1

CDMA2000 REVERSE-LINK SIMULATION MODEL DESIGN AND EVLUATION

H. Gharavi, R. Wyatt-Millington, and F. Chin
National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)
100 Bureau Dr Stop 8920
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8920

Abstract These channels are allocated on a per user basis and are
specified by six different Radio Configurations (RC)
This paper presents the design and implementation of a [1]. For reverse traffic operation in RCs 1 and 2, a
simulation model for the cdma2000 reverse link. The single R-FCH and up to seven R-SCCH’s can be
model includes all the radio configurations and their utilized. These two RCs are designed for backward
corresponding data rates in accordance with the IS- compatibility with the existing IS-95 CDMA system.
2000 specifications. The paper first presents a tutorial As our main concern is the cdma2000 system, RCs 1
review of the traffic channel characteristics of the and 2 will not be discussed in this paper. For the
cdma2000 reverse link (subscriber to base station) and reverse traffic operation in RCs 3 through 6, a R-PCH
its physical layer performance by considered two types is required together with up to one R-DCCH, up to one
of rake receivers; ideal and non-ideal. The reverse link R-FCH, and up to two R-SCHs. Currently, cdma2000
performance is measured based on its link budget supports spreading rates 1 and 3 which correspond to
specifications. chip rates of 1.2288 and 3.6864 Mcps respectively.

Introduction The cdma200 also supports two basic rates: rateset 1

(9.6 kbps) and rateset 2 (14.4 kbps). Lists of the
Following the implementation of the forward link spreading rates, ratesets, and the possible data rates for
simulation models for the cdma2000 in collaboration different RCs can be found in [1]. The data rates in RCs
with Cadence design Systems Inc, we have now 3 and 5 are included in rateset 1, while the data rates in
completed the simulation model of the reverse link. RCs 4 and 6 are included in rateset 2. Data is processed
in 5 or 20 ms frames. The 5ms-frame option is not
Cdma2000 is based on the existing IS-95 CDMA included in our implementation. The data rate on the R-
system that has been proposed by the Tele- FCH can be fixed or variable during transmission. The
communications Industry Association (TIA) TR45.5 variable rates (e.g., 1500, 2700, 4800, 9600 bps for
committee [1]. The channels transmitted on the reverse rateset 1) are changed on a frame by frame basis. The
link consist of: Access Channel, Enhanced Access use of R-SCHs offers two additional higher rate
Channel, Reverse Common Control Channel, Reverse channels. For RC 5, each supplemental channel can
Pilot Channel (R-PCH), Reverse Dedicated Control accept information rates up to 614.4 kbps.
Channel (R-DCCH), Reverse Fundamental Channel (R-
FCH), Reverse Supplemental Channel 1 (R-SCH1), Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the transmission
Reverse Supplemental Channel 2 (R-SCH2), and system for the cdma200 reverse link. The functionality
Reverse Supplemental Code Channels (R-SCCH). of the blocks shown in this Figure will be discussed in
the following sections. In particular, the section on the
The first three are common channels used for the receiver presents the design strategy for the non-ideal
communication of Layer 3 and MAC (Medium Access and ideal rake receivers. Finally, after a discussion of
Control) messages from the mobile station to the base the simulation parameters and the link budget, the
station [2]. The focus in this paper is on the remaining results are presented for both ideal and non-ideal
channel types known as traffic channels. receivers.
R-PCH
Mobile Station encoder R- FCH
Receiver Base station decoder
Transmission

R- FCH
Despreading &
fading channel
Spreading

Combining

R-FCH R-DCCH Rake-finger 1 R- DCCH

IMT2000

R-DCCH R-FCH R-DCCH

Encoder Encoder Decoder
Decoder
&

Filter R-SCH1
R-SCH1
R-SCH1 R-SCH2 R-SCH1 R-SCH2
Encoder Encoder R-SCH2 Rake-finger N Decoder Decoder R-SCH2

Figure 1: Block Diagram of the cdma2000 reverse link physical layer for traffic signal.
Mobile Station Encoder 14400 bps for 20ms frame.

