Investigation of Inter-Node B Macro Diversity for Single-Carrier Based Radio Access in Evolved UTRA Uplink

This paper investigates the gain of inter-Node B macro diversity for a scheduled-based shared channel using single-carrier FDMA radio access in the Evolved UTRA (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) uplink based on system-level simulations. More specifically, we clarify the gain of inter-Node B soft handover (SHO) with selection combining at the radio frame length level (=10 msec) compared to that for hard handover (HHO) for a scheduled-based shared data channel, considering the gains of key packet-specific techniques including channel-dependent scheduling, adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), hybrid automatic repeat request (ARQ) with packet combining, and slow transmission power control (TPC). Simulation results show that the inter-Node B SHO increases the user throughput at the cell edge by approximately 10% for a short cell radius such as 100-300 m due to the diversity gain from a sudden change in other-cell interference, which is a feature specific to full scheduled-based packet access. However, it is also shown that the gain of inter-Node B SHO compared to that for HHO is small in a macrocell environment when the cell radius is longer than approximately 500 m due to the gains from hybrid ARQ with packet combining, slow TPC, and proportional fairness based channel-dependent scheduling.