Detailed roadmap for 5G standards

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While 5G has been a hot topic for years, there is still a lot of work to be done behind the scenes to refine and effectively iterate the standards. Since the release of Release 15 of the 3GPP standard at the end of 2018, Release 16 has made huge leaps in many areas, providing key capabilities for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) industry. Release 16 was completed in July 2020, the second 5G standard and the latest completed version, as 3GPP will pass the upcoming Release 17.

This was highlighted in a recent Accenture report, which listed 5G as a critical technology for global manufacturing between 2021 and 2025, increasing productivity by 20% to 30%, improving assembly efficiency by 50%, and increasing defect detection rates to 90%. In the agricultural industry, Accenture predicts that 5G will help increase global productivity by 25%, reduce costs by 20%, and increase crop yields by 15%.

Massive reliability enhancements

5G NR (New Radio) Release 16 brings crucial reliability and latency improvements in several key areas, most notably enhancements to the 5G URLLC foundation to provide better link reliability (up to 99.9999%). An important technology in this reliability drive is coordinated multi-point (CoMP), which provides various benefits by coordinating transmissions in the downlink and jointly processing the receive signal in the uplink. This prevents outages when paths are blocked and reduces the impact of any interference. This improved reliability and latency, thanks in part to CoMP and time-sensitive networking (TSN), is driving new use cases such as the use of remote robots in indoor environments, such as Qualcomm's recent demonstration of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) (YouTube video).

MU-MIMO, Power Savings, and NPN

Another reliability enhancement is greatly improved multi-beam management in Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO), while also improving power efficiency. Beamforming and multi-beam management are particularly important for mmWave bands, which themselves are critical to maintaining bandwidth as lower bands become crowded. Release 16 also supports full-power uplink to improve coverage at the cell edge for all MIMO-enabled devices.

In fact, Release 16 specifically targets energy efficiency in many areas, improving the end-user mobile experience and enabling the development of new use cases where power consumption is a key issue, such as remote IIoT deployments. One example included in the release is a new wake-up signal (WUS) that alerts a device that a transmission is pending, otherwise keeping it in a low-power mode, eliminating the need for continuous network monitoring, a power-hungry requirement.

Other key innovations include clear provisions for non-public networks (NPNs), which has enabled a surge in dedicated network offerings from manufacturers and operators. These networks have gained significant traction in industrial IoT use cases, enabling enterprises to immediately deploy 5G industrial IoT networks with dedicated resources rather than waiting for broader 5G network deployments. Other benefits include specific optimizations for local applications and customized security and privacy settings when needed. Release 16 also adds a more reliable NR-based sidelink for advanced safety use cases in C-V2X applications, as well as new system features such as two-step RACH and VoNR circuit switch fallback.

5G NR Release 17 and before Release 18

Release 17 builds on many of these; some very directly – the Qualcomm AGV demo feeds data about OTA target threshold positioning directly into Release 17. Key key features of Release 17 include URLLC for Industrial IoT, NR sidelink, Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB), network slicing for NR, and support for multi-SIM devices for LTE/NR. Additionally, the 32 antennas (32 x 32 MIMO) in Release 15 (known as massive MIMO or mMIMO) are set to 64 and further increased in Releases 17 and 18.

Network slicing has generated a great deal of attention, with many operators and large enterprises keen to take advantage of creating virtual slices of the 5G NR network. This can be used to dedicate capacity to autonomous vehicles, emergency services, or utility-related IIoT devices at the scale of smart cities. Nonetheless, from a business network perspective, mission-critical services can be supported while also using the remaining network capacity for other purposes.

Unfortunately, Release 17 has come under pressure due to the pandemic limiting 3GPP’s in-person meetings. Still, the standards body’s latest update reports “positive progress” toward a RAN1 physical layer specification freeze by December 2021.

This should be followed by a Phase 3 freeze by March 2022, with an ASN.1 freeze and performance specifications completed by September 2022. Meanwhile, a Release 18 workshop in the summer of 2021 will “prepare for email discussions on the endorsed topics.” Release 18 will be called “5G Advanced” and will likely be the last 5G iteration before 6G, although the timeline has yet to be determined.

Setting standards

While the process of creating and approving standards may seem cumbersome, the value of having a single roadmap for each industry to submit and contribute to is invaluable. The process not only ensures that key features are delivered as expected, but that issues such as forward compatibility, configurability, and energy efficiency are effectively managed. It avoids unnecessary duplication of effort in network upgrades and 5G device updates, which will become an increasingly important issue as they become more common. Towards 5G-Advanced!