Parallel Random Access for Seamless Handover with Carrier Aggregation in LTE-A

Mingju Li, Yang Lu, Liu Liu, Xiaoming She, Lan Chen
DOCOMO Beijing Communications Laboratories Co., Ltd Beijing, China {limj, lu, liul, she, chen}@docomolabs-beijing.com.cn

AbstractCarrier aggregation (CA) is introduced in LTE-A systems to support wider bandwidth. In order to support both backward compatibility to LTE users and higher peak data rate to LTE-A users simultaneously, N-times cluster-DFT-S-OFDMA is introduced as an enhanced uplink multiple access technique. This technique promises simultaneous uplink transmission to multiple cells. In addition, handover performance is needed to be enhanced for LTE-A to further reduce the handover interruption time. In order to provide seamless handover in LTE-A, this paper proposes parallel random access methods based on the enhanced uplink multiple access technique with CA. With these methods, a user can complete the random access procedure to the target cell when connecting to the serving cell. Thus, the handover interruption time can be significantly reduced. Keywords-carrier aggregation; LTE-A; seamless handover; parallel random access; N-times cluster-DFT-S-OFDMA

carrier, and each component carrier performs uplink multiple access independently. Clustered DFT-S-OFDMA means that UE can be allocated for more than one non-continuous cluster of resource blocks, and one cluster consists of more than one continuous resource blocks [3] [4]. Handover is one of the most important technologies for a UE to keep connected to the best Evolved NodeB (eNB). Handover interruption time is a main problem which results in bad UE experience during handover, e.g. handover failure. In order to reduce handover interruption time, handover preparation is performed before handover command [5] [6]. However, there is still a long handover interruption time in LTE systems. Since it is a single carrier system, UE needs to stop transmission with serving cell during handover, and establishes connection to target cell by performing random access, which brings interruption to data transmission. So it is necessary to reduce the handover interruption time by enhanced random access. As we all know, the frequency resource of physical random access channel is a cluster of six continuous resource blocks, which could be allocated anywhere in frequency domain [7]. Based on the enhanced uplink multiple access technique, this paper proposes methods that UE sends random access preamble to target eNB on one cluster and transmits data on other clusters within a component carrier to serving eNB at the same time, or UE sends random access preamble to target eNB on one component carrier and transmits data to serving eNB on other component carriers at the same time. With these proposed methods, handover interruption time can be nearly reduced to 0.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Support of wider bandwidth is one of the important enhancements for Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE, LTEA). Hence, carrier aggregation is introduced to support both backward compatibility to LTE user equipments (UE) and higher peak data rate to LTE-A UEs simultaneously. Both continuous and discontinuous CA are taken into consideration. Figure 1 gives an example of allocating continuous wider bandwidth, e.g., 100MHz. To meet the peak data rate requirements, LTE-A terminals should be capable of transmitting with more than 20MHz bandwidth (the bandwidth of a component carrier), e.g., 40MHz or even up to 100MHz [1] [2]. In LTE Release 8, Single Carrier- Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is used for uplink transmission, where continuous resource blocks with high channel quality would be allocated for data transmission, while control channel information would be transmitted on the edges of the chunk [3]. With the backward compatibility requirements in LTE-A CA systems, SC-FDMA cannot be used to expand the transmission bandwidth as specified in LTE Release 8. As a result, an enhanced uplink transmission scheme, N-times clusterDiscrete Fourier Transform Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (DFT-S-OFDMA) is introduced, which has been agreed in Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Radio Access Network 1 (RAN1) workgroup. In other words, clustered DFT-S-OFDMA is used within a component

Figure 1. Continuous wider bandwidth

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in section II, the handover interruption time in LTE systems will be

IEEE VTS APWCS 2011

reviewed. After that, section III gives the details of proposed methods and corresponding analysis is given in section IV. Finally, section V contains the concluding remarks. II. HANDOVER INTERRUPTION TIME IN LTE

