Index

• DL Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)

• DL Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) – for PDCCH
• OLLA for PDCCH
• Usage based PDCCH Adaptation
• Outer Loop Quality Control (OLQC)
• UL Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)
• Outer Loop Link Adaptation (OLLA)
• Adaptive Transmission Bandwidth (ATB)
• Extended UL Link Adaptation (E-ULA)
• Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)
DL AMC
• The target of the DL Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) algorithm is to improve system capacity, peak data rate
and coverage reliability

• The transmitted signal by a particular user is modified to account for the signal quality variation through link adaptation.

• The aim of the link adaptation is to estimate the transport block size for a UE and a certain set of allowed resource
blocks (frequency resources) for transmission

• For the Downlink Data Channel a fast Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) functionality based on UE reported CQI
is performed by the AMC algorithm

• AMC selects a suitable Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) for the PRBs/RBGs assigned to a UE as indicated
by the downlink scheduler.

LNCEL: actModulationSchemeDL;
Selects the highest modulation scheme for link
adaptation use in PDSCH.
QPSK (0), 16QAM (1), 64QAM (2), 256QAM (3),
Default: QPSK (0)
DL AMC
Start

DL AMC is enabled via dlamcEnable

Retrieve Default MCS

For retransmissions the same MCS as for the original

transmission is applied
Dynamic AMC active?

No

For new transmissions the MCS is decided based on Yes

CQI reports from the UE

HARQ retransmission? Yes

No
LNCEL: dlamcEnable;
Enable DL AMC; Use default MCS Determine averaged CQI Use same MCS as for initial
value for allocated PRBs transmission
0 (false), 1 (true);
Default: 1 (true) Determine MCS

End
DL AMC
MCS selection for initial transmissions

For the first transmissions where no previous CQI information is available from the UE the DL
AMC will provide the initial MCS to be used for the UE

• Initial MCS is specified by iniMcsDl

• If DL AMC is disabled via dlamcEnable, then no link adaptation will be performed and a fixed MCS shall be applied
according to iniMcsDl (Initial MCS for the DL) and the applied MCS shall never be changed over the time

LNCEL: iniMcsDl;
Initial MCS in downlink;
0...28, step 1;
Default: 4
Link Adaptation Measurements for DL
• MCS usage
- M8001C45..C73: Histogram for number of PDSCH transmissions with MCS0..MCS28
- M8001C103..C131: Histogram for number of not acknowledged PDSCH transmissions with MCS0..MCS28
- M8001C156..C176 and M8001C202..C209: Histogram for discarded PDSCH transmissions with MCS0..MCS20 and
MCS21..MCS28 due to maximum number of retransmissions

M8001C45..C73 M8001C103..C131 M8001C156..176 and M8001C202..209

Total transmission Transmission with Discarded
feedback NACK transmission

Optimized intial MCS ,

Check Counter and put less value
Link Adaptation Measurements for DL
• Performance on RLC level
• If layer 1 re-transmission fails, packets will be affected on higher protocol level
- M8001C137: Number of first RLC transmissions on DL
- M8001C138: Number of RLC retransmissions on DL
RLC _ARQ and MAC _HArQ
after harq retransmission fail than RLC layer start

M8001C137 + M8001C138 No counter

M8001C138 Retransmitted RLC Discarded RLC packets
Total RLC packets packets
Channel Quality Indicator Table

• The CQI is defined as a table containing 16 entries with modulation and coding schemes (MCSs)
• The UE shall report back the highest CQI index corresponding to the MCS for which the transport
block BLER shall not exceed 10%
64 QAM support 256 QAM support
CQI index modulation code rate x 1024 Efficiency modulation code rate x 1024 Efficiency
0 out of range out of range
1 QPSK 78 0.1523 QPSK 78 0.1523
2 QPSK 120 0.2344 QPSK 193 0.3770
3 QPSK 193 0.3770 QPSK 449 0.8770
4 QPSK 308 0.6016 16QAM 378 1.4766
5 QPSK 449 0.8770 16QAM 490 1.9141
6 QPSK 602 1.1758 16QAM 616 2.4063
7 16QAM 378 1.4766 64QAM 466 2.7305
8 16QAM 490 1.9141 64QAM 567 3.3223
9 16QAM 616 2.4063 64QAM 666 3.9023
10 64QAM 466 2.7305 64QAM 772 4.5234
11 64QAM 567 3.3223 64QAM 873 5.1152
12 64QAM 666 3.9023 256QAM 711 5.5547
13 64QAM 772 4.5234 256QAM 797 6.2266
14 64QAM 873 5.1152 256QAM 885 6.9141
15 64QAM 948 5.5547 256QAM 948 7.4063

