3GPP's 5G-Advanced Workshop Summary

From 28 June to 02 July 2 2021, 3GPP held its first internal workshop on the radio specific content of Release 18, reviewing over 500 company and partner organization’s presentations, to identify topics for the immediate and longer-term commercial needs for:

• eMBB (evolved Mobile BroadBand);
• Non-eMBB evolution;
• Cross-functionalities for both eMBB and non-eMBB driven evolution.

All the documents related to the workshop can be found on the 3GPP website here. The workshop details is available in RWS-210002 while the summary of the RAN Rel-18 workshop is available in RWS-210659.

The following is from 3GPP's news article on 5G-Advanced workshop:

Wanshi Chen, the TSG RAN Chair, summarized that the example areas under each topic serve as a starting point, each subject to further update or removal during the email discussion period - with additional topics still possible, up to the September e-meeting. That RAN#93-e meeting (13-17 September 2021) will see progress on ‘high-level descriptions’ of the objectives for each topic.

List of Topics:

1. Evolution for downlink MIMO, with the following example areas:

• Further enhancements for CSI (e.g., mobility, overhead, etc.)
• Evolved handling of multi-TRP (Transmission Reception Points) and multi-beam
• CPE(customer premises equipment)-specific considerations

2. Uplink enhancements, with the following example areas:

• >4 Tx operation
• Enhanced multi-panel/multi-TRP uplink operation
• Frequency-selective precoding
• Further coverage enhancements

3. Mobility enhancements, with the following example areas:

• Layer 1/layer 2 based inter cell mobility
• DAPS (Dual Active Protocol Stack)/CHO (Conditional HandOver) related improvements
• FR2 (frequency range 2)-specific enhancements

4. Additional topological improvements (IAB and smart repeaters), with the following example areas:

• Mobile IAB (Integrated Access Backhaul)/Vehicle mounted relay (VMR)
• Smart repeater with side control information

5. Enhancements for XR (eXtended Reality), with the following example areas:

• KPIs/QoS, application awareness operation, and aspects related to power consumption, coverage, capacity, and mobility (Note: only power consumption/coverage/mobility aspects specific to XR)

6. Sidelink enhancements (excluding positioning), with the following example areas:

• SL enhancements (e.g., unlicensed, power saving enhancements, efficiency enhancements, etc.)
• SL relay enhancements
• Co-existence of LTE V2X & NR V2X

7. RedCap evolution (excluding positioning), with the following example areas:

• New use cases and new UE bandwidths (5MHz?)
• Power saving enhancements

8. NTN (Non-Terrestrial Networks) evolution

• Including both NR & IoT (Internet of Things) aspects

9. Evolution for broadcast and multicast services

• Including both LTE based 5G broadcast and NR MBS (Multicast Broadcast Services)

10. Expanded and improved Positioning, with the following example areas:

• Sidelink positioning/ranging
• Improved accuracy, integrity, and power efficiency
• RedCap positioning

11. Evolution of duplex operation, with the following example areas:

• Deployment scenarios, including duplex mode (TDD only?)
• Interference management

12. AI (Artificial Intelligence)/ML (Machine Learning), with the following example areas:

• Air interface (e.g., Use cases to focus, KPIs and Evaluation methodology, network and UE involvement, etc.)
• NG-RAN

13. Network energy savings, with the following example areas:

• KPIs and evaluation methodology, focus areas and potential solutions

14. Additional RAN1/2/3 candidate topics, Set 1:

• UE power savings
• Enhancing and extending the support beyond 52.6GHz
• CA (Carrier Aggregation)/DC (Dual-Connectivity) enhancements (e.g., MR-MC (Multi-Radio/Multi-Connectivity), etc.)
• Flexible spectrum integration
• RIS (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces)
• Others (RAN1-led)

15. Additional RAN1/2/3 candidate topics, Set 2:

• UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)
• IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things)/URLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication)
• <5MHz in dedicated spectrum
• Other IoT enhancements/types
• HAPS (High Altitude Platform System)
• Network coding

16. Additional RAN1/2/3 candidate topics, Set 3:

• Inter-gNB coordination, with the following example areas:
• Inter-gNB/gNB-DU multi-carrier operation
• Inter-gNB/gNB-DU multi-TRP operation
• Enhancement for resiliency of gNB-CU
• Network slicing enhancements
• MUSIM (Multiple Universal Subscriber Identity Modules)
• UE aggregation
• Security enhancements
• SON (Self-Organizing Networks)/MDT (Minimization of Drive Test)
• Others (RAN2/3-led)

17. Potential RAN4 enhancements 

The latest timeline for Release-17/18 is as shown in the diagram above. 

The official 3GPP Release-18 page is here. This link is better to navigate through features in different 3GPP releases.

Related Posts: 

• The 3G4G Blog: '5G RAN Release 18 for Industry Verticals' Webinar Highlights
• The 3G4G Blog: 3GPP's 5G-Advanced Technology Evolution from a Network Perspective Whitepaper
• The 3G4G Blog: 3GPP RAN Plenary Update and Evolution towards 5G-Advanced
• The 3G4G Blog: Initiative to Remove Non-inclusive terms from 3GPP Specifications
• The 3G4G Blog: Introduction to 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) Devices
• The 3G4G Blog: 3GPP Standards on Edge Computing
• The 3G4G Blog: ATIS Webinar on '5G Standards Developments in 3GPP Release 16 and Beyond'