GSM Standardisation and Technology
Training Document
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GSM Standardisation and Technology
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1 Objectives 4
2 Technologies 5 2.1 Why Digital? 5 2.2 Standardisation.................................................................................5 2.2.1 European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI)..............5 3 GSM Overview....................................................................................7 4 Radio Access 9 4.1 Multiple Access Techniques.............................................................9 4.2 Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)....................................9 4.2.1 Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)..........................................9 4.2.2 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).......................................10 4.2.3 Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA)......................................10 4.3 Channel Types................................................................................11 5 Modulation 13 5.1 Modulation 13 5.1.1 Complex Signals..........................................................................13 5.1.2 Fourier Transformation................................................................14 5.1.3 The Radio Engineers Dilemma...................................................14 5.1.4 GMSK Spectrum..........................................................................15
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Objectives
At the end of this module the participant will be able to: Describe GSM architecture and main elements List radio access technologies Describe the principles of GMSK modulation
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Technologies
Second generation cellular systems on a fully digital basis are the systems belonging to the GSM family. GSM900 and its twin sister GSM1800 (formerly DCS1800) are in worldwide use in over 100 countries on all continents now. In the USA a GSM derivative (GSM1900) is being promoted as a competitor to US-based CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) systems. GSM1900 is very similar to GSM900/1800, but uses a different voice coding system. This is more a political issue rather than a technical issue.
2.1
Why Digital?
During transmission through the entire communication chain signals become distorted by noise, non-linearity in amplifiers, interference from other transmitters, etc. Analogue signals may take any given waveform. Therefore distortions are undetectable since any signal form is valid. Digital signals have two distinct states, 1 and 0. At any intermediate stage, a digital signal can be regenerated to its ideal state. Error correction algorithms can be applied to detect transmission errors (bit errors). Such, a digital signal can be carried clean all the way from source to destination and be converted to an audible (analogue) signal only at the receiving users ear. As opposed to analogue, digital signals can be:
ideally and error-free regenerated packaged compressed stored reproduced identically easily de-/ and encrypted
2.2
Standardisation
2.2.1
European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI)
ETSI (European Telecommunications Standard Institute) was founded by the former CEPT (Confrence Europene des Postes et Tlcommunications).
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ETSI is financed by the European Union (EU) and contributions of its members. It is a co-operation between all the major telecommunication suppliers and operator companies. ETSIs task is to elaborate unified standards for telecommunications equipment in Europe. Presently standards issued by ETSI include:
Cellular: GSM 900 (Global System for Mobile Communications), GSM 1800, GSM 1900, GPRS (Generalized Packet Radio Services), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) Cordless Telephony: DECT (Digital European Cordless Telephone) Paging: ERMES (European Radio Messaging System) Trunked Radio: TETRA (Trans-European Trunked Radio System)
ETSI is located in the Sophia Antipolis technology park (French Silicon Valley) near Nice in Southern France.
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GSM Overview
The principle of the GSM System architecture is shown in the illustration below:
other MSC
VLR
HLR EIR AuC
OMC
other BTSs
Figure 1.
GSM architecture
A site (=BS) can have several sectors (=cell). Each sector consists of a number of TRXs.
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GSM 900 : 25 MHz GSM 1800 : 75 MHz
1710 1785 1805 1880 duplex distance : 95 MHz 890 915 935 960 duplex distance : 45 MHz
Channel spacing 200kHz Usual bandwidth values (GSM900): 5 ..8 MHz per operator in one or m sub-bands ore
GSM 1900 :
1850 1910 1930 1990
duplex distance : 80 MHz
2 x 60 MHz at channel spacing 200kHz =~ 300 channels Band subdivided by FCC into subbands A..F sub-bands A, B, C : 2 x 15 MHz spectrum sub-bands D E, F : 2 x 5 MHz ,
Figure 2.
GSM frequency bands
GSM 900 and GSM 1800 are twins. There are no major differences between them except the operating frequency: GSM 900 Frequency band Number of channels Channel spacing Access technique Mobile power GSM 1800 890...960 MHz 124 200 kHz TDMA/FDMA 0,8 / 2 / 5 W 1710...1880 MHz 372 200 kHz TDMA/FDMA 0,25 / 1 W
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Radio Access
4.1
Multiple Access Techniques
In order for several radio links to be in progress simultaneously in the same geographical area without mutual interference, arrangements have to be made to avoid system degradation due to mutual interference. This is known as multiple access to a common transmission medium. Several multiple access techniques exist:
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA)
4.2
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
FDMA systems allocate one frequency band continuously (in time) to one specific user, who is the only one transmitting and receiving on this frequencies during his time of transaction. Each radio resource (radio channel) is identified with the carrier frequency and relative bandwidth. In the GSM 900-case the carrier frequencies are in the 900 MHz band and the single channel bandwidth available for one user is 200 kHz.
4.2.1
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
TDMA systems operate with time slots, short periods of time. Each user is assigned to a specific timeslot for his transaction. Within a specific radio channel (frequency channel) several users are served. They share the channel sequentially in time. The time slots are of very short duration, the user, however, perceives a continuous speech stream due to appropriate compression and expansion techniques at transmitter and receiver. TDMA is the choice mainly in digital systems. From a bandwidth perspective, FDMA and TDMA provide the same spectral efficiency (measured in kHz per user). Figure 3 illustrates the TDMA principle.
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T = Allocated time
Slot for user 1 Slot for user 2
Slot for user 8 Slot for user 7
Slot for user 3 Slot for user 4
Slot for user 6 Slot for user 5
Figure 3.
