1.

5 GHz DIGITAL RADIO MULTIPLE ACCESS

SUBSCRIBER SYSTEM (DRMASS)
(Microwave communication system used in CEB)

The DRMASS is a flexible multiple access subscriber system consisting of Base,

Terminal and repeater stations. Figure 1 shows a typical configuration of a DRMASS
network, and as shown, it can operate in-line distribution and homogeneous distribution.

Figure 1

1
2
 Kandy
4 Km

Kandalama Hantana
53.5 Km

46 Km
40.5 Km

CCC
70.4 Km
4 Km
Ballapannagala 2.9 Km
1.9 Km 46.1 Km
HQ
Hydro Office
Laxapana
SCC
67.7 Km
Gongala
Torewood
Link operating on 1800 GSM
band
Link operating on IMT 2000 60.8 Km
band ------------

Galle

The DRMASS consists of a combination of features such as Demand Assigned Multiple

Access (DAMA), and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). In addition, it operates in
the 1.5 GHz band with a transmission capacity of 4 Mbps data stream, equivalent to 60
voice channels.

System parameters:-
Coverage : 540 km (radius)
Hop distance : 45 km (maximum)
Number of tandem repeaters : 11 (maximum)
Number of subscribers : 512 (expandable to 1024 using intra call)
Transmission capacity : 4 Mb/s (60 channels)

Traffic parameters:-
Busy hour call : 0.09 Erlang/sub
Grade of service (blocking probability) : 1%
Multiple access Technique

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Downward signal flow : Time Division Multiplex (TDM)
Upward signal flow : Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA),
Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA)
Maximum number of terminals/repeaters : 255
Maximum number of subscriber lines for ach terminal/repeater : 64

Radio frequencies:-
Frequency band :1427 to 1530 MHz
Number of RF chanels : 11 to 14
Channel spacing : 3.5 or 4.0 MHz
TX-RX shift frequency : 49 or 65.5 MHz

Equipment parameters:-
Transmitter power at base station : +31 dBm
Transmitter power at repeater : +31 dBm
Transmitter power at terminal : +31 dBm
Noise figure (at Rx test point) : 3 dB
Modulation method : QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying)
Coding and decoding : 64kbps PCM CODEC
Downward demodulation : Coherent detection
Upward demodulation : Differential detection
-3
Minimum receiving level at BER=10
Downward : -94 dBm
Upward : -92 dBm
Antenna gain; Omnidirectional antenna : 10 dBi
1.3 m/grid parabolic antenna : 28 dBi
2.4 m/grid parabolic antenna : 33 dBi
45-degree fan beam antenna : 20 dBi
20-element x 2 stack Yagi antenna : 17 dBi
Horn antenna : 20 dBi

Operation

Figure 2 shows a typical system configuration of DRMASS. The DRMASS employs

radio concentration technology to optimize the usage of the radio frequency spectrum,
where, number of subscriber lines is concentrated in to 60 RF/TDMA channels. It differs
from conventional analogue rural subscriber systems in which radio frequencies are
shared to provide an access channel. In DRMASS, the time slots (60 slots) modulated in
a single radio frequency of 1.5 GHz, is shared digitally. This frequency saving concept
has been realized by using TDMA Control.

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 Figure 2

The Base station:-

The base station consists of;
Concentrator
TDM Controller Unit (TCU)
Data Unit
The typical configuration of a base station is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3

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 Concentrator:- The concentrator consists of the BSCMs (Basic System
Concentrator Modules), the LOEMs (Loop Open End Module) and the VDU (Visual
Display Unit). The concentrator is installed at the existing local exchange station
where it provides 2-wire interface with up to 512 (or 1024) subscriber line circuits.
The concentrator concentrates these telephone lines and converts them into 60 time
slots in two (2) 2.048 Mbps Time Division Multiplex (TDM) data streams. The
digital speech path in the concentrator is switched through a non-block in time
division switch based on digital techniques. The concentrator provides system status
supervisory facilities via a VDU. Therefore the operating conditions of repeater and
terminal stations can be checked remotely.

Figure 1

TDM Controller Unit (TCU):- The concentrator and the TCU are connected by
2.048 Mbps 2 highway streams. The TCU Converts the 2.048 Mbps data signals
(equivalent to 60 voice channels) from the concentrator into 2.496 Mbps packet data
for radio communications and multiplexes the control, supervisory and maintenance
signals etc. to the packet data. Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulates the
packet data to RF TDM signals and transmits for the downward transmit path to the
repeaters and terminals.
In the upward receive path, the TCU regenerates the packet data from burst mode
RF signal transmitted from repeater and terminal stations and removes control,
supervisory and maintenance signals from the base band data signal and converts it to
two 2.048 Mbps data signals to send to the concentrator and then concentrator to the
exchange.

