5G System Design

This book presents a detailed pedagogical description of the 5G commercial wireless communication system design, from an end to end perspective, by those that were intimate with its development. The exposition only assumes that the reader is passingly familiar with LTE and builds upon that knowledge. By comparing and contrasting NR with LTE, it allows for quick mastering of 5G. As such it gives concise and highly accessible description of the key technologies in the 5G physical layer, radio access network layer protocols and procedures, how the 5G core and EPC is integrated into the radio access network, how virtualization, slicing and edge computer will fundamentally change the way we interact with the network, as well as 5G spectrum issues.

The 2nd edition of this book significantly enhances and updates the first edition by adding 5G security and Release-16 developments. Loosely speaking, 5G Release-15 can be characterized as being optimized for the cellular carrier eMBB service while 5G Release-16 is the beginning of the optimization of 5G for the vertical industries. It mainly focused on the support of the vehicular vertical and Industrial Internet of Things. As such, we have significantly altered the first edition to cover the key features standardized in Release-16 including: URLLC, V2X, IIoT, enhanced MIMO, unlicensed access, positioning, power savings and IAB. On the network side, detailed discussion covers NR security as well as the newly standardized access traffic steering, non 3GPP access switching and splitting features, non 3GPP access network support and private networks.

Engineers, computer scientists and professionals from those with a passing knowledge of 4G LTE to experts in the field will find this book to be a valuable asset. They will gain a comprehensive understanding of the end to end 5G commercial wireless system. Advanced-level students and researchers studying and working in communication engineering, who want to gain an understanding of the 5G system (as well as methodologies to evaluate features and technologies intended to supplement 5G) will also find this book to be a valuable resource.

Wan Lei is a Huawei fellow and currently head of Wireless Standard, Huawei Tech. Co. Ltd. She led the next generation wireless research and 3GPP 4G&5G standardization work in Huawei since 2008. Before then she was a principle engineer in Ericsson Research since 2001. Her main focus areas are network topology and air-interface evolution. She is known as the expert on network topology, system-level evaluation methodology and FDD/TDD convergence in the industry. She is the initiator of 4.5G and 5G DL/UL decoupling with LTE coexistence and one of the main contributors to 3GPP 5G standardization. In the past, she led TDD/FDD frame structure merging, CoMP, LTE-Hi (3GPP R12 small cell enhancement), LTE-V2X and U-LTE (unlicensed LTE) research and standardization. She is also the inventor of the physical layer MI quality model that is widely used in the system level simulation of telecommunication systems, such a model was adopted by 3GPP, 3GPP2, WiMAX as the link to system interface for system evaluation. She has a long experience in the wireless communication industry, with the background of WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX, LTE and LTE-Advanced. Her research interest covers spectrum and regulation, duplex evolution, network topology evolution, air interface design specifically for traffic adaptive and interference coordination solution, evaluation methodology and autonomous driving.

Anthony C. K. Soong received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Alberta. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and currently the Chief Scientist for Wireless Research and Standards, as well as, Vice President for US Region of 3GPP Account Department at Futurewei Technologies, in the US. He currently serves on the Engineering College Industrial Advisory Board of The University of North Texas. He served as Secretary and the founding board member of OPNFV (2014-2016), the chair for 3GPP2 TSG-C NTAH (the next generation radio access network technology development group) from 2007-2009 and vice chair for 3GPP2 TSG-C WG3 (the physical layer development group for CDMA 2000) from 2006-2011. Prior to joining Futurewei, he was with the systems group for Ericsson and Qualcomm. His research group is actively engaged in the research, development and standardization of the next generation cellular system. His research interests are in statistical signal processing, robust statistics, wireless communications, spread spectrum techniques, multicarrier signaling, multiple antenna techniques, quantum communications, network virtualization, SDN and physiological signal processing. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and has more than 100 patents granted or pending. He received the 2017 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society James R. Evans Avant Garde Award, the 2013 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award and the 2005 award of merit for his contribution to 3GPP2 and cdma2000 development. He is the Industrial Chair for the 2019 Fall IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), Industrial Co-Chair for 2020 Fall and 2019 Spring IEEE VTC, has served on the advisory board of 2014 IEEE Communication Theory Workshop, Steering Committee of IEEE Int. Workshop on HetSNet and on the technical program committee, as well as, chaired at numerous major conferences in the area of communications engineering. He has acted as guest editor for the IEEE Communications Magazine and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

Liu Jianghua received his M.S. degree in telecommunication and information systems from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2005, and then joined Huawei Technologies working until now. He is currently a technical expert of wireless research and leading research and standardization team of HiSilicon wireless terminal chipset service.. Since 2005, he has been working for the research of LTE/NR, and participated in the related standardization in 3GPP. He contributed several hundred contributions and is the inventor of more than 100 patents. His main research areas include MIMO, CA, channel modeling, Multi-user superposition transmission, flexible duplex, IoT, etc.