UE reports highest MCS that it can decode with a TB Error rate < 10%
 taking into account UE’s receiver characteristic
Modulation and TBS Index
64 QAM support 256 QAM support
MCS Index IMCS Modulation Order Qm TBS Index ITBS Modulation Order Qm TBS Index ITBS
0 2 0 2 0
1 2 1 2 2
2 2 2 2 4
3 2 3 2 6
4 2 4 2 8
5 2 5 4 10
6 2 6 4 11
7 2 7 4 12
8 2 8 4 13
9 2 9 4 14
10 4 9 4 15
11 4 10 6 16
12 4 11 6 17
13 4 12 6 18
14 4 13 6 19
15 4 14 6 20
16 4 15 6 21
17 6 15 6 22
18 6 16 6 23
19 6 17 6 24
20 6 18 8 25
21 6 19 8 27
22 6 20 8 28
23 6 21 8 29 New modulation
24 6 22 8 30 and values for ITBS
25 6 23 8 31
26 6 24 8 32
27 6 25 8 33/33A
28 6 26/26A 2
29 2 4  
30 4 reserved 6 reserved
31 6 8
Link Adaptation Measurements for DL for 256QAM

Modulation type usage

• M8011C196..C199 PDSCH transmission using QPSK/16QAM/64QAM/256QAM for 256QAM UE
• M8011C200..C203 PDSCH transmission nacks using QPSK/16QAM/64QAM/256QAM for 256QAM UE
• M8011C204..207 PDSCH failed transmission using QPSK/16QAM/64QAM/256QAM for 256QAM UE

256 Need to check

M8011C196..C199 M8011C200..C203 M8011C204..207 failed
Total transmission Transmission with transmission
feedback NACK
LTE3073 - 256 QAM Extensions
Activation / deactivation due to MCS
256QAM activated if radio link good enough – indicated by scheduling of high MCS
256QAM deactivated again, if radio link quality goes down – indicated by scheduling of low MCS
CQI & MCS Tables are converted to legacy CQI & MCS of other relevant algorithem.

LNCEL: dl256QamReactChQualThr; LNCEL: dl256QamDeactChQualThr;

MCS threshold for deactivating 256QAM for the UE; MCS threshold for deactivating 256QAM for the UE;
18..24, step 1; 9..15, step 1;
Default: 22 (Value refers to legacy MCSs.) Default: 13 (Value refers to legacy MCSs.)
MCS

256QAM dl256QamReactChQualThr

64QAM dl256QamDeactChQualThr

64QAM

time
 LNCEL; enableAmcpdcch
Main target of DL-AMC-CCH Enable/disable CQI based AMC for
PDCCH
false, true
Default ; true

- Similar to data transmission, it is necessary to make a signaling (PDCCH) robust enough for poor UEs (low SINR,
e.g. at the cell-edge)
- Transmission with low ECR (Effective Coding Rate) leads to increased resource utilization which reduces the number
of scheduled UEs; thus good UEs should occupy less PDCCH resources and operate with lower number of CCEs
(higher ECR)
• 7 UEs (5 MHz), 10 UEs (10 MHz), 20 UEs (20 MHz)
- Any Link Adaptation technique must deal with a trade-off between signaling robustness (coverage) and
signaling capacity

• Macro cell case #1

• Uniform UE distribution

4-CCE
8-CCE 2-CCE 1-CCE
CQI-to-Aggregation Mapping
CQI to SINR, then SINR to AGG level wrt to different CFI

DLS_INPUT_LIST =
{
Broadcast, Tag, DCI-format, CSS, Prio-A;
CQI from DL-AMC/DL-OLQC Paging, Tag, DCI-format, CSS, Prio-B;
RACH Response, Tag, DCI-format, CSS, Prio-C;
Preamble Assignment, Tag, DCI-format, CSS, Prio-D;
Message 4 Assignment, Tag, DCI-format, CSS, Prio-E;
CQI filtering/processing UE-1, Tag, DCI-format, USS, Prio-X;
UE-2, Tag, DCI-format, USS, Prio-Y;
…;
UE-k: ...;
}

ULS_IINPUT_LIST =
Filtered, compensated {
and shifted CQI UE-1, Tag, USS, Prio-X;
UE-2, Tag, USS, Prio-Y;
…;
All DCI
formats… UE-k: ...;
}
1
CQI-to-Aggregation Mapping
1a

REQUIRED_AGG_LIST =
{
UE-1: pdcchCQI, AGG-DCI0, AGG-DCI1, …;
UE-2: pdcchCQI, AGG-DCI0, AGG-DCI1, …;
…;
UE-k: ...;}
OLLA for PDCCH - Motivation
• PDCCH carries information about the resources assignments for both Uplink (UL) and Downlink (DL) data
channels.
Scheduling
Downlink scheduling grant (MCS, PRBs, ..) request
Uplink scheduling grant (MCS, PRBs, ..)

