Chapter 11
LTE Link- and System-Level Simulation
During1 the development, standardization, and further improvement of modern cellular systems such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE), simulations are necessary to test and optimize algorithms and procedures prior to their implementation process of equipment manufacturers. This chapter elaborates on an open simulator suite developed at the Technical University of Vienna: the “Vienna LTE Simulators”, which currently comprises two simulators: the “Vienna LTE Link Level Simulator” and the “Vienna LTE System Level Simulator.” Accurate simulations of simple setups, as well as simulations of more complex systems via abstracted models are necessary in order to assess system performance at different levels. To this end, simulations have to be carried out on both the physical layer (link level) and in the network (system level) context. If no computation limitations were to exist, both simulation types would be achievable by a single simulation tool. Realistically, each of the two simulation types has different objectives, which are met by different simulation tools:
Link-level simulations are basically a software implementation of one or multiple links between the Evolved base station (eNodeB) and the User Equipments (UEs), with a channel model to reflect the actual transmission of the waveforms generated. This results in very computationally intensive simulations, ...