Wu Yong received his PhD degree in 2008 from the department of electrical engineering of Tsinghua University. Then he joined Huawei and participated in the 4G self evaluation. He is now the chair of SIG-EVAL of CJK (China-Japan-Korea) IMT working group, and the chair of SWG Circular of ITU-R WP 5D. He also served as the 3GPP Rapporteur for the study on self-evaluation towards IMT-2020 submission. He was deeply involved in 5G (IMT-2020) vision development, and 5G evaluation criteria development. He also played a key role in collaborating industry for 3GPP’s 5G evaluation and submission.

Brian Classon graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and has focused on communications engineering throughout his career. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a senior expert for standards for Futurewei Technologies. He worked 13 years with Motorola Labs, researching topics such as channel coding, AMC/HARQ, frame structure, control channels, reference signals, URLLC, and bandwidth-reduced low-complexity devices. After serving as the Motorola Labs global lead for LTE in RAN1, Brian took the role as Huawei RAN1 head of delegation and chief delegate. He was with Huawei from 2008-2019, directing the submission of more than ten thousand contributions and accumulating millions of flight miles in that time. Over his career, Brian has impacted many commercial systems (EDGE, 1xEV-DO/DV, WiMAX, HSPA, LTE, NR) through innovative research, with more than 200 US patents, and academic publication, as well as active attendance and participation in industry standards (3GPP2, 802.16, and 3GPP). Brian contributed to the initial HSPA proposal in 2000, and has attended RAN1 continuously since the start of LTE. He has chaired sessions in RAN1 on multiple topics, including completing the initial release of NB-IoT in April 2016. Brian is the current editor for the LTE core specification 3GPP TS 36.212 and the recipient of the 2014 3GPP excellence award.

Weimin Xiao graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan, China), Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), and Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). Before joining Futurewei Technologies in 2009, he worked for Motorola developing technologies and standards of EV-DV, HSPA, and LTE. He currently leads the US radio access research and standards team focusing on technologies for massive MIMO, dense networks, advanced carrier design and resource optimization, high frequency communications, and connect cars, and their standardization in 5G and beyond. He is an experienced 3GPP delegate in LTE and NR standardization work and is the main inventor of uplink power control design. He received the IEEE Communication Society & Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award in 2002. He has more than 100 patents for power control, MIMO and feedback, cooperative communications, interference control, radio resource optimization, and other areas.

David Mazzarese received the engineer degree from ENSEA, France, in 1998, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada, in 2005. He was a senior engineer in the Wireless Standards and Research Group of Samsung Electronics from 2005 to 2010, working as standard delegate for IEEE 802.16m and 802.22. He has been with Huawei Technologies since April 2010 as a senior expert representing Huawei in 3GPP RAN1 working group, and head of delegation for Huawei in 3GPP RAN TSG since 2013.

Zhao Yang received her Master degree in 2005 from the Southeast University. She joined Huawei in 2006 and continued to participate in 3GPP activities since then. She has been 3GPP GERAN WG2 chair and has led the NB-IoT technology standardization, and she is deeply involved in the 5G standardization and now is the prime delegate for Huawei RAN2.

Tony Saboorian received his master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Florida Atlantic University. He leads the Wireless Systems and Architecture Research and Standards in Futurewei Technologies as well as leading the Futurewei delegations in 3GPP TSG-SA. He has extensive experience in telecommunication research and standardization with emphasis on Wireless Networks, RAN, EPS, 5GS, SDN and NFV.  Mr. Saboorian has worked on various design, planning, architecture and standards projects in Siemens, Nortel Networks, and Huawei. He has contributed to number of Standards (in 3GPP, 3GPP2, WiMAX, ATIS, ETIS, TIA, etc.), held leadership positions in Standards Setting Organizations, and is recognized for his contributions to the industry.