TTI n TTI n PUCCH/PUSCH

PDCCH
TTI n+x PDCCH
PDSCH
e-NB UE e-NB UE
PUSCH
TTI n+y
Data Data
• If a PDCCH payload is missed the User Equipment (UE) cannot know whether it has been scheduled and on
which time/frequency resources.

? TTI n PUCCH/PUSCH
TTI n PDCCH
TTI n+x PDCCH
PDSCH
e-NB UE
e-NB TTI n+y
PUSCH UE
?
Waste of Resources!
OLLA for PDCCH – Principle
The PDCCH OLLA can be based on the PDSCH OLLA as follows:

Offset_PDCCH = deltaCQI + pdcchCqiShift,

deltaCQI from OLQC is used to control the PDSCH and PDCCH inner loop link (ILLA) adaptation. It is the PDSCH
OLQC offset available and calculated based on the Ack/Nack/DTX feedback from previous PDSCH transmission

and pdcchCqiShift is a term needed to compensate for the difference in BLER target for the PDSCH (e.g. 10%) and
PDCCH (e.g. 1%).

pdcchCqiShift is in use to fine tune the PDCCH BLER

The value is controlled statically by O&M: pdcchCqiShift or dynamically by the feature.
In the latter case it’s computation is based on a similar algorithm as used for PDSCH OLLA and
the target BLER PDCCH is O&M defined by pdcchHarqTargetBler (default 1%)
LNCEL; pdcchCqiShift
-10…10;0.1
Default; -5
OLLA for PDCCH – Functional Model
Decides #CCEs and trans-mission
power per UE (more CCEs/ power to
low SINR UEs)
PDCCH Link Adaptation
PDCCH Power and
PDCCH Inner New
WideBand CQI Aggregation Level
Loop Link Existing
Adaptation
LNCEL: actOlLaPdcch
deltaCQIShift
OLLA for PDCCH: activation
deltaCQI PDCCH Outer false, true
Loop Link Default ; true
Adaptation
Adjusts the dynamic
correction of UE SINR HARQ
estimate per user
PDSCH Outer Link Feedback
Quality Control Ack/Nack/DTX (for initial DL
transmission)
deltaCQI
LNCEL: pdcchHarqTargetBler
PDSCH Inner
BLER target for PDCCH outer loop link
Frequency Loop Link
adaptation
Selective CQI Adaptation 0.1 %, 0.2 % …3.0 %
Default; 1.0 %
PDSCH Link Adaptation
PDCCH is critical data to
/
improve robounest ,but LNCEL; pdcchAggDefUE
blocking will impact in PDCCH LA UE default aggregation;

PDCCh to improve we 1CCE(0), 2CCE(1), 4CCE(2),

8CCE(3)
work deltacqishift work Derfault; 4CCE(2)
Usage based PDCCH adaptation (LTE616)
Number of OFDM symbols for PDCCH is adapted to the required amount of CCEs
Balance between DL and for UL may be adapted based on CCE blocking and used CCE
• Activation by LNCEL:actLdPdcch (true, false)
• Number of symbols for PDCCH in a TTI is between the (bandwidth-dependent) minimum and
LNCEL_FDD:maxNrSymPdcch

• The parameter actLdPdcch can be set to True if all 3 conditions are fulfilled:
- LNCEL_FDD:maxNrSymPdcch value is greater than 1
- LNCEL_FDD:dlChBw value is greater than 25

• The Load Adaptive PDCCH algorithm optimizes the value depending on the actual load distribution between DL
and UL
• The initial value is 50% split between UL/DL.

• PDCCH utilization
- M8011C39/C40/C41/C42: AGG1 to AGG4 useage
- M8011C43/C44/C45/C46: AGG1 to AGG4 blocked
OLQC – CQI Adaptation
Outer Link Quality Control (OLQC)

• Adapts the channel quality information that is used by the scheduler and link adaptation to achieve the target block
error ratio (BLER) for the first transmission of a Transport Block.
• OLQC compensates any non-idealities of the link adaptation
• CQI estimation error of the UE
• CQI quantization error
• CQI reporting error 
• Time delay between CQI measurement and the reception of the subsequent data block 
• CQI interpolation error 
• Errors due to CQI averaging of PRBs
• dlOlqcEnable parameter is used to enable/disable the outer link quality control. When outer link quality control is
disabled then the corrected CQI values correspond to the reported CQI values.

