ECE 445S Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Laboratory - Lecture 7 - Announcements

Prof. Brian L. Evans

Announcements: Cellular Communication Standards and Deployments

In the first half of the course, we applied signal processing concepts to audio, image processing, and communication systems. In the second half of the course, which started this week, we'll do a deeper dive into signal processing for communication systems. We will develop theory, algorithms, designs and implementations for acoustic and RF communication systems. In lab 5, you'll design and implement an acoustic modem-- you'll be able to hear the message to be transmitted, the transmitted signal, the received signal, and the received message.

Throughout the rest of the semester, we'll talk about Wi-Fi and cellular as example RF systems. Both have evolved quite a bit over the last 2-3 decades. Both process messages at baseband in the digital discrete-time domain. Digital cellular launched in 1987 with the first second-generation (2G) standard Global System for Mobile (GSM) for voice calls and Wi-Fi launched in 1997 as the IEEE 802.11 standard for data transfers.

Since 2006, capabilities of cellular and Wi-Fi systems have dramatically increased to meet the exponential growth in the demand for global mobile data traffic. Global mobile data traffic, which accounts for about half of the Web traffic today, increased 4000x from 2006 to 2016, or 2.3x per year (/News story) and 7x from 2017 to 2022 (projected), or 1.46x per year (Forecast).

Today's cellular communications are based on the long-term evolution (LTE) cellular communication standards from the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). 3GPP started in 1992 to refine the voice-centric GSM standard to increase its data transfer capabilities. In the early 2000s, there were six competing 3G standards. The idea for LTE was initially proposed by NTT Docomo (Japan) in 2004, and the first LTE standard was released in 2008. Here are several milestones for LTE cellular communication standards related to our course.

2004: NTT Docomo (Japan) proposed the initial idea for LTE to the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
2008 Q4: 3GPP Release 8. Initial LTE release. 3G with roadmap to 4G.
- Transmission bands of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz below 6 GHz
- Divides transmission band into subbands and places QAM symbol (1-7 bits) on each
- Multiple antenna elements: 4x4 downlink and 2x2 uplink
- Peak rates of 300 Mbps downlink, 75 Mbps uplink.
- 2009 Q4: First LTE service offered in Norway and Sweden by TeliaSonera using a USB dongle (peak 100 Mbps downlink) with LTE network built by Ericsson in partnership with Huawei
2011 Q1: 3GPP Release 10. LTE Advanced. 4G.
- Aggregate up to five 20 MHz hands to give 100 MHz bandwidth
- Multiple antenna elements: 8x8 downlink and 4x4 uplink
- Peak rates of 3 Gbps downlink, 1.5 Gbps uplink
- 2013 Q2: First LTE Advanced service by SK Telecom and smart phones by Samsung
2018 Q2: 3GPP Release 15. 5G. New Radio over millimeter wave bands.
- 10x lower latency for real-time control using sub-6 GHz bands, or
- 10x higher reliability for machine-to-machine communications using sub-6 GHz bands, or
- 10x higher data rates for consumers using millimeter wave bands based on 10x increase in bandwidth
- Millimeter wave bands 24 to 52.5 GHz (with 24 and 28 GHz bands in use first)
- Expanded 4G frequencies in use to be 410 MHz to 7.125 GHz to include the 6 GHz unlicensed spectrum
- Added 1024-QAM mode (10 bits/symbol)
- 2020 Q3: First all-5G smartphone Samsung Galaxy S20
2020 Q3: 3GPP Release 16.
- Enhancements for vehicular and maritime networks.
- Enhancements for positioning and localization.
- Enhancements for integrated access and backhaul.
- Support for unlicensed spectrum in New Radio including standalone operation
2022 Q3: 3GPP Release 17
- Basestations on drone and satellite platforms (non-terrestrial netwokrs)
- Support for new millimeter frequency bands from 52.6 to 71 GHz
- New radio "light" basestations
2024 Q3: 3GPP Release 18
- Artificial intelligence / machine learning for the physical layer.
- New radio: full duplex, radio positioning, coverage enhancements, repeaters and dynamic spectrum sharing.
- Support for extended reality (XR)
6G [Rohde & Schwarz]
- Digital twin/metaverse
- High-fidelity holograms
- Multisensory communications (touch, taste, smell)
- THz communications and localization
- Pervasive AI/ML
Jeffrey Andrews and Todd Humphreys, "6G Takes Shape", IEEE BITS the Information Theory Magazine, Nov. 21, 2024. (Access the article through UT Libraries)

Last updated 11/28/24. Send comments to (Mailbox) bevans@ece.utexas.edu