Predictive CQI reporting for HSDPA

One of the key features of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC). Link Adaptation at Node-B is done on the basis of Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) reports sent by the User Equipment (UE). However there is a delay of about 10 ms between computation of a CQI report at UE and the corresponding Transport Format and Resource Indicator (TFRI) selection at the Node-B. This delay significantly degrades the performance of link adaptation process. In order to compensate for this loss of performance, we propose predictive CQI reporting by the UE. A simple linear predictor based on NLMS (Normalized Least Mean Square) adaptation is shown through simulations to provide substantial gain in HSDPA link throughput. Results show that predictive CQI reporting provides larger gain in channel environments with medium to high Doppler and lack of multipath diversity.