LNCEL: dlOlqcEnable;
Enable OLQC;
0 (false), 1 (true);
Default: 1 (true)
OLQC – CQI Adaptation

Principle of CQI adaptation

OLQC – CQI Adaptation
• OLQC algorithm targets to achieve a Target DL BLER (dlTargetBler)
• Based on the Target BLER, OLQC will determine whether the reported CQI is increased or decreased
• CQI offset is defined by considering the CQI increase and decrease steps which should be balanced.
• Assuming that a CQI decrease will occur with a probability BLERtarget for the first transmission whereas a CQI
increase occurs with the complementary probability (1-BLERtarget) the balance equation can be formulated as:

(1  BLER target )  CQIstepup  BLER target  CQIstepdown .

Check count
NAC ACK
counter
• Therefore, CQIstepdown can be calculated from the parameters CQIstepup and the dlTargetBler as: For Low
traffic go
down and
1 - BLER target LNCEL: dlTargetBler; high traffic
CQIstepdown  CQIstepup  . DL target BLER go up
BLER target 0.1…99.9% step 0.1%
Default: 10%

dlOlqcDeltaCqiIni, dlOlqcDeltaCqiMax,
dlOlqcDeltaCqiMin, dlOlqcDeltaCqiStepUp
Hardcoded values
Quality Related KPIs DL
LTE_5432b E-UTRAN Average CQI Offset - FDD
Shows the average eNodeB used offset (correction) value for Channel Quality Indicators (CQI)

Summarization
Logical formula Summarization formula (Abbreviation)
formula (PI ID)

AVG CQI Offset =

average of measured Avg ([M8010C54]) Avg ([CQI_OFF_MEAN])
CQI offset values
Uplink Link Adaptation entities

– Purpose of UL LA is to improve system capacity, peak data rate and coverage

reliability by the adaptation of transmission settings to the radio channel conditions

– UL Adaptive Modulation and Coding (UL AMC) selects appropriate MCS for UL
transmission taking into account actual transmission reliability (BLER)
ILLA
– UL AMC is split into OLLA
• Inner Loop Link Adaptation (ILLA) – slow periodic AMC
ATB
– Periodic ACK/NACK information is used for calculating BLER (Block Error Rate) after
1st transmission or nth retransmission
– With extended UL link adaptation ILLA is switched off (see later in this module) UL LA
• Outer Loop Link Adaptation (OLLA) – event-triggered aperiodic AMC
– Periodic ACK/NACK information is used for calculating BLER after 1 st transmission of a
Transport Block in order to derive a compensation factor
– Adaptive Transmission Bandwidth (ATB)
• responsible for defining maximum number of PRBs that can be assigned to a particular
UE on UL SCH
UL AMC
Modulation Redundancy
MCS Index TBS Index Version
Order
rvidx
• Used to adapt PUSCH to different link conditions by variable 0 2 0 0
modulation and coding scheme, and variable bandwidth 1
2
2
2
1
2
0
0
• Inputs 3
4
2
2
3
4
0
0
5 2 5 0
– Ack/Nack Iinformation
MCS Q '
m I TBS
6 2 6 0
7 2 7 0
– SINR Measurements 8 2 8 0
9 2 9 0
– Power Headroom reports 10 2 10 0
11 4 10 0
• Outputs 12 4 11 0
13 4 12 0
– modulation 14 4 13 0
15 4 14 0
– code rate 16 4 15 0
17 4 16 0
– maximum amount of PRBs 18 4 17 0
19 4 18 0
20 4 19 0
21 6 19 0
22 6 20 0
23 6 21 0
24 6 22 0
25 6 23 0
26 6 24 0
27 6 25 0
28 6 26 0
29 1
30 Reserved 2
31 3
UL AMC

– The uplink AMC consists of 2 main components:

