Introduction to 5G with New Radio
Random Access and Beam Management
© 2019 Liangping Ma. All Rights Reserved.
Outline
• Random access
• Beam management
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Random Access
• Contention based random access: UE selects a preamble
• Contention free random access: UE uses an allocated preamble
Contention based Contention free
Initial access from RRC Idle mode
Transition from RRC Inactive to RRC Connected
Handover
On-demand System Information
Beam Failure Recovery
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SSB: Synchronization Signal and PBCH block
239 P
PSS: primary synchronization signal
B
C
SSS: secondary synchronization signal
H
QPSK, polar code
192
• PSS is one of 3 M-sequences of length 127 (LTE uses 3 Zadoff-chu seqs)
182 o Indicate part of physical cell identity (PCI)
P
P
S
P o Eliminate freq deviation between UE and gNB
Subcarrier B B
Number
S
S
C
S
S
C • SSS is a one of 336 Gold sequences
H H
o Together with PSSS, identify full PCI
56
• PBCH carries master information block (MIB)
47 P
o SSB time index
B ▪ Implicit part by choosing a scrambling sequence (8 beams): good for FR1
C
H
▪ Explicit part (3 bits for FR2): extend to 64 SSBs
0 o CellBarred flag: can UEs can access the cell? If not, can access other cells?
0 1 2 3 o 1st PDSCH DMRS position (1 bit) for mapping type A (symbol 2 or 3?)
OFDM symbol number o SIB1 numerology (1 bit)
3GPP TS 38.300-f50, p20, April, 2019
o SIB1 configuration (8 bits): search space, CORSET
o CRC (24 bits) …
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SSB Periodicity (SS Burst Set period)
• In LTE, the PSS and SSS are located at the center of the carrier
• A device with no prior knowledge must search for PSS/SSS at all possible
carrier positions (carrier raster)
• In NR, a limited set of possible locations of SS block in each
frequency band (synchronization raster)
• In LTE, SSB periodicity is 5ms.
• In NR, SSB periodicity is 5ms – 160ms. The typically longer
periodicity improves energy performance, but also introduces
larger delay (which however is compensated by the sparse
synchronization raster)
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SS Burst Set
Supports beam sweeping
Mapping: SSB → beam
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 6
Beam establishment during initial access
Beam → SSB index → RACH occasion
• Occasion here means a block of time-frequency resource
SB1 SB1 SB2 SB2 SB3 SB3
SB1 SB1 SB2 SB2 SB3 SB3
frequency
time
• UE chooses a RACH occasion corresponding to the SSB index that
corresponds to a DL transmit beam, and transmits a RACH
preamble
• gNB maps the RACH occasion to the SSB index, which is then
mapped to a DL beam, and will use the beam for data
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Random access
Contention based random access (CBRA) Contention free random access (CFRA)
4-step 4-step CBRA 4-step CFRA
2-step 2-step CBRA 2-step CRFA
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Random Access
4-step CBRA 2-step CBRA
UE gNB UE gNB
MsgA (MSG 1 + MSG 3)
MSG 1 (PRACH Preamble)
RAR MsgB RAR
Window
Window RAR aka MSG 2 (detected Preamble,
MsgB (MSG 2 + MSG 4)
TA, UL grant for MSG3, TC-RNTI)
MSG 3 (RRCSetupRequest, or
RRCResumeRequest ...)
Contention Time
Resolution
Timer MSG 4 (UE Contention Resolution
Identity) PRACH GT TxG DMRS/PUSCH GP
MsgA Preamble MsgA Payload
MsgA
©2021 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved.
4-step Contention Based Random Access (CBRA)
• UE selects a DL beam, finds RO, and
UE MSG 1 (PRACH Preamble, the RO gNB
corresponds to best DL beam)
RAR
calculates RA-RNTI based on the RO
PDCCH using CSS and RA-RNTI
Timer
RAR aka MSG 2 (detected Preamble - RAPID, TA • “MSG 1”: Preamble randomly chosen
command, UL grant for MSG3, TC-RNTI) sent on PDSCH)
Timer
by UE
cancelled • Question: when does a collision happen?
