Downlink Control Channel Design for 3GPP LTE

With the emergence of packet-based wireless broadband systems, work has begun on long term evolution (LTE) of the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access and Radio Access Network aimed for commercial deployment in 2010. Goals for the evolved system include support for improved system capacity and coverage, high peak data rates, low latency, reduced operating costs, multi-antenna support, flexible bandwidth operations and seamless integration with existing systems. To reach these goals, a new design for the air interface including control channel is envisioned. This paper provides a preliminary look at an efficient downlink control channel design to reduce the overhead required to support data transmission. Initial performance results show that close to optimal system performance can be achieved with downlink control overhead of less than 14%.