1. An inner loop LA (ILLA) based on BLER acting on either 1 st Transmission Errors of TBs or on all TBs transmission
errors derived from HARQ process.
– If set to false, only HARQ feedback for initial transmissions is considered in UL AMC.
– If set to true, HARQ feedback for initial transmissions and for retransmissions is considered in UL AMC.
2. An outer loop LA (OLLA) acting on the 1st Transmission Errors on TBs
– ILLA is a slow LA which will be performed every ulamcSwitchPer
– OLLA is an event based driven LA and will provide the capability to adjust to fast changing radio
conditions by performing emergency downgrades or fast upgrades of the MCS
LNCEL: ulamcAllTbEn; LNCEL: ulamcSwitchPer;
counting of all Transport Blocks instead of the 1st transmission Transport Blocks UL AMC MCS switch period;
0 (false), 1 (true); 10...500 transport blocks,
Default: 0 (false) Default: 30 transport blocks
UL AMC
• UL AMC shall select the MCS to be employed from the table below according to the radio conditions
• LTE829 Increased uplink MCS range, allows for extending the range of MCSs used for 16QAM UEs to MCS 24 
Approximately 25% higher UL peak rates compared to MCS 20.
• LTE44: Uplink 64 QAM (FL16) introduces 64 QAM modulation scheme in UL increasing maximum achievable UE
uplink throughput in very good radio conditions and improving average cell capacity.

LNCEL: actModulationSchemeUL;
Selects the highest modulation scheme for link adaptation use in PUSCH.
QPSK (0), 16QAM (1), 16QAMHighMCS (2), 64QAM (3),
64QAMand16QAMHighMCS (4);
Default: QPSK (0)

UL CELL
Capacity
UL CELL
16QAM Capacity 64QAM 16QAM
QPSK QPSK

Up to FL16 FL16 LTE44 – 64QAM in UL

Link Adaptation Measurements (UL)
•MCS usage
- M8001C16..C44 : Histogram for number of PUSCH transmissions with MCS0… MCS28
- M8001C74..C102 & C279..C81: Histogram for number of not acknowledged PUSCH transmissions with MCS0..MCS28
- M8001C177..C197, C485..C488, C291.. C294: Histogram for discarded PUSCH transmissions with MCS0..MCS28 due to
maximum number of retransmissions
- M8001C435..459 & C274..C277: First transmissions on PUSCH using MCS0.. 24 , MCS25..28
- M8001C460..484 & C278..C281: First transmission NACKs on PUSCH using MCS0..24, MCS25..28

# of MCS
counts M8001C74. . C102 M8001C74. . C102 M8001C177..C197 and
M8001C16..C44 M8001C435 .. C459
& C279..C81 & C278..C281 C485 ..C488
Total & C274..C277
Transmission with First transmission Discarded
transmission First transmission
NACK With NACK transmission

Expired maximum
retransmissions cycles

Total counts Negative counts for Negative counts for

for PUSCH allocation PUSCH (non-actual PUSCH non-allocation
allocation)
Link Adaptation Measurements for UL
• Performance on RLC level
• If layer 1 re-transmission fails, packets will be affected on higher protocol level
- M8001C142: Total number of received RLC packets on UL
- M8001C143: Number of received duplicate (= retransmitted) packets on UL
- M8001C145: Number of discarded RLC packets on UL

# of MCS
Counts M8001
Counter:
M8001C142 Counter: Counter:
M8001C143 M8001C145

Total RLC Retransmitted Discarded RLC

packets RLC packets packets
Link Adaptation KPIs for UL
LTE_5207b E-UTRAN RLC PDU Re-transmission Ratio Uplink
Shows the retransmission ratio for RLC PDUs in uplink direction.

Summarization Summarization formula

Logical formula
formula (PI ID) (Abbreviation)

UL RLC PDU ReTrR =

(number of received duplicated RLC Sum ([M8001C143]) / Sum ([RLC_PDU_RE_TRANS]) / sum
sum ([M8001C142]) * ([RLC_PDU_FIRST_TRANS] +
PDUs) / 100 [RLC_PDU_RE_TRANS]) * 100
(number all received RLC PDUs)
UL AMC – ILLA

– Inner loop compares BLER obtained during ulamcSwitchPer with BLER target
– Following actions, if measured BLER deviates from target BLER at least by a hardcoded factor of 1.2
• BLER ≥ round (BLER target * 1.2) [%] → reduce MCS by one level
• BLER ≤ round (BLER target / 1.2) [%] → increase MCS by one level

LNCEL: ulTargetBler;
UL target BLER
1..50 % step 1 %
Default: 10 %
UL AMC

– UL AMC can be enabled/disabled with actUlLnkAdp

– If UL AMC is disabled, then no LA will be performed and a fixed MCS shall be applied according to iniMcsUl (Initial
MCS for the UL) and the applied MCS shall never be changed over the time
– If UL AMC is enabled then the data transfer of every UE shall start with iniMcsUl and the MCS shall change over
time according to radio conditions.
– UL AMC shall provide the following functions:
• BLER averaging
• OLLA which provides Emergency Downgrade (EDG) and Fast Upgrade (FUG) Events
• MCS selection based on BLER providing the optimum MCS depending on radio link conditions
• UL ATB derived from selected MCS according to radio conditions. UL ATB process results in an upper PRB
allocation limit submitted to the UL scheduler.

