 27%. Combining a 5G low band with a 5G
to share resources with another element carriers thus high band can enhance high band coverage area by up to 10
reduction in the interference takes place [9]. It does not apply dB increasing the high band cell coverage area by up to 3-7
to the primary cells. In another way, it is a process where times. The increased mid band and higher band coverage area
scheduling for all the bearers is managed by one of them also enables a higher offload of traffic from the lower bands
which is named as Pcell bearer. It reserves Scell traffic pipes to the mid band and higher bands gives a greater throughput
for the data only. at the base station boundary. It allows 4G carriers to combine
with 4G or 4G carriers to combine with 5G. The fifth
The main layers impacted by carrier aggregation are radio generation uses dynamic spectrum sharing plus dual
resource control, medium access control, physical layer, and connectivity along with carrier aggregation. When carrier
receiver design. While core network, PDCP, radio link aggregation is deployed frame timing and SFN are aligned
control, and layers above RRC are not impacted. From a user across cells which can be aggregated. Carriers can use
plane, perspective aggregated carrier is a single bearer like different numerologies ie. Slots, SCS, etc. Transport block
any other bearer. Radio resource control (RRC) signaling has mapping is per carrier basis. Cross carrier scheduling and
been modified to support carrier aggregation messaging and joint feedback supported. Carrier in less than 6 GHz and
procedures. On the radio link control layer only one greater than 6 GHz even in millimeter- wave frequency band
connection is allowed or user equipment independent of supported.
several component carriers can be assigned. There is a larger
buffer to handle data from multiple cells. There are various constraints that needs to be considered.
Multiplexers are required at transmitting termination to
aggregate element carriers and Radio Frequency filters are
required at receiving termination to isolate element carriers
[11]. These additional equipment’s will enhance the cost for
the apparatus and equipment companies. It raises structure
complication also. Power amplifiers and switches are
especially designed to fullfill the demand of a carrier
aggregation-based Radio Frequency system. Suppose
extremely linear power amplifiers are used for intra-band
carrier aggregation,.switches with larger separation among
the ports are used. Testing of this characteristics need
complicated test and measurement hardware and software. It
raises the expenses of the smartphone because of the
additional need of hardware elements for e.g., switches,
filters in the Radio Frequency series. Although carrier
aggregation is supported by the basic specifications, not all
devices will support it. The contiguous and non-contiguous
Fig. 3. Carrier Scheduling carrier aggregation is a novel idea for base station as well as
mobile station Radio Frequency specifications and needs the
Band aggregation will not have any impact on spectral proper extension of transmission. For example, closest path
efficiency, cell edge performance, coverage, or the network leakage power ratio, spurious emissions, and reception (e.g.,
cost. Peak data rate improved fully depend upon the number closest path selectivity), Hindering Radio Frequency needs.
of aggregated carriers potentially five in LTE-A with related The power difference among nearby element carriers can be
impact on UE complexity. Similarly on the uplink limited problem if the guard subcarriers for two-element carriers are
impact on UE complexity, a moderate improvement on used for message propagation. The symmetry feature of
spectral efficiency, and cell edge performance. Carrier spectral masks may benefit to design propagate and receive
aggregation is the foundation for better 5G. Coverage and

