Channel switching operation of LTE-LAA in unlicensed spectrum

Sunwook Hwang, Kangjin Yoon, Sunghyun Choi

Abstract: Recently, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has standardized LTE-licensed assisted access (LTE-LAA) supporting LTE downlink carrier aggregation (CA) in the 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum. LTE-LAA technology allows LTE operators to freely use additional frequency resources in the 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum. Therefore, the problem of coexistence with other existing communication technologies in unlicensed spectrum has become an important issue. With listen-before-talk (LBT) mechanism, a resource sharing scheme defined in LTE-LAA, performance degradation can not be avoided when the LTE-LAA operates on heavily interfered channels. Thus, an operation to avoid such crowded channels is required for LTE-LAA. In this paper, we consider the channel switching operation of LTE-LAA and present the experiment results of the coexistence of Wi-Fi and LTE-LAA with channel switching, based on the prototype implementation with National Instruments (NI) USRP.