OFDM Based Carrier Aggregation

In carrier aggregation, more than one component carrier is allocated to a single User Equipment (UE), or subscriber.

The baseband data, whether it is OFDM, OFDMA, or SC-FDMA, is passed through a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) and then up-converted based on the allocated frequency band and the desired sampling frequency, which depends on the bandwidth. The reverse operation, Analog-to-Digital Conversion (ADC) and down-conversion, takes place in the receiver part of the carrier aggregation circuit.

The figure below depicts the transmitter part. To combine the power spectrum of the component carriers, a power combiner circuit is used, with the number of inputs depending on the number of component carriers. Here, a 2-to-1 power combiner is shown.

For information about frequency bands and concepts in LTE carrier aggregation, refer to our page on LTE.

Carrier Aggregation MATLAB Code

Download the OFDM carrier aggregation MATLAB file.

Output in the MATLAB Window.