The R18 standard is officially frozen today, and 5G-A begins a new chapter

According to "YEPs" news on June 18, the 3GPP Release 18 technical standard was officially announced to be frozen at the 104th 3GPP RAN meeting held in Shanghai at 16:30 today, marking another important milestone for 5G technology.

Prior to this, 3GPP had successfully frozen the three versions of 5G standards, R15, R16 and R17. As the first complete version of 5G, R15 was officially frozen in 2019. It laid the foundation of 5G technology and provided a solid foundation for subsequent evolution. The R16 version was frozen in 2020. It is mainly optimized and enhanced for the Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles and other fields, further broadening the application scope of 5G technology. The R17 version will be frozen in 2022. It mainly focuses on improving network energy efficiency and optimizing network slicing, providing strong support for the intelligence and efficiency of 5G networks. The R18 frozen today is not only the fourth version of the 5G standard, but also the first version for 5G-A technology, indicating that 5G technology will enter a new stage of development. Note: 5G-A stands for 5G-Advanced, also known as 5.5G. It is the technological evolution of 5G. Compared with 5G, it can achieve significant improvements in capacity, speed, delay, positioning, reliability, etc. According to reports, the R18 standard took more than three years from project establishment to freezing. It carries the industry’s expectations of “mining new values, exploring new fields, and connecting the next generation” and has the following three major characteristics. The first is to expand scenarios so that 5G can do more. The R18 standard further expands 5G application scenarios, including connected drones, ground-to-air communications, virtual/augmented reality, etc. In order to solve the problems of low-altitude network interference, signal clutter, and coverage fragmentation, network-connected drones introduce an altitude-based measurement mechanism and a time/distance-based flight trajectory air interface update and reporting mechanism to improve network connection performance and help develop the low-altitude economy; ATG (Air-To-Ground) has developed standard solutions such as new phased array antenna radio frequency architecture, time-frequency domain compensation, and location-based switching to address the problems of ultra-long-distance coverage, ultra-high speed, and air-ground interference in aviation communications, achieving zero blind zones up to 300km. Covering distance and supporting flight rates up to 1200km/h; aiming at the large bandwidth, low latency, high reliability, and high capacity requirements of virtual/augmented reality services, global optimization of information transmission is achieved through cross-layer optimization, enabling high-capacity and low-latency networks , reduce terminal power consumption, accelerate the popularization of immersive services, and generate new applications in the industry. The second is to tap into the potential and make 5G do better. Targeting high-value scenarios in the 5G pre-release version, R18 digs into potential issues and challenges and continues to enhance standards. Based on the R17 low-cost terminal RedCap, in order to enhance the competitiveness of 5G systems in low-cost IoT applications, R18 further adapts to the low peak rate requirements of RedCap terminals (not higher than 10Mbps) and reduces the terminal baseband and uplink shared channel transmission bandwidth. (not greater than 5MHz) and peak rate, in order to further reduce terminal costs and energy consumption. On the basis of R17NTN, in order to further solve the problem of frequent handovers caused by ultra-high-speed movement of mid- and low-orbit satellites, R18 realizes terminal-less handovers by coordinating network and terminal satellite communication and other information, effectively avoiding the frequent handovers caused by traditional handovers. Signaling storm and business interruption issues. In order to further save network operation and maintenance and deployment costs, the R18 standard introduces functions such as network energy saving, intelligent repeaters, and network intelligence/automation. The third is to explore the direction so that 5G can effectively connect with 6G. The R18 standard prepares for the warm-up of 6G and explores UDD technology that can realize the ultimate performance of TDD. This technology breaks the traditional TDD duplex mode. By enabling the base station to simultaneously receive and transmit duplex transmission on different subbands of a TDD carrier, it achieves extremely low transmission waiting delay in the TDD spectrum, improves uplink capabilities, and meets the needs of low latency and large traffic. Dual business requirements for the uplink; explore the combination of wireless networks and artificial intelligence technology, empower traditional air interface functions through artificial intelligence/machine learning, such as codebook feedback, beam measurement, positioning, etc., and use AI as a powerful tool to further improve network spectrum efficiency and Terminal positioning capabilities.

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