The framing and encoding process is performed at the Finally, the pilot channel ( R-PCH) is an unmodulated
mobile station encoder for each reverse traffic channel. spread spectrum signal used for initial acquisition, time
The encoding procedures for the Reverse Fundamental tracking, rake receiver coherent reference recovery, and
and Supplemental channels is shown in Figure 2. The power control measurement. The R-PCH is transmitted
first three blocks in this figure append bits to a frame of with RCs 3 through 6. The mobile station inserts a
information bits. A single reserved or erasure indicator Reverse Power Control Subchannel on the R-PCH. This
bit may be placed prior to the information bits. subchannel carries the power control bit, which is sent
to the base station for power control purposes.
The information bits are followed by the frame quality
indicator (CRC bits) and the encoder tail bits. The CRC Spreading and Transmission
(Cyclic Redundancy Code) bits are used as an error
detection mechanism at the receiver. Encoder tail bits The reverse channel signals for radio RC-5 (spreading
are used to terminate the convolutional code. rate 3) as shown in Figure 3, are orthogonally spread
and combined using quadrature spreading.
Information
Bits Add Add Frame Add
Reserved/ Quality Encoder Orthogonal codes are used to multiplex the reverse
Erasure Bit Indicator Tail Bits channels, i.e. R-FCH, R-DCCH, and R-SCHs. Each
Convolutional
channel is spread by an orthogonal Walsh function. The
Encoder orthogonal characteristics of the Walsh functions ensure
Modulation that the channels do not interfere with each other. The
symbols Block Symbol Symbol specific Walsh functions used for different reverse
Interleaver Puncture Repetition
channels are also shown in Figure 3. As indicated in
this Figure, the Walsh functions are converted to
Figure 2: Reverse Fundamental and Supplemental symbols (-1, +1) and multiplied with the corresponding
reverse channels.
The bit allocations for the reserved bit, information bits,
CRC, and encoder tail bits for the R-FCH and the R- The spread reverse channels are then scaled by relative
SCH are specified in accordance with the data rate and gains, which will be discussed in the section on the
the selected RCs [1]. Link Budget. After gain adjustment, the spread R-
SCH2, R-PCH, and R-DCCH are combined to form the
Returning to Figure 2, after the framing procedures, the I-Channel. Similarly, spread R-FCH and R-SCH1 are
convolutional or turbo encoder codes its input at a combined to form the Q-Channel. This complex signal
higher symbol rate for error protection purposes. (I and Q channels) is then applied for quadrature
Symbol repetition and symbol puncturing further adjust spreading (see Figure 3).
the transmitted bit rate to the desired chip rate (1.2288
or 3.6484 Mcps) as specified by the RCs. The order of Fading Channel
the symbols is then scrambled in the block interleaver
to provide better protection against bursty errors. It After spreading, the modulated traffic signal is then
should be noted that following the block interleaver, transmitted over multipath fading channels. As shown
symbols on the R-FCH, R-SCH1, and R-SCH2 might in Figure 1, the channel model used for our reverse link
be repeated. For instance, for the case of R-FCH and R- system is that specified by the IMT2000 for Vehicular
SCCH with a spreading rate of 3, the repetition factor Model A. This model takes into account both slow and
is 3. The parameters associated with each of the blocks frequency selective fast fading. The slow fading is
in Figure 1 for RC 3 through 6 can be found in [1]. modeled by lognormal shadow fading. The frequency
selective fast fading is modeled by the superposition of
The R-DCCH frame structure is similar to that of the R- multiple single flat faded paths with different arrival
FCH and R-SCH. The R-DCCH is used for the times and average powers. The average power and arr-
transmission of higher level data and control ival times are assumed to be fixed and are determined
information from a mobile station to a base station. This by the channel impulse response. Each path has a
channel can be enabled or disabled on a frame by frame Rayleigh distribution, with the power spectrum
basis. The datarate for the R-DCCH is fixed at 9600 or suggested by Jakes [3]. Figure 4 shows the six-path
 3

fading channel with its corresponding relative power Walsh function. The first stage in the receiver model is
(Gi ) and delay parameters. the receiver filter. This filter has the same parameters as
the transmitter filter.
After the fading channel, white Gaussian noise (WGN)
is added to simulate the effect of overall interference in The next stage is to bring all the rake fingers into time
the system, including thermal noise and inter-cell alignment for combining. The received signal at the
interference. receiver is a composite signal made up of the sum of
multiple reflections of the transmitted signal. Each
reflection has a different delay, amplitude, and phase
Walsh Cover shift. The separation of the composite signal into
(+ + – – ) or (+ + – – – – + +) individual time aligned signals occurs when the
Relative composite signal is delayed by a different delay for
X gain:
Gs1 each path. Therefore, a single complex signal input
SCH2
becomes a complex vector output, with a vector length
Σ equal to the number of fingers in the rake receiver. Two
PCH
Relative I types of rake receivers have been considered: rake
X
gain: Gd receiver with fade channel estimation and, ideal rake
DCCH
Multiplier
Complex