Data Unit:- The Data Unit converts the 2.496 Mbps TDM data streams from the
TCU into 64 Kbps data streams for the downward transmit path and reverses this
for the upward receive path.

The Repeater:-

Repeater stations perform the following functions:

- Relays downward signals from the base station or higher rank repeater station to
the lower rank repeater station by means of regenerative repeating technique.

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 - Relays upward burst signals from the terminal or lower rank repeater stations to
the base station.
- Drops and inserts the subscriber lines
Repeater receives the downward signal transmitted from the base station. After
regenerating the signal, the repeater transmits it on different radio frequency not only to a
number of subscriber units within its service cell but also to a neighboring repeater for
further repeating. The upward signal is transmitted towards the base station in the
same manner. The multiple uses of repeaters allow the service area to be expanded
virtually to any distance without noticeable degrading of signal quality by employing
digital transmission. For practical considerations, it can be expanded up to 540 km and
11 tandem repeaters.

The Terminal:-

Terminal station performs the following functions:

- Receives the RF transmission from the base or repeater station
- Regenerates the 2-wire analogue telephone signal information and relays this
information to each subscriber line.
- Detects incoming calls from the subscribe line
- Converts the 2-wire analogue telephone signal to an RF burst signal and
transmits to the repeater or base station.
The Subscriber lines can be increased to a maximum of 64 lines by installing additional
LC (Line Circuit) cards starting from a single LC card consisting of 8 lines. The
Subscriber Unit (SU), depicted in the figures 4 can accommodate one LC card one data
card. The other 48 lines can be served by using Drop Out Unit (DOU) which can
accommodate more LC cards.

The modules needed for a terminal station are;

- Power Supply-Subscriber Unit (PS-SU/D5376B)
- Transmitter Receiver-terminal (TRX-T/D5333B)
- Line Circuit Controller-Terminal (LCC-T)
- LC 80 Line Circuit (8 ordinary subscriber lines/2 wire interface 600)
- Duplexer (DUP)
-

Figure 4

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The functional block diagram is shown in figure 5.
The incoming signal captured by the antenna is fed to the duplexer. The duplexer
separates/combines the transmitting and receiving signals. It is composed of two semi-
coaxial band pass filters.

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Subscriber Unit

Figure 5

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 Sub Test
LC test

LC

The TRX-T module does the following functions;

- QPSK modulation for the RF transmitting signal in 1.5 GHz range
Lines
- Frequency conversion from RF receiving signal to 10.7 MHz IF
From/to
signal Base
- Demodulation by differential detection of 10.7 MHz IF signal station
- Signal processing in base band range
The Line Circuit controller (LCC-T) has a 16 bit processor and serial input/output
controller8 device. It controls the Line Circuit (LC). The F-CONV section converts
digital signal frame between 2.048 Mbps and 2.496 Mbps in downward, and,
demultiplexes speech and signaling data from radio digital signal frame. The LC-80
module makes
1 an interface with subscriber telephone sets. The PS-SU generates
stabilized +5 V DC, +9 V DC, -7 V DC, -20 V DC, and -48 V DC output power supplies
for operating the equipment from +10 to +18 V DC input power.

Operation theory:-

Since DRMASS utilizes the concentrator system, the maximum number of subscribers
that can be handled in a system is a function of traffic (0.09 Erl/sub), grade of service
(1%), and the number of time slots (60). The number of subscribers according to these
parameters is 512 and this can be increased up to 1024 by using the optional intra call
function.

TDMA Technique:-

The subscribers connected to terminals are collected at one local exchange in the base
station using Time Division Multiplex (TDM) and Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA) techniques as illustrated in figures 6 and 7. The signals coming from the local
exchange are concentrated and converted into digital signals and transmits down to the
repeaters and the terminals from the omnidirectional antenna using only one pair of point
frequencies. One time slot among the 60 slots is automatically assigned for each
subscriber.

PS-SU
LC-80

LCC-T
TDSW F-CONV TRX-T DUP
LCC 5333B
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 Figure 6

For upward transmission from the repeaters and terminals, each repeater or terminal
transmits digital signals in a burst mode at an assigned timing without overlapping. The
signals from each terminal connected to either base station or repeater station are
converted into radio frames and sent to the upper order station as TDMA burst. The
signals from base or repeater stations are received by the terminal station and the signals
necessary for each subscriber line are extracted from time division multiplexer (TDM)
frame.

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 Figure 7

Frequency allocation:-

DRMASS service area is expanded in a honeycomb configuration. The

transmitter/receiver at the center of the honeycomb cell works not only as an
omnidirectional center station for subscribers but also as a repeater which regenerates and
repeats the signals coming from one of the adjacent cells.

