Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Digital Object Identifier: Youjia Chen, Zihuai Lin, and Branka Vucetic are with the University of Sydney; David Lpez-Prez is with Bell Laboratories, Nokia;
10.1109/MWC.2017.1700088 Jun Li is with Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Southeast University.
Unlicensed Xw
band Unlicensed LWIP-SeGW
UE UE Unlicensed UE
LTE band band
802.11
802.11
LAA eNB LWA Wi-Fi AP WI-FI AP
IPSec tunnel
Unlicensed Unlicensed Unlicensed
band band band
UE WI-FI AP UE WI-FI AP UE 802.11 WI-FI AP
802.11 (a) 802.11 (b) (c)
FIGURE 1. Architectures with three different spectrum sharing strategies: a) LAA; b) LWA; c) LWIP.
er, the existing work cannot effectively predict the coexistence of these LTE-like deployments with
performance of a large-scale WiFi network. The the existing WiFi networks in the unlicensed spec-
time-domain analysis of WiFi, based on the Markov trum. As shown in Fig. 1, LTE and WiFi interwork
chain, only considers a standalone, single-cell WiFi with each other in the physical layer, with LAA
system [6, 7]. The spatial domain analysis of WiFi, eNodeBs (eNBs) and WiFi APs contending for the
based on stochastic geometry, only treats downlink unlicensed channel.
(DL) transmissions, and investigates a snapshot of Listen-Before-Talk: For fair coexistence, a new
WiFi access points (APs) that can transmit simulta- feature for channel access is adopted in the LAA,
neously under the CSMA protocol [8, 9]. However, that is, listen-before-talk (LBT). The LBT technique
it neglects collisions, exponential backoffs, and most is a procedure whereby radio transmitters first
important uplink (UL) transmissions, with the latter sense the medium and transmit only if the medi-
being the main source for WiFi performance deg- um is detected to be idle, known as clear chan-
radation in real systems. In this circumstance, better nel assessment (CCA). An energy detection (ED)
network-level analysis is needed for WiFi networks. threshold is set beforehand to determine the exis-
In this article, we aim to achieve basic compre- tence of ongoing transmissions in the channel.
hension of the emerging technologies in dynamic At the same time, a random extended CCA pro-
spectrum sharing. First, we provide a comprehensive cedure is adopted in LBT before data transmission
survey of the three main spectrum sharing technolo- to mitigate collisions. This LBT scheme, designed
gies standardized in the 3GPP. Second, we present for LAA, resembles the medium access control
a novel evaluation framework, incorporating both (MAC) protocol used by WiFi in many ways. More
time domain and spatial domain analyses, to inves- specifically, CCA plays the role of CSMA in 802.11,
tigate the network performance of these spectrum and the eCCA procedure is similar to the exponen-
sharing technologies. With this framework: tial random backoff scheme designed for collision
We theoretically study for the first time a large- avoidance in WiFi.
scale WiFi system, which is mathematically Figure 2 shows an example of DL data transmis-
challenging due to its CSMA/CA protocol, sion for the LAA in an unlicensed band. If the detect-
requiring a nontrivial combination of a stochas- ed energy is below the ED threshold during the initial
tic geometry analysis in the spatial domain and CCA, the LAA node begins transmission immediately.
a Markov chain analysis in the time domain. Otherwise, the channel is assessed to be busy, and
We analyze the co-channel deployment of LTE then a defer duration and a backoff period consisting
and WiFi networks in the unlicensed spectrum, of a random number of additional extended CCA
where the sub-frame boundary issue in LAA has time slots have to pass before a transmission can be
been considered and the channel contention attempted again. Once the transmission opportunity
among different kinds of cells is modeled. is gained, the data transmission is limited by a maxi-
Most importantly, we systematically investigate mum channel occupancy time (MCOT) for fairness
the performance of different types of cells, syn- purposes. Different priority classes may correspond to
chronous and asynchronous, scheduling-based different MCOTs in the LAA.
and contention-based, thus making the compar- Frame Structure: Note that the LTE technology
ison of LAA and LWA/LWIP possible. works in a synchronous manner, in which data trans-
Third, we compare these different spectrum missions are aligned among cells. However, the LBT
sharing technologies in terms of system through- procedure of the LAA may be completed at any
put, thereby shedding new light on the deployment time instant. Therefore, the channel access time of
and operation of unlicensed spectrum. an LAA cell is generally not aligned with the LTE sub-
frame boundary, which appears every 1 ms. Since
Diverse Approaches to Spectrum Sharing the transmission opportunity can be taken by any
In this section, we present the fundamentals of other contender, while the LAA eNB is waiting for
the LAA, LWA, and LWIP in the context of radio the coming subframe boundary, a reservation signal
channel access. is necessary to fill the gap. However, reservation
signals contain no information bits, and thus waste
LAA time resources and incur additional signal overhead.
The LAA technology is aimed at using LTE-like As shown in Fig. 2, to efficiently utilize radio
infrastructure to access the unlicensed band. resources (i.e., lengthen data transmission time)
Thus, its main concern is the harmonious and fair and alleviate the reservation signal overhead, the
P+ AA
P+ AA
P+ AA
P+ AA
P+ LAA
A
better performance.
0A
0A
LW
W
0 A 50L
0 A 0L
0 A 0L
0 A 0L
0L
0L
0L
0L
0 A 250
50
20
20
20 P+10
20 +20
20 +15
10
20
15
25
P+
+
P
P
0A
P
0A
0A
0A
0A
the UE density is very low, it can be observed that
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
Strategy 1: Strategy 1: the throughputs of both LAA and LWA cells are
AP throughput LAA throughput AP throughput LWA throughput small. The main reason is that some LAA/LWA
(a) cells have no UE in their coverage, which makes
35 no contribution to system throughput. However,
30 when the UE density keeps increasing to a relative-
Throughput (Gb/s/km2)