LNCEL: actUlLnkAdp; LNCEL: iniMcsUl

Activate uplink link adaptation; Initial MCS in uplink;
off (0), slowAmcOllaATB (4), eUlLa (5), fUlLa (6); 0...28,
Default: eUlLa (5) Default: 5
OLLA
– OLLA is based on the 1st transmission ACK/NACK information provided by L1/L2 HARQ.
– OLLA provides a quicker adaptation to radio conditions compared to the inner loop LA which typically will act
every 100-500 ms defined by ulamcSwitchPer
– OLLA basically counts the BLER based on 1st transmissions (∆C)
min( C(t  1)  Cstepup , C max ), for first HARQ feedback  ACK,

C(t )  max( C(t  1)  Cstepdown , C min ), for first HARQ feedback  NACK,
C(t  1), for first HARQ feedback  N/A.

– Where:
• ∆ Cmax and ∆ Cmin give upper and lower limits on the compensation defined by hardcoded parameters
– ulamcDeltaCmax = 5
– ulamcDeltaCmin = -5
• Cstepup and Cstepdown are incremental compensation steps sizes, which obey to the following formula:
1 - BLER target
C stepdown  C stepup  .
BLER target

• Where Cstepup and BLERtarget are parameters

– ulamcCStepUp = 0.2 hardcoded
– ulTargetBler configurable (already discussed)
OLLA
• MCS upgrades / downgrades
- M8005C140: Number of upgrades
Every time OLLA is initialized or reset ∆C is set to ulamcDeltaCini = 0 (hardcoded) - M8005C141: Number of downgrades

OLLA compensation value ∆C is reset at each AMC period, EDG and FUG event.

Emergency Downgrade (EDG) shall be triggered, whenever the compensation value ∆C is equal to ∆Cmin
AMC shall switch immediately to the next lower (i.e. more robust) MCS
 
Fast Upgrade (FUG) shall be triggered, whenever the compensation value ∆C is equal to ∆C max
AMC shall switch immediately to the next higher (i.e. less robust) MCS

ulamcDeltaCini ulamcDeltaCmin ulamcDeltaCmax ulamcCStepUp

0 -5 5 0.2
Hard coded parameter Hard coded parameter Hard coded parameter Hard coded parameter
UL AMC During DRX/DTX

• At the end of data transfer the currently selected MCS shall be stored and a Timer for “historical MCS” shall be started.

• If the same UE proceeds with a data transfer within the time period 1000ms, then the historical MCS shall be reloaded
from memory and applied instead of the iniMcsUl

LNCEL: iniMcsUl
Initial MCS in uplink;
0...28,
Default: 5

• Before starting an UE specific DTX period or entering an Inactivity period the actual MCS shall be stored and a Timer for
Inactivity shall be started. For every 100ms period the MCS shall be decreased, but the selected MCS shall not go below
the initial MCS iniMcsUl.

• If the currently selected MCS is below iniMcsUl then no action during DRX/DTX and/or Inactivity period shall be required.
Adaptive Transmission Bandwidth (ATB)

– Besides selecting the most appropriate MCS according to radio conditions, the UL AMC shall also perform
slow ATB in parallel (fast means every TTI)

– ATB is necessary in case of lack of UE power to concentrate the remaining power on less PRBs, thus allowing
a regular data transmission in UL even up to the cell edge.

– ATB will inform the scheduler about the maximum Number of PRBs per TTI that can be assigned to a UE
based on the UE’s power headroom reports

– The periodicity of ATB is defined by the parameter ulatbEventPer which defines a multiple of AMC events
(periodic changes, EDG, FUG) after which ATB will be carried out

– ATB functionality can be enabled/disabled with actUlLnkAdp

LNCEL: ulatbEventPer; LNCEL: actUlLnkAdp;

UL ATB period; Activate uplink link adaptation;
1...50, step 1; off (0), slowAmcOllaATB (4), eUlLa (5), fUlLa (6);
Default: 1 Default: eUlLa (5)
Adaptive Transmission Bandwidth (ATB)

• Trigger conditions for UE to send Power headroom reports:

