What changes will 5G mobile phones bring under the new 5G standard R16?

At a recent meeting of the international standards organization 3GPP, the latest 5G R16 version of the standard was announced to be frozen, marking the official completion of the first evolutionary version of the 5G standard.

If R15 is a "usable" 5G standard that strives for rapid production, then R16 is a major upgrade of 5G from "usable" to "easy to use". One point that is generally optimistic is that it enhances the ability of the new radio (NR) to be applied in vertical industries. The new technology supports 1 microsecond synchronization accuracy, 0.5-1 millisecond air interface latency, "six nines" reliability and flexible terminal group management. The fastest end-to-end latency of less than 5 milliseconds and higher reliability can be achieved, providing support for industrial-grade time sensitivity. This means that under the R16 version, 5G has the ability to better support vertical industries, including unmanned driving, industrial Internet, smart transportation, telemedicine, etc.

It is not difficult to find that the R16 standard is mainly aimed at improving industry application capabilities. At the 5G terminal level, what new changes will the R16 version of the 5G standard bring?

5G terminals save more power and improve positioning accuracy

The R16 version aims to improve the user experience of terminals in actual networks. Based on the R15 version, it further improves the cell edge spectrum efficiency and switching performance, making 5G terminals more power-efficient.

Qualcomm Technology Standards Vice President Shiya Ko said that R16 brings higher 5G system performance and efficiency by enhancing the solid technical foundation of R15. R16 includes a series of technical projects, and Qualcomm has contributed key technical inventions in six major areas, including Qualcomm's advanced power saving features and mobility technologies, which enhance the performance and network coverage of mobile terminals in terms of wake-up signals, faster carrier aggregation, full power uplink, dual connections, etc.

It is understood that R16 enhances beam management and CSI feedback, supports transmission from multiple transmission points (multi-TRP) to a single UE, and full-power transmission of multiple UE antennas in the uplink. These enhanced features can increase the rate, improve edge coverage, reduce overhead and improve link reliability.

The arrival of 5G brings high-speed and low-latency experience, but power consumption becomes a very big problem for the normal use of 5G on mobile phones. R16 version optimizes the high power consumption of 5G terminals, such as wakeup singal, enhanced cross-time slot scheduling, adaptive MIMO layer number, UE power saving auxiliary information, etc., and is expected to achieve energy consumption comparable to 4G while enjoying 5G ultra-large bandwidth and more traffic.

Turning on the GPS navigation on your phone may be our most common choice, but this is only for outdoor situations. Once we enter a more complex indoor environment such as an office building, shopping mall or parking lot, the mobile navigation seems to be "powerless". R16 introduces a variety of 5G air interface positioning technologies, which improves positioning accuracy and reaches the design goal of meter level, opening up the technical barriers for indoor positioning applications. It can help you locate a store or parking space in a specific shopping mall, better solving the "indoor positioning" travel pain point.

Chinese manufacturers contribute to 5G standard setting

The 5G standard has gone through two versions and four years from R15 to R16, and the overall completion rate is currently about 30%. There is still a lot of unfinished work in the formulation of 5G standards, and Chinese manufacturers continue to play a key role in it.

According to incomplete statistics, among the contributions of global operators to the R16 standard, the contribution of my country's three major operators accounted for about 40%. Among them, China Mobile continued to play a leading role in the R16 standardization, submitting more than 3,000 technical proposals, accounting for more than 30% of the total number of proposals from global operators, and leading the completion of 15 technical standards formulation work.

In addition, mobile phone manufacturers also played an important role in the formulation of the R16 standard.

OPPO has made a lot of contributions to R16 standardization, including multiple technical features such as multi-antenna, terminal energy saving, two-step random access, industrial Internet of Things, unlicensed frequency bands, Internet of Vehicles, carrier aggregation/dual connection enhancement, and mobility enhancement. It plays an important role in multi-antenna technology, industrial Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, and other terminal-related technical fields. In the 5G evolution version (Release 16), OPPO jointly led the research on MIMO OTA technology that is of concern to terminals and successfully transformed it into a standardization work project. In the entire 5G evolution version, OPPO has produced more than 1,500 manuscripts, making outstanding contributions to the 5G industry.

vivo also did a lot of work and preparation during the R16 standard freezing process. Among them, vivo submitted more than 2,000 technical proposals in R16, and proposed a large number of important technical features and key problem solutions in the RAN, SA, and CT groups, which were recognized and passed by the industry. Standard experts from vivo led the discussion of many key technical features in the formulation of the R16 standard, participated in the editing of the standard protocol, and made important contributions to the smooth freezing of the standard. vivo focuses on the evolution and improvement of terminal technical features, especially in terminal power saving technology, solutions to self-interference problems in terminal equipment, and high-power terminals.

Of course, the 5G standard is a process of continuous evolution and improvement. At present, 5G standardization is still in full swing. After the R16 standard was frozen, the progress of the R17 standard has become the focus of attention in the industry. According to industry insiders, the R17 standardization work has been officially launched in the second quarter of this year, and the standard freezing is tentatively scheduled to be completed in September 2021.