For contention free access, U-plane transmission can be resumed before RRC signaling is completed. Thus the delay due to RRC signaling can be avoided. Table I gives the U-plane interruption components and the estimates. In this table, we can see that the total average interruption time is estimated as below: for contention based access, UL interruption time is about 25ms and DL interruption time is about 18.5ms. While for contention free access, both UL and DL interruption time are about 12ms. In other words, the shortest interruption time in the optimistic case is 12ms, where the time of random access is the most important component of interruption time. In order to achieve the goal of seamless handover in LTE-A, this paper proposes methods to reduce the interruption time nearly to 0. III. PARALLEL RANDOM ACCESS

The generic handover procedure in LTE is shown in Figure 2, with associated delay encountered in the procedure. In the figure three constituents for the User Plane (U-plane) interruption are identified, i.e., (a) radio layer process, (b) Uplink (UL) Radio Resource Connection (RRC) signaling, and (c) Downlink (DL) RRC signaling. Each component is elaborated below[8]. Radio layer process (a) This is the delay between Handover Command and UL resource allocation, consisting of downlink synchronization and random access procedure. The delay caused by downlink synchronization should be less than 1ms. For delay caused by random access procedure, we consider the worst case that non-dedicated random access procedure is applied. If no retransmission is needed, the delay consists of (1) waiting for access slot for the preamble, (2) transmission of the preamble, and (3) waiting for the decoding of the random access response which contains timing advance and UL resource allocation for Handover Complete message. The mean time of (1) could be 2.5ms (assuming two access slots in 10ms). The common value of (2) is 1ms. The delay (3) is about 7.5ms. Total delay of (a) is about 12ms. RRC signaling (b, c) For contention based access, the resuming of U-plane is triggered by RRC signaling, i.e., Handover Complete triggers resuming of the DL U-plane in the target eNB, whereas the Handover Complete Acknowledge (ACK) triggers the resuming of the UL U-plane. In the optimal case, the delay for RRC signaling is expected to be 5ms adding an average additional delay of 1.5ms considering a 30% retransmission.

In LTE-A, different eNBs may have different component carriers and different load rates. During handover, target eNB needs to allocate resource to UE for random access according to the condition of component carriers in serving eNB and target eNB. Hence, two cases may appear. One is that the component carrier allocated by target eNB for random access happens to be the same as the component carrier used by the UE in serving eNB. Much worse is that UE cannot release the resource of that component carrier in serving eNB since there is only one uplink component carrier in serving eNB or the load is very high on other component carriers. In this case, the UE has no choice but to send random access preamble to target eNB and send data to serving eNB by the same one UL component carrier. The other case is that UE can send random access preamble to target eNB by one component carrier and send data to serving eNB by another component carrier since there is a different component carrier in target eNB. This paper proposes methods to solve the problems in both cases. Figure 3 describes the resource allocation of method 1 for the former case. On one UL component carrier, target eNB allocates a cluster for UE to send random access and serving eNB allocates other clusters for UE to send data. In this case, one UL component carrier is sufficient for UE connecting with multiple cells simultaneously. Figure 4 describes the resource allocation of method 2 for the latter case. In this case, target eNB allocates a cluster on a UL component carrier for UE to send random access, while serving eNB allocates clusters on other UL component carrier for UE to send data. In this case, two paths of communications can be transmitted on different component carriers independently.
TABLE I. U-PLANE INTERRUPTION COMPONENTS AND ESTIMATES Estimate [ms] (contention based) 12 6.5 6.5 Estimate [ms] (contention free) 12 0 0

Component a b Figure 2. U-plane interruption components. c Radio layer process UL RRC signaling DL RRC signaling

There is another important principle for selectting component carriers for continuing transmission with source eNB and performing random access to target eNB,. For example, there are two cells in source eNB. Each cell is composed of one DL component carrier and one UL component carrier. If the channel quality of cell1 is better than that of cell2 at the moment of handover, cell1 is preferred for continue transmission with source eNB. In the same way, a cell with higher channel quality is preferred to send random access preamble to target eNB.