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 filters. Carrier aggregation will also alter some radio resource Preconditions for carrier aggregation are user equipment
management needs considering that a terminal will have to capability information, Access stratum release, user
carry measurements on various carriers at the equal time. End equipment categories uplink and downlink, supported band
user device power consumption will increase with an configurations, and carrier aggregation bandwidth class.
increasing number of element carriers implies that mobile Support for higher bandwidth LTE deployments was one of
stations will have to monitor additional DL control paths. If the top goals for IMT–Advanced. As expected,
the power of component carriers is same, it would be easy for implementation of carrier aggregation posed many challenges
the end user station to deploy carrier aggregation if they are to both vendors and network operators. Millimeter wave huge
intra-band and contiguous. However, it is difficult for inter- bandwidth helps to improve network throughput, by
band because of the bigger path loss difference for the inter- increasing accessibility and backhaul performance [12].
band element carriers. Load balancing between LTE carriers, filter design on user
equipment front ends. Varying RF characteristics between
The backbone of carrier aggregation when the element LTE carriers belonging to different LTE bands.
carriers have various occupancy would need a highly efficient
administration and measurement procedure. In a greater-
velocity mobile atmosphere greater Doppler frequency shift, III. SIMULATION RESULTS
the nonlinear frequency response of a power amplifier, The number of component carriers at various frequencies
asymmetric characteristic of a crystal oscillator, and effect of is simulated for LTE-A technology which is used as a basic
frequency aliasing may affect orthogonality among closest technology in the coming smartphones. The first component
frequency ranges and may greatly impact inter-band carrier aggregated at 10 MHz with NDLRB =50 and the
interference. The aliasing effect may considerably worsen the second component carrier aggregated at 20 MHz with
bit error rate response (BER) mainly when higher-order NDLRB =100.
modulation methods are implemented. So, for both
contiguous and non-contiguous carrier aggregation, the guard The power spectrum of carrier grouped is shown using
band for element carriers should be precisely set to reduce the hCarrierAggregationPlotSpectrum.m. Element carrier factors
intra-system or inter-system interference while maintaining are given below:
high spectral efficiency in message propagation. Dual Element carrier 1 Lower Band Edge: -14.8 MHz Upper
connectivity enables high-end-user data rates by permitting Band Edge: -5.8 MHz.
for combination of the throughput of the NR and LTE
carriers. In a radio access technology, such combination Element carrier 2 Lower Band Edge: -5.8 MHz, Upper
among carriers propagated from the similar node would be Band Edge: 14.8 MHz. The lteRMCDL tool is used to
more effectively implemented using carrier aggregation. generate each component carrier.
The table below shows different bands used and spectral The individual oversampling factor is 61%.
range.
Power (dB)

TABLE I. LTE-A INTER-BAND CARRIER AGGREGATION 0

Sr. Band Spectrum -10

No. (MHz) - 20
1. Band 40 2400
(2300-2340) -30
2. Band 3 1800
-40
(1710-1785)
3. Band 5 850 -50
(824-849)
-60
Sample of carrier aggregation configuration is shown -70
below in table no. 2.
-80
TABLE II. LTE-A CARRIER AGGREGATION CONFIGURATIONS -90
Sr. Class ATB Component -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
No. Configuration Carrier Fig. 4. Frequency (MHz) [13]
1 Class A ATBC ≤ 100 1
2 Class B 25<ATBC ≤ 100 2 Element carrier 1 Lower Band Edge: -25 MHz Upper Band
3 Class C 100<ATBC≤ 200 2 Edge: -5 MHz. Component carrier 2 Lower Band Edge: 5
MHz, Upper Band Edge: 25 MHz.

4 Class D 200<ATBC≤ 300 3

5 Class E 300<ATBC≤ 400 4

ATB stands for aggregated transmission bandwidth.

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 Power (dB) Element Carrier 3: Lower band edge: 1 MHz Upper Band
0 Edge: 11 MHz.

- 10
Element Carrier 4: Lower band edge: 13 MHz Upper
Band Edge: 23 MHz.
-20
IV. CONCLUSION
-30
Carrier aggregation is a multiple carrier technique in
-40 which multiple bands are aggregated to achieve higher
-50
bandwidth, coverage, capacity, network efficiency, spectral
efficiency, and data rates. It is a method in which the unused
-60 carriers or spectrum can be detected and combined with PCC.
It became crucial to use a licensed and unlicensed band of
-70 millimeter-wave to get higher bandwidth. It is possible to get
700 MHz for carrier aggregation. Using different transmit
-80 –
-40 -30 -20 10 0 10 20 30 40 power it is possible to handle large traffic on downlink and
less traffic on the uplink. Thus, carrier aggregation will be the
Fig. 5. Frequency (MHz) [13]
technology of tomorrow where we can have 32 component
Element Carrier 1: Lower band edge: -17 MHz Upper carriers using LTE-Advanced Pro, while 5G NR can give 16
Band Edge: -7 MHz. component carriers. It is possible to achieve more than 3
Gbps per user peak throughput after successful
Element Carrier 2: Lower band edge: -7 MHz Upper implementation of the technology. It is possible to
Band Edge: 7 MHz. dynamically share the spectrum, get efficient utilization of
not only low-frequency bands but also mid and high-
Element Carrier 3: Lower band edge: 7 MHz Upper Band
frequency bands.
Edge: 17 MHz.

Power (dB) ACKNOWLEDGMENT

0 The authors are grateful to Dr. BATU, Lonere, and Dr.
BAMU, Aurangabad.
-20
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