In the field of wireless communication, Macrodiversity is a kind of space diversity scheme using several receiver antennas and/or transmitter

antennas for transferring the same signal. The distance between the transmitters is much longer than the wavelength, as opposed to micro-diversity where the distance is in the order of or shorter than the wavelength. macro-diversity implies that the antennas are typically situated in different base station sites oraccess points. Receiver macro-diversity is a form of antenna combining, and requires an infrastructure that mediates the signals from the local antennas or receivers to a central receiver or decoder. Transmitter macro-diversity may be a form of simulcasting, where the same signal is sent from several nodes. If the signals are sent over the same physical channel (e.g. the channel frequency and spreading sequence), the transmitters are said to form a single frequency network a term used especially in the broadcasting world. The aim is to combat fading and to increase the received signal strength and signal quality in exposed positions in between the base stations or access points. Macro diversity may also facilitate efficient broadcasting and multicasting services, where the same frequency channel can be used for all transmitters sending the same information. The diversity scheme may be based on transmitter (downlink) macrodiversity and/or receiver (uplink) macro-diversity.

UMTS Handover Control and Macro Diversity overview UMTS handovers can be intra-system (inside the WCDMA radio network) or inter -system, from WCDMA to GSM 900/1800. The inter-system handovers (ISHO) are of the traditional type, also used in GSM. The interfrequency handovers are hard handovers and are similar to the inter-system handovers. The intra-frequency handovers, on the other hand, could be of a new type we call soft handover. In a soft handover there is a period during the handover when the signal is received in both the new and the old channel at the same time.

One characteristic of a UMTS network is that the network will communicate with the mobile through different BTS. An Active Set

is a list of Cells through which the UE has connection to the network, i.e. through which the Radio Link Setup has been made. This is, the UE may have active radio connection between itself and the network through 3 Cells simultaneously. In soft handover, the MS is connected to two BTS at the same time. In the uplink direction, the two signals come via the base stations to the radio network controller. In the RNC the signal to be transported forward to the core network is selected. The selection is done frame by frame for the speech and for data in smaller blocks. In the downlink direction, the MS uses RAKE receiver to combine signals from two different BTS.

If the subscriber is moving from cell site 1, BTS1 to cell site 2, BTS2. First the MS has a connection through BTS1. The power level (and signal to interference ratio) decreases as the MS moves towards BTS2. At some point the BTS2 signal is high enough and the MS starts to talk via both BTS1 and BTS2. The signal via BTS2 is getting better and the signal via BTS1 is getting worse. When the MS talks via two BTS we have what we call macro diversity.

Micro - Diversity

Referring to the Soft Handover and Active Set, there are two terms describing the handling of the multipath components. Those are Micro Diversity and Macro Diversity. Micro Diversity means the situation where the propagating multipath components are combined in the BS.

WCDMA utilises what is called Multipath Propagation. This means that the BTS receiver is able to determine, differentiate and sum up several signals received from the Radio Path. The receiver able to do this is a special type of equipment called a RAKE receiver. In reality, a signal sent to the Radio Path is reflected from ground, water, buildings etc. and in the receiving end one sent signal can be seen as many copies, everyone of them coming to the receiver at a slightly different phase and time. The Micro Diversity functionality at the BTS level combines (sums up) different signal paths received from one cell and, in case of sectored BTS, the outcomes from different sectors (Softer Handover).
Macro Diversity

Because of the fact that the UE may use cells belonging to different BSs or even different RNCs the Macro Diversity functionality also exists on the RNC level. The picture below presents a case in which the MS has a 3-cell Active Set in use and one of those cells is connected to another RNC. In this case, the BSs do signal summing first concerning the Radio Paths of their own and final summing of the signal is done on the RNC level.

Concerning Soft and Softer Handovers, the idea is that the Subjective Call Quality will be better when the final signal is constructed from several sources (multipath). In GSM the Subjective Call quality depends relatively much on the transmission power used: it can be roughly stated that the more power, the better quality. In WCDMA, the terminals cannot use so much power because transmission levels that are too high will start blocking the other users away, thus, the better way to gain better Subjective Call quality is to utilise multipath propagation.

As a conclusion it can be stated that Soft and Softer Handovers consume radio access capacity because the UE is occupying more than one radio link connection in the Uu Interface. On the other hand, the added capacity gained from the interference reduction is bigger and hence the system capacity is actually increased if Soft and Softer Handovers are used.

Hi, I didn't see FDD neighbor cell information in measurement report sent to BSS eventhough I set fdd_multirat_reporting = 3, fdd_rep_quant = 1, qsearch_c = 7, qsearch_c_initial = 0, qsearch_i = 7, qsearch_p = 0. Do you know how to solve it?