Transmit Power Control (TPC) is a mechanism used in wireless communication devices, to regulate the User Equipment (UE) uplink or transmit power in order to reduce interference with other UEs and extend battery life of UE.
If UE transmit too strong signal, it may saturate other UEs on the network. If the transmit signal is too weak, base station may not be able to recognize or demodulate the signal. Therefore TPC is one who regulate the UE transmit power that is necessary to maintain link with required quality.
How it works?
- Base Station (BS) transmits a reference signal (RS) with fixed power which contains the information such as power of the RS signal, maximum allowed transmit power (PCMAX) by UE in the network, etc.,
- The UE measure the power of received RS and estimate the path loss in the downlink.
- Then TPC computes the required transmit power of UE using PCMAX, downlink path loss, and other factors.