Real
Walsh Cover
receiver. The following provides a brief description of
(+ + + + + + + + – – – – – – – – ) the rake receiver design.
Imaginary Q
Relative
X Gain: Gf
FCH G0=0 dB
Walsh Cover Rayleigh
Real

(+ + + + – – – – + + + + – – – – ) Flat Fade x
Σ G1=-1 dB
X Relative D1= Rayleigh
gain: Gs2 340 Ns Flat Fade x
SCH
G2 =-9dB
Walsh Cover I channel PN
(+ – ) or (+ + – – ) for SCH1 D2 = Rayleigh
710 Flat Fade x
Long
PN
1chip
X

2:1
ns
D3 = Rayleigh
G3 =-7 dB

x
Σ
X X 1090 Flat Fade
Delay G4 =-15dB
D4 = Rayleigh
Q channel PN Walsh
1730 Flat x
Cover (+ -) Fade
ns G5 =-20 dB
D5 = Rayleigh
Figure 3: I and Q Mapping for RC 5 2510 Flat Fade x
ns
The dominating interference in CDMA systems tends to
be inter-cell due to the possibility of the systems having Figure 4: Frequency selective fading channel
a unity reuse factor (if traffic is very heavy in adjoining
cells). The carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I) is often The number of fingers in the rake receiver depends on
used to denote this inter-cell interference, and can have the bandwidth of the received signal. The number of
values of 0 dB or less. fingers denotes the number of resolvable paths that are
received – in other words, N fingers implies that N
Receiver Design reflections of the transmitted signal arriving at the
receiver with different delays may be detected and
The receiver for the reverse link model consists of a combined. In our simulation model, a four or a six
rake receiver followed by a channel despreader. The finger rake receiver can be selected depending on the
rake receiver is a coherent receiver that attempts to transmitted chip rate. Since we are considering a higher
collect the signal energy from all received signal paths chip rate of 3.6864Mcps, the six finger rake receiver is
that carry the same information. The rake receiver applied for our measurements.
therefore can significantly reduce the fading caused by
these multiple paths. The channel despreader takes the The rake receiver in our model includes a timing
outputs from the rake receiver and recovers the channel feedback loop to adjust the delays applied to the
data, by despreading the outputs using the appropriate composite received signal. In our receiver design,
 4

