Mobility state estimation in LTE

Estimating mobile user speed is a problematic issue which has significant impacts to radio resource management and also to the mobility management of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. This paper introduces two algorithms that can estimate the speed of mobile user equipments (UE), with low computational requirement, and without modification of neither current user equipment nor 3GPP standard protocol. The proposed methods rely on uplink (UL) sounding reference signal (SRS) power measurements performed at the eNodeB (eNB) and remain efficient with large sampling period (e.g., 40 ms or beyond). We evaluate the effectiveness of our algorithms using realistic LTE system data provided by the eNB Layer1 team of Alcatel-Lucent. Results show that the classification of UE's speed required by LTE can be achieved with high accuracy. In addition, they have minimal impact to the central processing unit (CPU) and the memory of eNB modem. We see that they are very practical to today's LTE networks and would allow a continuous and real-time UE speed estimation.