– dlPathlossChg : When UE surpasses a defined threshold for path loss fluctuation it shall report power
headroom to the eNodeB. This event driven report will handle fast variations of the path loss

– tPeriodicPhr: Parameter
Measurements to set periodic reporting of the power headroom
for PUSCH
- M8005C87, C88, C89: Minimum/maximum/mean power headroom
- M8005C54..C85: power headroom histogram

– tProhibitPhr: Parameter to define minimum interval between power headroom reports sent to eNodeB
Check pathloss , hroom, proro

1 sf = 1 sub-frame = 1 ms
LNCEL: dlPathlossChg; LNCEL: tPeriodicPhr LNCEL: tProhibitPhr
Downlink pathloss change; Periodic PHR timer; Prohibited PHR timer;
1 db (0), 3 db (1), 6 db (2), infinite (3); 10sf (0), 20sf (1), 50sf (2), 100sf (3), 200sf 0sf (0), 10sf (1), 20sf (2), 50sf (3), 100sf
Default: 3 db (1) (4), 500sf (5), 1000sf (6), infinity (7); (4), 200sf (5), 500sf (6), 1000sf (7);
Default: 20sf (1) Default: 0sf (0)
Adaptive Transmission Bandwidth (ATB)

ATB Algorithm:

1) At call setup the maximum number of PRB’s that can be allocated to a single UE shall be limited by the parameter iniPrbsul
2) ATB events shall act synchronously with the slow AMC, based on ulatbEventPer (this restriction is not existing anymore if
ILLA is switched off)

LNCEL: iniPrbsul; LNCEL: ulatbEventPer;

Initial amount of PRBs in UL UL ATB period;
1…100; step 1; 1...50, step 1;
Default: 10 Default: 1
Extended Uplink Link Adaptation – motivation

• It is more efficient to distribute the power over a wider bandwidth (more PRBs) using lower
MCS than transmitted with less PRBs using higher MCS
• If a UE is power limited (corresponding to bad RF conditions)
• This fact is due to Shannon‘s formula for the channel capacity of a bandwidth and power limited
channel.
 S
C  B w log 2 1  
 N

More efficient Less efficient

Wider bandwidth
(more PRBs) Few PRBs
Lower MCS Higher MCS
E-ULA concept

With LTE1034 the 3 processes (ILLA, OLLA and ATB) work synchronized but
independently to each other

With E-ULA OLLA and ATB are coupled with each other, while ILLA is switched off

E-ULA is activated with the parameter actUlLnkAdp

LNCEL: actUlLnkAdp;
Activate uplink link adaptation;
off (0), slowAmcOllaATB (4), eUlLa (5), fUlLa (6);
Default: eUlLa (5)

ILLA OLLA
OLLA
SlowA
ATB TB

UL LA E-ULA
E-ULA concept

Eliminate any possibility of BLER target drifting by

• stopping the SLOW AMC algorithm (ILLA)
• leaving for MCS regulation the OLLA algorithm Therefore OLLA algorithm is unchanged
and become the only one ruling the MCS
index up and down
OLLA reacts relatively fast when it comes to
reduce MCS index and slowly enough when it
comes to upgrade MCS index
Slow
ATB
1 2
The main OLLA
idea
3 AMC 4

ATB is no longer PHR based but BLER Most of all Slow ATB is coordinated with
based (with PHR correction) OLLA
It will become active only when the OLLA has This means that Slow ATB acts only when
already reached the lower possible limit for the OLLA has no longer margin left in terms of
MCS index reaction.
E-ULA algorithm overview
START • OLLA verifies BLER conditions and triggers FUG or
EDG events when necessary as in former releases
AMC • Counter (# of transport blocks) is incremented in every
OLLA TTI when user is actively scheduled
MCS
adjustment • ATB is triggered by
• # of transport blocks (ttiEventCounter) for
Synchronization Increment periodical ATB triggering (eUlLaAtbPeriod)
ttiEventCounter
OR
ATB No
Triggering ? • EDG
– Sent by OLLA when EDG event happens and the
Yes lowest MCS Index has been already reached.
SlowATB
– Therefore EDG cannot further decrease this MCS
PRB index. In this case OLLA triggers the earlier
adjustment activation of the Slow ATB process.

LNCEL:eUlLaAtbPeriod 
Extended uplink link adaptation ATB periodicity
10..50 TTIs, step 5 TTIs
Default: 30 TTIs
Next END
slide
 E-ULA and BLER based ATB

When UE being in TRIGGER When UE being in

bad RF goes to better bad RF goes to worst
RF conditions RF conditions
No Yes
BLER > blerTarget ?