assumptions have been made that the receiver knows Simulation Set up and Link Budget
the multipath delays and thus, the time alignment on the
reflected paths is such that all the finger inputs are delay Having discussed the operation for each block in Figure
adjusted at the start of the second frame. In addition, we 1, the reverse link model has been implemented
have also implemented an ideal rake receiver where the accordingly using SPW (Signal Processing Works-
fading channel coefficients are made available at the ystem) simulation tools1. Subsequently, to measure the
receiver. performance of the reverse link, the next step is to
allocate powers to each individual traffic channel. Bear
The pilot symbols are also used to estimate the time in mind that CDMA systems rely heavily on strict
correction for each finger. Within each finger there are power control to effectively manage the channel
three paths; an early path, an on-time path, and a late capacity of the system. Each mobile has its own power
path, which are taken from different samples in the control to handle the path loss and aggregate
down sampling of the signal to the chip rate. Each of interference. In cdma2000 reverse link, a link budget
path has the complex PN sequence removed and is de- control has been specified by the standard to handle the
spread using the pilot W0 Walsh sequence. The de- power allocation on every transmitted channel [1].
spread symbols represent the pilot symbols with These specifications, which are briefly discussed in the
channel correction applied. The complex magnitude of following, have been incorporated in our simulation
symbols on each path are used to calculate a timing model
correction of once per frame. The timing correction
feedback loop means that the rake receiver does not The reverse link power budget is based on the equations
deviate too far from the correct timing for time aligned specified in the cdma2000 Physical Layer [1]. In the
fingers, and for correctly de-spread data. In addition, equations, mean power is referenced to the nominal
within each rake finger, the recovered Pilot symbols are CDMA Channel bandwidth of 1.23 MHz for a
also used to estimate and compensate the amplitude and spreading rate of 1 and 3.69 MHz for a spreading rate of
phase shifts introduced in the fading channel. 3. For simplicity, the Code Channel is used to represent
either the R-FCH, the R-SCH1, the R-SCH2, or the R-
The data-chip outputs from each finger of the rake DCCH.
receiver are fed into the channel de-spreader block,
which separates the data into individual channels using The output power of each Code Channel is set by the
channel Walsh functions. The receiver model assumes mobile station relative to the output power of the R-
that the short PN sequence starting position is known by PCH. Therefore, the first task is to determine the output
the base station receiver, and so it is locally generated power of the R-PCH, Ppilot using open loop power
and delayed by one frame to match up with input data. estimation. Then, the output power of every Code
The outputs of the individual fingers, after being Channel, Pcode can be calculated, based on Ppilot and the
combined (using a maximal ratio combining approach) stored parameters in the mobile station. The calculated
are demodulated, and then forwarded to the decoder Pcode is then applied to the Relative Gain block shown in
block. Figure 3, so that every Code Channel can be adjusted to
its desired output power for transmission. In our
The decoders for the channels are the reverse of the performance evaluation, the mean pilot output power is
encoders shown in Figure 1, with the exception of the calculated assuming there are no closed loop power
fundamental channel. The fundamental channel uses corrections.
blind rate detection to determine the variable data rate.
The fundamental decoder first removes the long code For the measurements Eb/Nt which is defined as the
(using the inverse of long code). The data is then ratio of the combined received energy per bit to the
formed into frames and each frame is de-interleaved, effective noise power spectral density at the receiver
and the output from the de-interleaver is fed into each base station antenna connector has been used. The
individual channel decoding path. Each path consists of Eb/Nt on the Traffic Channel is calculated from the sum
a de-puncture block that inserts zeros into the data of all the individual Eb(i)/Nt(i) ratios for each of the
stream where encoded data was punctured. Then, after code channels. For example, for R_FCH,
the removal of any symbol repetition, the error-
correcting process begins using a soft-decision Viterbi 1
Signal Processing Work System and SPW are registered trademarks of
decoder. The CRC is then checked and removed Cadence Design Systems, Inc. The SPW is identified in this paper to foster
together with any reserved bit. understanding. Such identification does not imply recommendation or
endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it
imply that this product is necessarily the best available for the purpose.
 5

user transmission and concentrate mainly on RC 5 of

N−1
the cdma2000 reverse link. The carrier frequency was
{Eb / NT} = ∑ [Eb(i)] / Nt(i)
R −FCH i= 0 R −FCH set to 1.9 GHz. For every set of experiments the mean
output channel powers were calculated by the reverse
where N is the number of reflected paths in the link model in accordance with the link budget. In the
transmission channel. The calculations of Eb’s and Nt’s link budget the user sets the Power Spectral Density
are given below: (PSD) of the received signal. Then, according to the
link budget equation, the model first calculates the
(path_ loss) . (pwr_ fch). (G i) average power of the pilot channel, Ppilot. Subsequently,
{EB(i)} =
R −FCH bit_ rate the Ppilot, is used to obtain the average powers for each
of the code channels that has been selected for
In the above equation, pwr_fch is the fundamental transmission (i.e., R-FCH, R-SCH1, R-SCH2, R-FCH,
power calculated from the link budget and Gi is the or R- DCCH).
relative power of the ith path. For instance, as shown in
Figure 4, for the six-paths IMT-2000 vehicular Model In these experiments all the initial values and relative
A these powers are defined as: G0 = 0 dB, G1 = - 1 dB, gain adjustments in the link budget were set to zero. In
G2 = -9 dB, G3 = -10 dB, G4 = -15, and G5 = -20 dB. the first set of experiments, all five traffic channels
were included in the traffic signal. The bit rate for the
Similarly, the total effective noise Nt (i) is obtained as, R-FCH was 9.6 kbps (fixed) and, for each supplemental
channel, 19.2 kbps. The PSD of the received signal at
N-1
the mobile station antenna connector was set to -76.5.
Nt (i) = I o * ( ∑ G j ) + Nt i = 0,1,....N-1, j≠ i The Eb/Nt values for each channel, which are based on
j=0 calculated powers, were then estimated for a given PSD
of the Gaussian noise (Ioc) for the average path-loss of
100 dB. Figure 5 shows the calculated Eb/Nt versus the
where I0 is defined as the total power spectral density PSD of Gaussian noise for R-FCH and R-SCH1 (please
of a single user in the cell and is calculated from the note that only the Eb/Nt for R-SCH1 is shown as both
following equation, supplemental channels have the same Eb/Nt value).
Eb/Nt, dB
(total_ power) . (path_ loss) R-FCH R-SCH1
Io = 16
chip_ rate 14
12
10
Nt is the interference power in (W/Hz) and is obtained 8
6
from the power spectral density (PSD) of the band 4
limited white noise, Ioc. This is defined in the dBm as 2
0
one of the user selectable parameters of the reverse link -2
model. Thus, for a given Ioc , -4
-6
-8
Nt is then applied to obtain the variance of the Additive -10
-66 -68 -70 -72 -74 -76 -78 -80 -82 -84 -86 -88
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) by taking into con- Ioc, dBm
sideration the channel over sampling rate.
Figure 5: Calculated Eb/Nt versus Ioc
Results The results, in terms of bit error rate (BER) and frame
error rate (FER) versus Eb/Nt, are presented in Figure
The simulation parameters and calculations of the 6. The vehicular speed was set at 100 km/hr using a six-
signal-to-noise ration were described in the previous path frequency selective fading channel (see Figure 4),
section. These parameters can be set by the user to and lognormal fading (path-loss = 100 dB).
perform tests under various transmission conditions.
Similar experiments were also carried out under the
(Ioc- 30)/10 same test environments using a six finger ideal rake
Nt = 10 receiver. The results, in terms of FER and BER (frame
chip - rate error rate) for all three channels, are shown in Figures 7
The results presented in this paper are based on a single and 8, respectively.
 6

