Welcome to the TU Wien Institute of Telecommunications’ LTE Advanced Downlink Link Level simulator webpage. Here you will be able to get the latest version of the in-house developed, Matlab-based Downlink Physical Layer (Link Level) simulator. The simulator is released under the terms of a non-commercial academic use license; please read the license agreement carefully. If you are experiencing problems downloading the simulator, please write an e-mail to sim-download@nt.tuwien.ac.at.
The LTE-A Link Level Simulator is under constant development and as such, new features are planned to be added. For a complete list of all the functionalities, please refer to the documentation included with the simulator.
If you want to receive information about future updates you can subscribe to our LTE simulator mailing list. Note that you can change the display language to english in the selection panel to the right.
License
The LTE simulators are published under a non-commercial academic use license. Please make sure that you understand the terms and conditions of the license before you download any of the available software packages. Would you require a license different to a non-commercial academic one please contact Prof. Markus Rupp.
Notice that parts of the code are under the GNU Lesser General Public License and the MIT License.
The LTE-A Downlink Link Level Simulator contains code from the following sources:
- Iterative Solutions Coded Modulation Library (ISCML). An open source toolbox for simulating capacity approaching codes in Matlab. It is licensed as free software under the GNU Lesser General Public License.
- pycrc. A free, easy to use Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) calculator and source code generator. pycrc and its generated code are licensed under the MIT License.
LTE Link Level Simulator Referencing
If you are using the simulator for your scientific work, please use the reference below:
@Book{VLS-2016,
Title = {The Vienna LTE-Advanced Simulators: Up and Downlink, Link and System Level Simulation},
Author = {Markus Rupp and Stefan Schwarz and Martin Taranetz},
Publisher = {Springer Singapore},Year = {2016},
Edition = {1},
Series = {Signals and Communication Technology},
isbn = {978-981-10-0616-6},
Doi = {10.1007/978-981-10-0617-3} }
@Article{Access2013,
author = {Schwarz, S. and Ikuno, J.C. and Simko, M. and Taranetz, M. and Wang, Q. and Rupp, M.},
title = {Pushing the Limits of {LTE}: A Survey on Research Enhancing the Standard},
journal = {{IEEE} Access},
year = {2013},
volume = {1},
pages = {51-62} }
Software Requirements
The LTE simulators are implemented in Matlab and require the following packages:
- Matlab 7.8.0 (R2009a)
- Communications Toolbox 4.1
- Signal Processing Toolbox 6.7
Other (newer) versions of the above packages should be supported; however, this has not necessarily been tested.
The simulators make use of OBJECT ORIENTED capabilities of Matlab, thus requiring at least R2008a.
The simulators employ C-CODE and MEX files to speed up specific computationally-intensive functionalities (e.g. channel coding). Only the Windows 64-bit files are distributed with the simulator, but the MEX files can be recompiled by calling the LTE_aux_mex_files script (inluded with each simulator release). Tested platforms are:
- Windows 32-bit (lcc-win32 2.4.1)
- Windows 64-bit (Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1)
- Linux (GNU gcc/g++ 4.2.3)
- Mac (Apple Xcode with gcc/g++ 3.1)
Please understand that we cannot provide support for every compiling issue with the simulators. We are providing compiled versions of the MEX-functions for the most common platforms, but we will not be able to assist you with problems in other systems. Please note that MEX-files generated using Microsoft Visual C++ (as the ones in the release) require that the correct Microsoft Visual Studio run-time libraries be available on the computer they are run on. The actual version of the run-time libraries may change depending on the release. For more details, please read THIS.
Questions
For questions please check our FORUM, where you will be able to post your questions/comments/bug reports.
LTE-A Downlink Link Level Simulator Download
If you are an academic researcher or student, you can get free access to the simulator by filling out the following License Agreement and submitting it to Prof. Markus Rupp.. Please follow this procedure:
- Print the License Agreement on letterhead of your university department or research institute (i.e. “official paper” of your institution, where the logo of your institution is also shown).
- Have it signed by the department head, including date and stamp of the department.
- Scan it and email it to: Prof. Markus Rupp.
If you are working in a company and want to use the simulator please contact Prof. Markus Rupp.
If you don’t need any LTE Advanced functionalities, but are happy with legacy LTE Rel. 8/9 features, you can download our legacy Vienna LTE Link Level Simulator here
LEGACY 3GPP Long Term Evolution Link Level Simulator download
Notice that support for this legacy LTE simulator is discontinued.
Simulator Tutorial
For a quick tutorial of simulator usage, please watch the VIDEO here.
The main file of the LTE Downlink Link Level Simulator is LTE_sim_main.m, though you may normally run the simulation through a batch file such as LTE_sim_batch.m, which performs the following tasks:
- Setting the SNR range for the simulation.
- Loading a configuration file.
- Executing the LTE_sim_main.m main simulation file.
- Saving the results to a file.
The simulator allows for the following settings to be adjusted (please check the documentation for a complete list):
- Number of User Equipments (UEs) attached to the eNodeB.
- Uplink delay
- Number of subframes to simulate
- Signal to noise ratio (SNR)
- Transmit and receive antenna numbers
- Channel model
- Transmit mode (as defined by the standard)
- Scheduling algorithm
- …
The released package also contains examples on how to use the simulator and plot its results.
A short note on sampling frequency: all LTE devices are required to work with 20MHz, thus they always sample with the 30.7MHz that are required in that case. Our simulator is working with the sampling frequency matched to the actual bandwidth. We are doing this to reduce the complexity of the simulation. If desired, a simulation with larger sampling frequency can be implemented easily.
The people (so far) behind the development of the LTE/LTE-A Downlink Link Level Simulator
Dagmar Bosanska, Markus Gasser, Josep Colom Ikuno, Govinda Lilley, Christian Mehlführer, Michael Meidlinger, Martin Müller, Markus Rupp, Stefan Schwarz, Michal Šimko, Qi Wang, and Martin Wrulich.
Relevant Publications
A list of relevant publications is found in the publication database of the TU Wien via the following link: List of Relevant Publications.
Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by A1 Telekom Austria AG and the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Dependable Wireless Connectivity for the Society in Motion.