Radio frame format:-

The radio frame structure is shown in figure 8 below. It consists of;

60 voice channels (V CH)
Control channel (C CH)
Supervisory channel (SV CH)
Order wire channel (OW CH)
Telex channel
ACQ/LOCAL maintenance channel (ACQ/LOCAL CH)
Frame synchronization patterns (F/F')

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The frame period is 4 msec. The 7 bit frame synchronization word is used to discriminate
the route as frame identification; which has 16 kinds selectable by the hand held test
module.

Figure 8

Each V CH, OW CH, and SV CH has 152 time slots for upward/downward signal flows
and contains the actual date with its control information (64 Kbps voice). In the upward
signal flow, two guard time slots are provided for the beginning and the end the frame.
The C CH has 128 bits (or time slots) to be used for sequence of calling connection. The
ACQ CH and local maintenance channel have 280 time slots each. The ACQ CH is used
for delay adjustment at initial line up and local maintenance channel is used for fine
adjustment of delay in service. (Both ACQ and maint. Channels alternate in intervals of
4 msec (9984 bits).

Figure 9

Figure 9 shows the typical construction of a voice channel. In the figure;

G (guard bit) :- protection bit to prevent interference between bursts (upward only)
R (reference bit) :- used for differential detection (upward only)
CRC (cyclic redundancy code) :- station and subscriber identification code. Shows the
destination of the 64 Kbps PCM voice data packet which follow it. CRC-6 generator
polynomial X6+X+1 is used to increase the probability of current bit error detection in
radio propagation.

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 E/M (E & M wire signaling information bit:- Carries signaling data (telephone set off/on
hook, dial, pulse, etc.)
P (parity bit) :- Detects radio propagation bit error of parity count partition data to
monitor radio channel transmission quality.

Propagation time delay:-

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Delay adjustment:-

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The DRMASS radio section employs the TDMA technique for the upward signal flow
(see figure 7). Therefore, the incoming burst signals from the terminal station must be
aligned to the assigned position on the time axis. This operation is referred to as the
delay adjustment, and is performed during the initial line loop of terminal station. The
delay adjustment equalizes the distance difference between the immediate higher rank
station and current station, and aligns the burst signal received at the higher rank station
onto specified position on the time axis. After delay adjustment, each station delay is
checked periodically for variations in delay caused by ambient temperature and aging.
The fine delay adjustment is performed by the base station automatically during the
operation.

Figure 10

Downward signal flow:-

The TDM Controller Unit (TCU) in figure 10, the two data streams of 2.048 Mbps from
the concentrator are frame synchronized and multi-frame synchronized in DTI-R module
and fed to the F CONV-B module. The F CONV-B module converts the two data streams
of 2.048 Mbps to 2.496 mbps data streams for radio communication. In this case, the
OW & Maintenance Module sends the command to the F CONV-B module to select
either clock signal which is extracted from input 2.048 Mbps data stream at DTI-R
(COM-A) or (COM-B) for timing reference.

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The F COV-B module multiplexes the signals (control signal, SV signal, OW signal,
maintenance signal, data signal, and parity information) for frame assembly to input data
stream to monitor transmission quality. The multiplexed data stream is also scrambled
(with 9 stage PN pattern) and sent to the TRX-B module. The TRX-B module limits the
data signal band of two 2.496 Mbps data streams. After limiting in the TRX-B module,
the data streams are quadrature phase shift keying modulated and amplified up to the
required level for TX RF signals.

The TX signals are routed to the BR CKT-B module. If the TCU forms 1+1 standby
configuration, the signals from system 0 and 1 are provided and are selected either one
according to the switching control signal from the OW & MAINT module. The signal
selected at the BR CKT-B module is out put from ANT port of the BR CKT-B module.

Upward signal flow:-

When the TCU forms the 1+1 standby configuration, the RX signals input into the BR
CKT-B module are separated to system 0 and 1 in the hybrid circuit, and enter the
associated TRX-B module. The RX signal is down converted into 10.7 MHz IF signal by
the TRX-B module. The 10.7 MHz IF signal is demodulated in the TRX-B module by
the quadrature phase modulator using a differential detection and two 2.496 Mbps data
streams are obtained through the differential decoder circuit. Next, the data streams are
descrambled and demultiplexed into individual signals (main voice signal, control signal,
SV signal, OW signal, maintenance signal, etc.) The main voice signal is frame
converted into two 2.048 Mbps data streams in the F CONV-B module, and sent to the
concentrator. The control signal and SV signal are connected to the MP module and OW
signal to the OW & MAINT module and data signal to the DU. After appropriate
processes the control signal and SV signal are transferred and received to and from the
concentrator via the DTI-R module.

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