packets by different power control adjustment of serving eNB and target eNB. Besides, sending random access preamble to target eNB will be given a high priority if there is a shortage in UE power. For contention free access, after decoding the timing advance in random access response, UE can resume uplink and downlink transmission with target eNB without any dedicated triggering signaling and release the connection with serving eNB. Thus the handover interruption time can be reduced to almost 0. But for contention based random access, the resuming of downlink transmission and uplink transmission in target eNB should be triggered by Handover Complete and Handover Complete ACK respectively. In order to further reduce the interruption time for contention based handover, enhancement in stage 2 is necessary. During stage 2, UE communicates with serving eNB as usual. At the same time, UE transmits Handover Complete to target eNB and receives Handover Complete ACK from target eNB. It is a little bit different from stage 1 that UE needs to send Handover Complete to the target eNB in uplink synchronization style in stage 2. In other words, UE need to uplink synchronize with serving eNB and target eNB simultaneously. Thus, it should apply different Cyclic Prefixes (CPs) for two paths or use an extended CP for both paths if method1 is used. After stage 2, both downlink and uplink transmission in target eNB are resumed and connection in serving eNB can be released. Thus handover interruption time for contention based random access can be nearly reduced to 0. The continuous U-plane of the new methods for contention based access can be seen in Figure 6.

Figure 3. Resource allocation of method 1.

Figure 4. Resource allocation of method 2.

The uplink transmission flow of these two methods is shown in Figure 5. After receiving Handover Command, UE decides whether it will use the same component carrier to perform random access and transmit to serving eNB or not. If Yes, method 1 will be used; else, method 2 will be used. Before transmission, UE processes the data to serving eNB according to power control and timing advance signal from serving eNB; at the same time, UE processes the preamble or RRC signaling to target eNB according to power control and timing advance signal from target eNB. Such processing is necessary in two stages with different signaling in handover procedure. Stage 1 completes the random access procedure to target eNB, i.e. radio layer process. In stage 1, UE processes data to serving eNB according to power control and timing advance signal from serving eNB; at the same time, UE processes preamble to target eNB also according to power control signal from target eNB since there is no timing advance from target eNB at that time. Stage 2 completes the UL and DL RRC signaling to target eNB. In stage 2, UE can still process data to serving eNB according to power control and timing advance signal from serving eNB; at the same time, UE processes UL RRC signaling to target eNB according to power control and timing advance signal from target eNB. For contention free access, stage 1 is enough to achieve seamless handover. While for contention based access, enhancement in stage 2 is also necessary in addition to stage 1. During stage 1, UE communicates with serving eNB as usual. At the same time, UE performs random access to target cell and the random access procedure consists of (1) waits for the access slot for the preamble, (2) transmission of the preamble, (3) waiting for the decoding the random access response. Typically, UE needs to process these two parts of

Figure 5. UL transmission flow of mehods.

Figure 6 shows that the DL user plane is changed to target eNB after receiving Handover Complete. It means that there is at least one packet of data has been received by target eNB before received Handover Complete. Thus data forwarding need to be started before. It takes about 10ms ~ 20ms [9] for data transmission from source eNB and target eNB. As noted before, The delay between Handover Command and UL resource allocation is about 12ms. The RRC signaling such as Handover Complete is expected to be 6.5ms. Thus source eNB also need to start data forwarding at the time of sending Handover Command. But the packet which forwarded first should be the newest received packet from gateway. Since the older buffered data packet will be sent by source eNB and may be received correctly by the UE. In addition, when forwarding data to target eNB, source eNB can continue to send data packets to UE. IV. EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPACTS ANALYSIS

between serving eNB and target eNB or UE by using Handover Request, Handover Request ACK and Handover Command. Figure 7 gives the procedure of such information exchange in detail. First, serving eNB suggests an uplink carrier for random access by Handover Request [10][11]. Best of all, this uplink carrier is a carrier which is not used by the UE in serving eNB and supported by the target eNB. After receiving Handover Request from serving eNB, target eNB reselects a suitable uplink carrier for the UE to perform random access, and indicates this uplink carrier to serving eNB through Handover Request ACK. Then serving eNB sends Handover Command including the information of the uplink carrier to the UE. Anyway, compared to current standard, the proposed methods just need a small change and reduce the handover interruption time significantly.

