UE-RS (LTE-Advanced)

UE-RS UE-specific Reference Signal is the UE User Equipment (e.g. cell phone)-specific Reference Signal and is used to enhance communication reliability by using beamforming which is accomplished by changing the phase and magnitude of a PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel allocation (including UE-RS) sent to each antenna. Since the UE-RS sequence is known, the weights applied to the UE-RS subcarriers can be determined by the VSA. These weights are shown on the UE-specific RS Weights trace. The antenna beam pattern is calculated for each user allocation and shown on the Antenna Combined Beam Pattern trace.

UE-RS is specific to a user allocation and is transmitted only in the resource blocks for that allocation. For Release 8, UE-RS is transmitted on antenna port 5. For Release 9, UE-RS is transmitted on antenna port 5, 7, or 8 for single-layer beamforming and on both antenna ports 7 and 8 for dual-layer beamforming. Release 10 adds TM9 with up to 8-layer beamforming using antenna ports 7-14.

The modulation type for UE-RS is QPSK Quadrature phase shift keying.