When BLER is lower than the When BLER is higher than the given
given target and OLLA has target and OLLA has already set the
already set the MCS Index to MCS Index to eUlLaLowMcsTh, while
eUlLaLowMcsTh+ No No MAX_NUM_PRB is still over lowest
eUlLaDeltaMcs PRB threshold eUlLaLowPrbThr
Yes Yes
The number of PRBs is Amount of PRBs is decreased by
increased by factor factor eUlLaPrbIncDecFactor
eUlLaPrbIncDecFactor

provide MAX_NUM_PRB and

END NewMCS to other functions

LNCEL:eUlLaLowPrbThr  LNCEL:eUlLaLowMcsThr LNCEL: eUlLaDeltaMcs  LNCEL:eUlLaPrbIncDecFactor 

Extended uplink link adaptation Extended uplink link adaptation Extended uplink link adaptation Extended uplink link adaptation
low PRB threshold low MCS threshold delta MCS PRB factor
1...5, step 1 1...4, step 1 1...6, step 1 0.5...0.9, step 0.05
Default: 1 Default: 1  Default: 3 Default: 0.8
UL link adaptation summary
Parameter actUlLnkAdp activates Link Adaptation and defines its mode

ATB
actUlLnkAdp OLLA
PHR based BLER based

off

eUlLa

slowAmc

slowAmcATB

slowAmcOlla

slowAmcOllaATB
 Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)

• Before E-ULA (LTE1034) as open loop link adaptation

ACK/NACK
FUG event
upper Increase MCS +1
(Fast upgrade)

ΔC

EDG event
lower (Emergency Decrease MCS -1
threshold is downgrade)
reached
 Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)

• After F-ULA (LTE1495)

SINR is calculated based SINR to MCS + OLLACF Final MCS

on measurements lookup table MCS (SINR) + ΔMCS (OLLA)
ΔMCS

When
FUG event threshold is hit
SRS DM-RS (Fast
upgrade) Increase OLLACF ΔMCS + 1 ATB is influenced by
ΔC +/- ATBCF the power limitation
EDG event
Decrease OLLACF ΔMCS - 1 of the UE
(Emergency
ACK/NACK downgrade)

The mechanism to trigger a FUG or an EDG

New introduce in LNCEL: actUlLnkAdp;
event is the same in E-ULA and F-ULA and
fulla Activate uplink link adaptation;
is based on the defined BLER target.
If Fulla enable , other
not needed off (0), slowAmcOllaATB (4), eUlLa (5), fUlLa (6);
Default: eUlLa (5)
Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)

• Range of ΔMCS is proportional to the maximum MCS index supported by the cell:

Calculation of OLLA correction factor (OLLACF)

OLLACF,new = OLLACF,old + OLLAstep

OLLAstep = +1 if triggered by FUG or

OLLAstep = -1 if triggered by EDG

LNCEL:actModulationSchemeUL OLLACF range

for ΔMCS
QPSK -10...+10
16QAM -20...+20
16QAMHighMCS -24...+24
Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)

 ATBCF is calculated when the OLLACF has reached a certain value fUlLAAtbTrigThr

Calculation of ATB correction factor (ATBCF): LNCEL: fUlLAAtbTrigThr;

Fast uplink link ATB trigger threshold;
-10...0, step 1;
Default: -2
Yes OLLACF > No
fUlLAAtbTrigThr

ATBCF,new = 0 ATBCF,new = min (0, ATBCF,old + ATBstep)

fUlLAAtbTrigThr is always < 0 ATBstep = +1 if triggered by FUG or

ATBstep = -1 if triggered by EDG
ATBCF is always ≤ 0
Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)
System level simulation results

FULA immediate FULA high UE

MCS adaptation TP available

EULA slow MCS increasing

1 UE attached in good EULA lower UE TP during

radio conditions transition phase
Fast Uplink Adaptation (F-ULA)
Evolution of Link Adaptation

Link Adaptation UL LA E-ULA F-ULA

ILLA Slow AMC Not used with E-ULA Fast AMC

AMC
OLLA OLLA OLLA unchanged Modified OLLA

Slow ATB New ATB Modified ATB

ATB - PHR based - PHR and BLER based
Parameter LNCEL:ulamc​Enable = True
activation LNCEL:act​Ul​Lnk​Adp = eUlLa LNCEL:act​Ul​Lnk​Adp = fUlLa
LNCEL:ulatb​Enable = True
Comment OLLA and ATB F-AMC core integrates all
synchronization functional blocks