TDD design for UMTS Long-Term Evolution

Abstract

Long-Term Evolution (LTE) will provide substantial enhancements to UMTS 3G systems including improved system capacity and coverage, low latency, reduced operating costs, multi-antenna support, flexible bandwidth operations and seamless integration with existing systems. LTE supports both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) modes to provide deployment flexibility in accordance with operator’s preference and spectrum allocation. This paper presents an overview of LTE TDD design and highlights key differences with FDD. Design challenges unique to TDD are presented together with adopted technical solutions. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate typical TDD system performance with data applications.