5G RAN NR Air Interface Course by MCNS

Customer Tailored

We can tailor the included topics,tech level,and duration of this course right to your team’s technical requirements and needs. - MCNS offers courses to companies, institutions, departments etc and not to individuals as per open courses.

Aimed At

This course is mainly aimed at a technical audience. It is suitable for technical professionals, RAN operators, Radio planning engineers, RAN optimization engineers, Research Institutes, defense sector, who currently are or will be involved in deploying, designing, configuring and/or implementing 5G NR.

Prerequisites: Those wishing to take this course should have a good and solid understanding of 5G technology, with good reference to LTE air interface.

Course Review

This 5G training course leads the audience into a deep dive towards 5G RAN NR layer 1 (air interface) interface. It exploits the topic from initial access to resource allocation and from beamforming to data transmissions. It provides detailed descriptions and explanations of the radio interface channel and signal structure, the concepts of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), resource allocation, control signaling, channel coding, frame structure, slot structure, FDD, TDD, system information, and finally Massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). The course is purely theoretical, however it is supported by proper exercises for better understanding of the topic.

Course Benefits for individuals (Professionals)

Understanding 5G RAN layer 1 requirements
Learn how to configure 5G NR air interface physical channel parameters and signals to exploit network performance
Understand the principles behind the control channels and user data channels.
Learn about massive MIMO technology and principles
Understand the physical layer procedures

Course Benefits for your Organization

Equip organization engineers with the necessary knowledge to understand 5G NR physical layer.
Keep ahead of competitors in properly configuring air interface parameters, contributing to high quality customers’ 5G services
Prepare for future network expansions and quality performance optimization

You will learn

The key points you will learn through this course

5G NR Air Interface Technology Review

5G NR Physical Layer Procedures

Course Outline

A short brief of your program details & schedule

5G New Radio (NR) Technology Preview

5G Air interface overview
5G NR FR1 and FR2 bands
Scalable numerology
NR frame structure
FDD – TDD modes
NR signals and channels review
Stand-Alone (SA) architecture
5G SA Services: eMBB, massive IoT, URLLC

5G NR Physical Layer Structure

5G NR channel structure
5G NR Cell concept
Introduction to OFDM principles
Wireless channel characteristics and OFDM performance
Explain the reason for flexible numerology
Flexible numerology vs. wireless channel conditions
Frequency domain physical layer structure
Channel Bandwidth and bandwidth part (BWP) concept
Time Domain physical layer structure and slot structure details
Explain the concepts of channel coding and FEC (Forward Error Correction)
LDPC coding description and performance
Polar coding description and performance

mMIMO Technology overview

LTE to 5G MIMO review
MIMO principles
MIMO channel rank, transmission rank, precoding and layers
MIMO TM3, TM4, TM8-10 modes for NSA & SA deployment: gain and performance
3GPP Massive MIMO (mMIMO) standardization
Beam-forming principles
Active Antenna Systems; Active Antenna Units
mMIMO channel rank, transmission rank, precoding and layers
mMIMO codebook-based vs non-codebook based transmissions
SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO in mMIMO
mMIMO and CSI acquisition methods
mMIMO beam management
Practical exercises

Control Channels & Signals

5G NR sync signals and reference signals related to control plane
Initial Cell search procedure
PSS/SSS synchronization procedure
SSB reading procedure
MIB content and SIB1 CORESET0 determination
SS/PBCH block sweeping procedure
Random access procedure and initial beam establishment
RACH procedure Msg1-Msg4 sequence and contents
Timing Advance and Time synchronization
5G NR PDCCH channel and DCI formats
5G NR PDCCH DCI format contents
5G NR PDCCH aggregation level and blind decoding
5G NR PDCCH parameter configuration
5G NR PUCCH formats
5G NR PUCCH UCI formats and signaling contents
5G NR PUCCH parameter configuration
5G NR PUCCH power control
5G NR SRS power control
Practical Exercises using also trace log files

User Data Transmission Channels

5G NR reference signals related to control plane (DMRS, CSI-RS, TRS, PTRS)
5G NR reference signals parameters and configuration
DMRS configuration vs. wireless channel conditions
PTRS configuration vs. wireless channel conditions
5G NR Type A transmission
5G NR Type B transmissions
5G NR HARQ codebook principles and Code Block Group (CBG) based retransmissions
5G NR HARQ and CBG parameters
5G NR PUSCH power control
Practical exercises using also trace log files

5G NR L1/L2 inter-operability

5G NR MAC scheduler principles
5G NR DL scheduling principles and resource allocation in frequency and time domain
5G NR PDSCH parameter configuration
5G NR UL scheduling principles and resource allocation in frequency and time domain
5G NR PUSCH parameter configuration
Link adaptation principles
Link Adaptation and PDSCH TBS
Link Adaptation and PYSCH TBS
Practical exercises using also trace log files

Training Format

Instructor-Led Training

On-Site Classroom: 3 days

Web delivered (Virtual): 3 days

Excellent and descriptive course material (pdf file) will be provided

FAQ's

Is mMIMO technology mandatory for 5G RAN NR?

Following 3GPP and most of vendor’s functionality Massive MIMO is an essential technology for 5G deployments in mmWave bands where a large number of antennas is used to form narrow beam width beams with high beam gain to compensate for the propagation losses inherent to those high frequencies. On the other hand 5G deployments in FR1 sub-6 GHz bands, Massive MIMO is only an optional feature as Rel. 8 or Rel. 14 MIMO is also available. Operators are still evaluating where and when to deploy MIMO or mMIMO solutions effectively being restricted by vendor’s implementations and optional features. This is because the additional expected capacity benefits of mMIMO in FR1 usually comes at the expense of a significant additional CAPEX and/or OPEX investment compared to traditional RRU and passive antenna solutions.

Describe the difference between FDD and TDD modes in 5G NR

In FDD mode, both uplink and downlink can transmit at the same time at different spectrum frequencies while in TDD mode, both uplink and downlink use the same spectrum frequencies but at different times. 5G FDD is preferred and better used where both uplink and downlink data rates are symmetrical. Interference is also less in FDD topology while it is more in TDD topology due to TDD inter-link frame interference. 5G TDD is used where both uplink and downlink data rates are mostly asymmetrical. Finally in mmW frequencies and in high frequencies in general TDD is mostly preferred due to the reciprocal property of the radio channel and the short time-frequency coherent time.

Why is TDD preferred for 5G?

As an initial statement we have to say that in FR1 sub-6 GHz bands 5G deployments both FDD and TDD bands are equally preferred. Lately there is also a global preference on TDD C-bands only because this spectrum is cleaner that the congested lower FDD bands. In FR2 mmW bands deployments by definition TDD is the ONLY available solution. Hence it is safe to say that in the most initial 5G deployments, both in sub 6GHz and mm Wave, implementations will be based with some preference on TDD due to better channel time and frequency coherent responses. The key advantages of TDD is that it allows dynamic sharing of Uplink and Downlink resources, thereby addressing the asymmetry in UL/DL traffic more efficiently with the minimum requirements on spectrum. TDD also provides increased efficiency for massive MIMO technology by exploiting channel reciprocity, a useful principle where UE is relieved from the burden of interpreting the reference pilot signals and concluding on channel estimation, while all algorithmic channel measurement and estimation processing load is transferred to the gNB. Finally TDD also allows un-utilized unlicensed and unpaired spectrum to be efficiently used, which otherwise would not have been possible if pairing was mandatory.

5G RAN NR Air Interface