Performance Evaluation of Preamble Detection in LTE Network for Massive MTC

Abstract

Performance of preamble detection in Random Access (RA) procedure of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network has a direct impact on the number of successful connection establishments, especially when a large number of Machine-Type Communication Devices (MTCDs) simultaneously attempt to connect to the network. There are several improvements for RA performance in literature, however, they did not consider a realistic detection scheme which makes them less suitable for the real scenario of MTC. In this paper, a comprehensive simulation study has been performed to investigate the effects of wireless channel as well as unsuccessful preamble detection on the RA throughput of the LTE network with massive MTC traffic. We evaluate the effects of two possible preamble detection errors including preamble misdetection and non-detection errors, on the RA throughput. Simulation results show that there is a significant difference between achievable RA throughput in the realistic and ideal channel conditions. Also, it is shown that the probabilities of preamble misdetection and non-detection can be reduced through allocating a proper number of preambles and adjusting the Access Class Barring (ACB) factor, respectively.