Looking at the results depicted in Figures 7 & 8, and FER

1
compared with the results in Figure 6, we note that
there is almost a 13dB difference in Eb/Nt between the
ideal and non-ideal rake receivers. In our experiments 0.1

we have observed that the BER/FER performance

between the two receivers becomes much smaller at
0.01
lower vehicular speeds. This may be due the fact that at
lower speeds, the accuracy of the fade estimation of the
R-FCH
non-ideal receiver is considerably enhanced; thus
0.001 R-SCH1
helping to resolve the fading paths more efficiently.
R-SCH2
FER/BER
0.0001
1

0.00001
-5.5 -5 -4.5 -4 -3.5 -3 -2.5 -2 -1.5
0.1
E B /N t , d B

Figure 8. FER versus Eb/Nt for R-FCH, R-SCH1, and

0.01 R-SCH2 using ideal receivers
R-FCH (FER)
R-SCH1 (FER)
R-SCH2 (FER) Conclusion
R-FCH (BER)
0.001
R-SCH1(BER)
R-CH2 (BER) After a brief review of the cdma2000 reverse link, a
simulation model design for testing and measurement
0.0001
was presented. In this model the powers for each code
6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 channel are allocated in accordance with the IS-2000
Eb/Nt, dB
link budget specifications. The simulations were then
carried out using two types of receivers; ideal and non-
Figure 6: FER/BER versus Eb/Nt for R-FCH, R-SCH1, ideal. The performance of both receivers was compared
and R-SCH2. within a limited number of tests for RC 5.
BER
1 Acknowledgement
R-FCH R-SCH1 R-SCH2
0.1
The authors wish to express their gratitude to Mike
Miller (former NIST employee), Murali Krishnan, and
Siavash Alamouti for their help, particularly in
0.01 developing our forward link models.

References
0.001

1. [1] TIA PN-4694, “Physical Layer Standard for

0.0001 cdma2000 Spread Spectrum Systems”, October 15,
1999 (to be published as TIA/EIA/IS-2000.2-A).
2. TIA/EIA/IS-2000.3-A, “Medium Access Control
0.00001
-5.5 -5 -4.5 -4 -3.5 -3 -2.5 -2 -1.5
(MAC) Standard for cdma2000 Standards for
Eb/Nt, dB Spread Spectrum Systems”, March 2000.
Figure 7: BER versus Eb/Nt for R-FCH, R-SCH1, and 3. W. C. Jakes, Microwave Mobile Communications.
R-SCH2 using ideal rake receivers John Wiley and Sons, INC, , New York (1974).