E2E-aware Optimizations and advancements for the Network Edge of 5G New Radio

Project Information

ONE5G

Grant agreement ID: 760809

DOI

10.3030/760809

Project closed

EC signature date 2 June 2017

Start date 1 June 2017

End date 30 June 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 7 977 228,75

EU contribution

€ 7 977 228,75

Coordinated by

NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS GMBH AND CO KG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ONE5G (E2E-aware Optimizations and advancements for the Network Edge of 5G New Radio)

Reporting period: 2018-07-01 to 2019-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The initial Release 15 of 5G focussed on extreme Mobile Broadband (eMBB). Now, IMT-2020 also requires support of a multiplicity of services. Besides impressive enhancements for eMBB, research needs to cover important areas like massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), and Ultra-Reliable Low-latency Communications (URLLC), enabling new offers in many vertical sectors like automotive, factories, or smart cities.
Second, ONE5G is the first project that puts the heterogeneity of the environments into the foreground. In “Megacities”, the services will be highly intermixed and dense. The “Underserved Areas” bring a considerably lower density but longer communication ranges.
To avoid ending up with multiple radio interfaces for specific needs it was necessary to ensure that there is one prominent, generic, flexible and forward-compatible air interface solution. This requires for sadvances in the area of multi-antenna systems and link management and sophisticated capabilities for performance optimization.

ONE5G has a vital impact on society. Broadband enhancements beyond Rel.15 and performance optimization are needed to efficiently operate 5G, from a network operator’s perspective and for a better experience of the end-to-end user.
New services will allow supporting vertical industries like automotive, factories and smart cities, enabling new (currently unforeseen) vertical applications and services. New device types and features will come up and be plugged-in easily.
5G extensions are being proposed for two main scenarios, (“Megacities” and “Underserved Areas”), targeting a ubiquitous service and helping to reduce the digital divide.

The high-level objectives of ONE5G are to:
1. propose the necessary 5G extensions, addressing performance and cost, for two scenarios (“Megacities” and “Underserved Areas”).
2. build consensus on new features for future 5G releases.
3. propose advanced link technologies and enhancements beyond Release15.
4. deliver highly generic performance optimization schemes for both the network operator and the E2E user-experienced performance.
5. identify the cost driving elements for sustainable provision of wireless services in underserved areas.
6. validate the developed solutions analytically, by means of simulations and by proof-of-concept.
7. deliver a high number of valuable publications (>50), a reasonable amount of IPR (>10) and standardization contributions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The enhancements to the 5G NR RAN encompass Multi-antenna access and link level enhancements on Massive MIMO, Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access, Interference Management or collaborative transmission and reception.
The second area is the optimization of the End-to-End performance like the handling of RRC or DRX states, or optimizations to Resource management, signalling, spectrum aggregation and mobility.
The assessment of these features brought an extensive set of design recommendations for a 5G system.

First. the techniques have been evaluated individually through simulations (link and/or system level) to determine their gains. A subset of them has been integrated into the project-wide system-level simulator developed by WINGS.
Four main use cases went into the techno-economic analysis:
• Assisted, Co-operative and Tele operated driving with strict requirements on latency, reliability and availability.
• Smart cities, with MTC type applications .
• Long range connectivity in remote areas is discussed with cell ranges from 50 km to 100 km.
• Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) for disaster and emergency communications - A rapidly deployable drone-based 5G communication service.
For these, CAPEX and OPEX have been analysed. Also, the expected costs for different CRAN split options have been compared.

We have combined the work into five Proof-of-Concepts (PoC):
• The Industrial PoC E2E performance optimization combined with multi-connectivity techniques.
• The Smart Megacity using multi-link and multi-node technologies and E2E performance optimization with an assessment of KPIs
• The enhanced Massive MIMO PoC treating the dense megacity scenario.
• The underserved areas PoC targeting agricultural applications as an example.
• The Automotive PoC with ultra-reliable and low-latency communication in a smart city environment.
Two integrated PoCs combine different testbeds
• Serving Megacities through 5G technologies: three connected testbeds (AAU, UMA and WINGS), showing the suitability of 5G in Megacities and Industrial environments.
• Wireless control of industrial production, connecting two testbeds (AAU and UMA), demonstrating prediction techniques for reliable communication in industrial environments.

ONE5G partners provided over 52 contributions to 3GPP, to Release 15 and mostly into Releases 16 and beyond.
The project disseminated its results through:
- more than 147 publications in major conferences and high-quality journals,
- 4 major workshops and 2 special sessions, one industry panel and tutorial.
- Booths and demonstrations in 5 events, including MWC and EUCNC in both 2018 and 2019 (with a Best Booth Award in EUCNC2018)
- the project website and social media giving constant updates
The results bring the development of new competencies, new software and hardware implementations. 8 patents have been created and some solutions have been identified as innovations with potential to create new business or to enhance existing products.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

ONE5G has delivered a significant set of results that extend current 5G NR, widening the range of use cases that can be operated efficiently.
These results are introduced into 3GPP Releases 16 and 17 and support system development, empowering operators and vertical industries to efficiently exploit the potential of 5G New Radio. This will allow new and enhanced service offers, enriching both private life and business activities
Many will enjoy wider service coverage and better Quality of Experience with faster Internet and multimedia connections thanks to the Broadband enhancements beyond Rel.15 and performance optimization. But especially the new service types will change our lives in the coming years. Public safety will rely on the control of critical infrastructure like the grids for electricity, water and gas using the mMTC and URLLC type wireless links that ONE5G has brought forward. Public safety authorities will be enabled to set up temporary communications networks in response to emergency situations. Use of the new types of communication within the “Smart City” will help to control, optimize and reduce the traffic.
ONE5G also helped reducing the network energy consumption. Technologies like hybrid antenna arrays or slicing and sharing of the networks directly address this. The new service types will allow to better control processes in other areas of the economy like production and logistics, allowing for net energy savings.
The studies on an economic coverage of underserved areas clearly can improve the future availability of wireless services, reducing the digital divide in Europe as well as in other areas of the world. Already today, internet access and multimedia with good bandwidth and latency are crucial for the participation of people to public life, for the education of children and for being competitive in business. Improved coverage thus provides one important pre-condition for the economic and societal development in these areas, taking away some of the pressure towards urbanization.

Highly generic performance optimization schemes (WP3)

scenarios addressed by One5G

One5G project timing in relation to 3GPPP

Multi-antennas access and link enhancements (WP4)