Time division multiple access principle
2.2
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
CDMA follows the idea of many users using one single physical radio channel (spread spectrum approach). Coding each stream with orthogonal coding sequences separates user data streams. Orthogonality thereby provides (ideally) a cross-correlation of zero; i.e. each stream can be extracted errorfree by correlation. Multiplying each user data bit with a spreading sequence increases the used bandwidth considerably (spread spectrum). Since the signals of all users are by nature then co-channel interferers to any other users signals, resistance against interference needs to be provided by the achievable coding gain of the spreading sequence. More coding gain can be achieved by longer sequences, which in turn increases the bandwidth used. Sets of orthogonal (crosscorrelation = 0!) and long sequences are difficult to find. A cross-correlation other than zero means that the signal cannot be extracted uninfluenced by other signals, i.e. bit errors remain.
2.3
Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA)
SDMA follows the idea of separating users by their location in space (or in angle). By transmitting and receiving signals only into the direction where the user/basestation signals are coming from, interference to other users is
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reduced considerably. SDMA requires "smart"/adaptive antennas, which in turn require a certain physical space. Therefore smart antennas are especially to be deployed at the base station. SDMA is a technique which become popular recently, but it still will take some time to be deployed in commercial systems.
4.3
Channel Types
In mobile communications different types of physical radio channels can be distinguished (see Figure 4): Simplex channel: The generic channel type. A specific radio frequency is allocated to each party (FDMA). The channel is permanently allocated to the user. Usage: e.g. amateur radio, walkie-talkie FDMA/TDD: (TDD Time Division Duplex) The same radio channel is used alternatingly for direction A-to-B, then B-to-A, etc. Usage: e.g. cordless phones (half-duplex channel) TDMA/TDD: Timeslots on same radio channel are used for both uplink and downlink direction. Usage: e.g. DECT FDMA/ TDMA: A timeslot on a radio channel is allocated to a specific user. Different users are on the same frequency channel and another timeslot or on another frequency channel and another timeslot. There exist several frequency channels in parallel. Uplink and downlink directions operate on different radio frequencies (FDD Frequency Division Duplex). Usage: e.g. GSM CDMA/FDMA: Users on the same frequency channel are separated by different codes. There exist several frequency channels in parallel. Uplink and downlink directions operate on different radio frequencies (FDD). Usage: e.g. UMTS
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FDMA : e.g. walkie-talkie f1 f2 f3 f4
A to B B to A
TDMA/TDD : e.g. DECT
FDMA/TDD : e.g. CT2-system f1 A to B B to A A to B B to A f2 X to Y Y to X X to Y Y to X f3 C to D D to C C to D D to C f4 M to N N to M N to M M to N FDMA/ TDMA: e.g. GSM f1 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 f2 f3 3 4 5 6 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 .. 1 f4
f1 f2 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 f3 f4
Figure 4.
Channel types
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Modulation
5.1
Modulation
Regardless of the technology used, in radio link there is always a carrier frequency, which is being modified by the information signal. There are several ways to modulate the carrier. Regardless of the technology of the information signal (analogue or digital), the result modulated carrier signal is always analogue.
Where is the information? Amplitude modulation Frequency modulation Phase modulation
equidistant sampling points
Figure 5.
Modulation types
5.1.1
Complex Signals
While unipolar or bipolar signals (0 / 1 or -1 / +1) can be displayed in one dimension, complex signals span out a signal plane (2-dimensional signals). The distance of the signal point from the origin represents the signal amplitude (energy); the angle of the sample represents the value of the symbol. Such, multi-level signals can be represented with a single signal sample. This pie-slices principle is referred to also as angular modulation. In microwave radio links multilevel QAM signals are used, thereby providing a very efficient modulation scheme. In mobile radio the transmission path
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(air) is very variant and unreliable, therefore on four signal points in the complex plane are used to minimise error probability.
Multiplying the user data stream with two orthogonal signals generates complex signals (simplest case: sine and cosine wave). By superposition of both partial streams a complex (2-dimensional) signal is created. For details on modulation schemes refer to theory books.
1.2
Fourier Transformation
In signal theory there is a duality of time and frequency. The Fourier transform provides the means to equivalently transform a signal representation in time domain into frequency domain and vice versa.
1 W(kx ) = 2
w(x)
k/a -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
w(x) e
jkx x
dx
W(kx)
kx/a
-4 -3 -2 0
w(x)
k/a -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -4 -3 -2 0
W(kx)
kx/a 2 3 4
Figure 6.
Fourier transformation
1.3
The Radio Engineers Dilemma
As seen from Fourier transform properties, an instant signal change in time domain (e.g. a binary signal changing from 1 to 0) causes an infinite signal in frequency domain. Since bandwidth of any system is strictly limited
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this means that any system with a certain bandwidth can only support a certain modulation speed. In other words: bandwidth * modulation speed = constant. The radio engineers dilemma is that either we can have fast modulation OR narrow bandwidth, but not both. Since we would like to optimise both contradictory parameters, it seems well have to settle for a compromise, allowing pretty fast modulation at an acceptably narrow bandwidth.
5.1.4
GMSK Spectrum
In search of a modulation scheme providing an acceptable compromise of both parameters, the GSM community has decided to use a Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation with properties B*T = 0,3. The Gaussian stands for a filtered modulation signal with limited signal slopes (time domain), which in turn guarantees limited bandwidth in frequency domain. Minimum Shift keying is a modulation scheme featuring a continuous phase trajectory, i.e. no sudden jumps of the signal vector. The combination of both allows GSM to perform at a modulation speed of approx. 271 kb/s within a modulation bandwidth of 162 kHz (allowing a channel spacing of 200 kHz)
Figure 7. Digital modulation spectrum
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