5G Physical Layer: Signals, Waveforms, and Key Enablers Channels and Signals/Waveforms in 5G: New Radio (NR)
The chapter on 5G Physical Layer details innovations in mobile communications technology, with a focus on the New Radio (NR) air interface's flexibility and efficiency improvements. It discusses signal waveforms, frame structures, and technologies such as Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) and Carrier Aggregation, emphasizing their roles in enhancing coverage, capacity, and user experience. The importance of small cells and Dual Connectivity for densification and improved service quality is also outlined, along with the role of FAPI in interoperability within disaggregated networks.
Sections
Navigate through the learning materials and practice exercises.
What we have learnt
- 5G NR's flexible air interface supports varied user demands and service requirements.
- Innovative waveform techniques like CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM improve performance and power efficiency.
- NOMA allows concurrent user service with increased spectral efficiency, benefiting high user densities and cell-edge performance.
- Carrier Aggregation expands capacity and effectiveness by leveraging multiple frequency bands and types.
- Small cells are vital in achieving ambitious 5G capacity and coverage goals through densification.
Key Concepts
- -- 5G New Radio (NR)
- The air interface for 5G mobile communications, designed for flexibility across various service requirements.
- -- Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal FrequencyDivision Multiplexing (CPOFDM)
- The primary waveform for 5G NR used for downlink communications, providing robustness and efficiency.
- -- NonOrthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA)
- A radio access technology that allows multiple users to share the same frequency and time resources, differentiated by power levels.
- -- Carrier Aggregation (CA)
- A technique used to combine multiple frequency bands to achieve higher data rates and better resource utilization.
- -- FAPI
- A Front-end Application Programming Interface that defines communication protocols between functional blocks of base stations in Open RAN architectures.
Additional Learning Materials
Supplementary resources to enhance your learning experience.