Design and Analysis of LTE Physical Downlink Control Channel

Long Term Evolution (LTE) of UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access and Radio Access Network is a Fourth Generation (4G) wireless broadband technology which is capable of delivering high data transmission rates and low latency with reduced costs, among other promises. A key research topic is to design efficient and reliable Physical Downlink Control Channels (PDCCHs) that carry the downlink scheduling assignments and uplink scheduling grants. A number of issues regarding the design and analysis of PDCCHs are discussed in this paper, such as the PDCCH interleaver, power boosting, power lending, receiver handling of power boosting with unknown boosting values, link level performance evaluation, and system level performance evaluation. Based on mathematical analysis and/or simulations, conclusions have been reached, including the adoption of the simple subblock interleaver to achieve desired interference randomization property; power boosting and power boosting limits; and a method of handling power boosting values unknown to the receiver in system simulations. These conclusions have been utilized to develop the LTE standards or adopted in LTE standards.