LTE parameters
Equipment related parameters include the base station, antenna, and terminal. The link budget parameters vary with the base stations, antennas, and terminals of different vendors. These parameters affect the link budget result. As a result, the downlink is unaffected in most scenarios.
List of LTE parameters in LTE link Budget
- LTE Transmit Power
- LTE Power Combining Gain
- LTE Receiver Sensitivity
- LTE Noise Figure
- LTE Antenna Gain
Let’s Check all one by one in details how all LTE parameters affect in LTE link budget.
LTE Transmit Power
Transmit power includes that of the base station and terminal sides. The transmit power at the base station side affects the downlink budget. The transmit power at the terminal side affects the uplink budget. With the adoption of MIMO technology, two or more antennas are used at the same time at the base station for transmission. Therefore, the power combining gain must be considered.
The formula for calculating the power combining gain is as follows:
LTE Power Combining Gain=10*Log(N)
Where, N indicates the number of transmit channels of the base station.For example, when a base station contains two transmitters and two receivers, the power combining gain is 3 dB.
Therefore, the transmit power in each sector (2T2R) is as follows:
46 dBm (40 Watt) in total for a 2×2 system with 20W from each transmit path = 54
LTE Receiver Sensitivity
The receiver sensitivity indicates the minimum signal strength required to enable decoding by the eNodeB or UE receiver if there is no interference. In link budget tool, each of the subcarrier receiver sensitivity can be calculated by the following formula:
LTE Sensitivity = SINR + N floor + 10.log[15000] + NF
LTE SINR indicates the demodulation threshold of the receiver. The demodulation threshold is related to the specific code modulation mode involved, the BLER chosen and whether other quality affecting features are implemented e.g. MIMO and Coding repetition.
The LTE SINR used in the link budget is obtained from the system simulation result. Nfloor indicates the multiplication result of K and T and is the density of the thermal white noise power. The value is -174 dBm/Hz.
LTE Noise Figure
LTE Noise figure is the ratio of the SINR at the input end to the SINR at the output end of the receiver. The unit is dB. NF is an important index used to measure the performance of a receiver. Noise figure is highly dependent on both operating bandwidth and eNodeB type. The NF of a common LTE terminal is generally 6 dB to 8 dB and the typical value used is 7 dB.
LTE Antenna Gain
The LTE antenna gain indicates the power density ratio of the signals generated from the same point by the actual antenna and ideal radiation unit when the input power is identical. The antenna gain quantifies the degree to which an antenna transmits input power in concentration. To increase the gain, reduce the lobe width of the radiation at the vertical plane and maintain the omni-directional radiation performance at the horizontal plane.
Two units are used to indicate antenna gain: dBi and dBd.
What is dBi? : The dBi indicates the gain of the antenna compared with the isotropic radiator to all directions.
What is dBd? : The dBd indicates the gain of the antenna compared with the symmetric oscillator.
dbd to dbi: The formula for the conversion between these two units is as follows.
dBi = dBd + 2.15.
The relationship between antenna gain, horizontal beamwidth, and vertical beamwidth is as follows:
G(dBi)=10*log[32000/(A*B)].
In this formula, A and B indicate the horizontal beamwidth and vertical beamwidth. G Indicates antenna gain.
In LTE system, we often use 65° 18-dBi directional antennas and 11-dBi omni-directional antennas as the antennas in base stations. Figure show the antenna lobes of the 65° 18-dBi directional antenna and 11-dBi omni-directional antenna.
We recommend the 65° dual-polarized 18-dBi directional antennas for the base stations that are distributed in densely populated urban areas and common urban areas. The 90° or 65° directional antennas can be used for base stations in suburban areas.
Now, Which Antenna to use for 4g lte antenna?
We recommend the 11-dBi omnidirectional antennas for 4g lte coverage in rural areas, especially in isolated towns. The 33° horizontal beamwidth antennas can be used for 4g lte highway coverage. The gain of such antennas can reach 21 dBi, which helps increase 4g lte coverage radius.
The antenna gains of the terminals in the 4g LTE system vary. This results in a large difference in the coverage scopes of different terminals. However, the 4g LTE terminal market is dominated by USB dongle at this stage and CPE antenna gain values will be based on final product availability. However, since CPE antenna is external, gain similar to those currently available in 3G/WiMAX product is expected.