Based on above description, we can see that the proposed methods can reduce handover interruption time. The later connection releases from serving eNB, the shorter handover interruption time and the more complicated UE transmission. Table II gives the handover interruption time and corresponding UE activities of the proposed methods. After stage 1, handover interruption time is reduced from 12ms to almost 0 for contention free access, while it is reduced from 25ms to about 13ms for contention based access. Thus enhancement in stage 2 is also necessary for contention based access. After stage 2, the handover interruption time can be further reduced from 13ms to almost 0. There are some impacts introduced by proposed methods on current standard. Since there will be multiple candidate uplink carriers for performing random access in target cell with carrier aggregation, it is necessary to select a more suitable one. And this function will be executed between serving eNB and target eNB. Thus some information has to be exchanged
Figure 7. Procedure of deciding random access resource

In addition, there are also some impacts on the UE. These impacts mainly focus on uplink transmission scheme. Since UE needs to uplink transmit to both serving eNB and target eNB, these two parts of data packets need to be processed by different power control adjustment and timing advance. It is easy for scenario 2 especially for non-continuous CA. While for scenario 1, UE needs to perform two paths of data processing within one component carrier. For simultaneous uplink to multiple eNBs, UE can adopt timing advance from serving eNB at stage 1 and adopt extended CP at stage 2 as noted before. Finally, there is also a problem on uplink power control. In the methods, UE adjusts the power independently for data and signal to serving eNB and to target eNB according to power control signal from serving eNB and target eNB respectively.
TABLE II. U-PLANE INTERRUPTION TIME OF PROPOSED METHODS contention based [ms] Saved Remainder time time 12 13 13 0 contention free [ms] Saved Remainder time time 12 0 0

Component Radio process Figure 6. Continuous U-plane of new method for contention based access RRC signalings layer

In one word, although the methods have some impacts on current specification and bring some complexity to UE uplink transmission, they are able to significantly improve the handover performance. V. CONCLUSION

This paper proposed parallel random access methods for seamless handover with carrier aggregation in LTE-A. With proosed methods, UE can send random access preamble to target eNB and transmit to serving eNB simultaneously by different clusters within a component carrier or different component carriers. In this case, the handover interruption time can be nearly reduced to 0 in the case of contention free based random access. Using these methods, UE can also send Handover Complete to trigger the resuming of data transmission in target eNB and transmit to serving eNB simultaneously. Thus the handover interruption time for contention based access can be further reduced to 0. In conclusion, proposed methods are able to provide a seamless handover for LTE-A. REFERENCE 3GPP TR 36.913 V9.0.0, Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Requirements for further advancements for Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) (LTE-Advanced) (Release 9), Dec. 2009

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R1-082575, NTT DOCOMO, Proposals for LTE-Advanced Technologies, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 meeting # 53bis, Jun. 2008. [3] R1-090298, NEC Group, Effectiveness of Discontinuous Resource Allocation for LTE-A Uplink within 20MHz, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #55bis, Jan. 2009. [4] R1-082609, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Uplink Multiple access for LTE-Advanced, RAN WG1 Meeting #53bis, Jun. 2008. [5] R2-081731, NTT DOCOMO, Handover failure handling, 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 meeting #61bis. [6] R2-081449, Alcatel-Lucent, Mobility failure handling, 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 meeting #61bis. [7] 3GPP TS 36.211 V9.1.0, Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical Channels and Modulation (Release 9), Mar. 2010. [8] 3GPP TR 25.912 V 9.0.0, Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Feasibility study for evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) (Release 9), Sep. 2009. [9] IEEE C802.16m-08/597, 802.16m Inter-BS Communications. Jul., 2008. [10] 3GPP TS 36.300 V9.4.0, Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Requirements for further advancements for Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall discription; Stage 2 (Release 9), Jun. 2010. [11] 3GPP TS 36.331 V9.2.0, Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification (Release 9), Mar. 2010.

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