Assessing 3GPP LTE-advanced as IMT-advanced technology: the WINNER+ evaluation group approach

This article describes the WINNER+ approach to performance evaluation of the 3GPP LTE-Advanced proposal as an IMT-Advanced technology candidate. The official registered WINNER+ Independent Evaluation Group evaluated this proposal against ITU-R requirements. The first part of the article gives an overview of the ITU-R evaluation process, criteria, and scenarios. The second part is focused on the working method of the evaluation group, emphasizing the simulator calibration approach. Finally, the article contains exemplary evaluation results based on analytical and simulation approaches. The obtained results allow WINNER+ to confirm that the 3GPP LTE Release 10 & Beyond (LTE-Advanced) proposal satisfies all the IMTAdvanced requirements, and thus qualifies as an IMT-advanced system.