MSG 3 (RRCSetupRequest, or RRCResumeRequest, ...) • “MSG 2”: RAR (on PDSCH)
Contention
• RAPID identifying detected preamble
Resolution
Timer
PDCCH using CSS and TC-RNTI
• TA command
•
MSG 4 (UE Contention Resolution Identity)
Timer
Grant for “MSG 3”
cancelled
HARQ ACK (if the UE succeeds at contention resolution) • TC-RNTI
• The scheduling PDCCH is scrambled by
RA-RNTI
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4-step CBRA • “MSG 3” (can come in various forms)
• RRCSetupRequest for RRC_IDLE →
UE MSG 1 (PRACH Preamble, the RO
corresponds to best DL beam)
gNB RRC_Connected
• UE ID (ue-Identity): last 39 bits of 5G-S-TMSI (if
RAR
PDCCH using CSS and RA-RNTI provided by upper layer) or a 39-bit random number
Timer
RAR aka MSG 2 (detected Preamble - RAPID, TA
command, UL grant for MSG3, TC-RNTI) sent on PDSCH)
• Cause of request (establishmentCause)
Timer • Or RRCResumeRequest for RRC_Inactive →
cancelled
RRC_Connected, or
MSG 3 (RRCSetupRequest, or RRCResumeRequest, ...) • ...
Contention
Resolution PDCCH using CSS and TC-RNTI
• “MSG 4” (Contention resolution and
Timer
MSG 4 (UE Contention Resolution Identity) connection set up)
Timer
cancelled
HARQ ACK (if the UE succeeds at contention resolution)
• Carries the UE ID in “MSG 3”
• If a UE finds a match, it succeeds at random
access; uses TC-RNTI as its C-RNTI
• If not, UE restarts random access procedure
©2022 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 11
Beam management
• Beam forming in NR refers to analog beamforming done by
adjusting the phases of antennas
• For a suitable pair of TX/RX beams, the two beams may not
physically point to each other
TX beam RX beam
Beam pair
Beam pair
• Beam correspondence: if a suitable pair of TX/RX beams for DL is
also suitable for UL
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 12
Beam management
• Initial beam establishment
• Beam adjustment
• Mobility, device rotation, movements of objects in environment, beam
refinement (e.g., narrower beams)
• TX-side beam adjustment given the current RX-side beam
• RX-side beam adjustment given the current TX-side beam
• Needed for both UL and DL without beam correspondence
• Only one (UL or DL) is needed with beam correspondence
• Beam recovery
• Recover from beam failure resulting from e.g., movement, blocking
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 13
Beam adjustment
• DL transmitter-side beam adjustment
• For current receiver beam, try different transmit beams, each with a
distinct reference signal
• Measurements on CSI-RS or SSB
• UE reports for up to 4 beams
• L1-RSRP of the strongest beam
• The difference between the L1-RSRP and the best L1-RSRP
Reception
Transmission
RS-4
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 14
Beam adjustment
• DL receiver-side beam adjustment
• For the current transmit beam, try different receive beams
• No need for UE to report
• The reference signal needs to be repeated in different OFDM symbols to
allow for receiver-side beam sweeping
Reception
Transmission
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 15
Beam adjustment
• UL beam adjustment
• Not needed if beam correspondence can be assumed
• If needed, the measurements are done on SRS
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 16
Beam adjustment
• DL beam-forming can be done transparently to the UE
• NR also supports beam indication
• gNB informs the device that a PDSCH or PDCCH transmission uses the
same transmit beam as a reference signal (CSI-RS or SSB)
• Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) state includes info about the
reference signal (CSI-RS or SSB)
TCI → CSI-RS or SSB → beam
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 17
Beam recovery
• Theoretically a beam failure occurs when the error probability for
PDCCH exceeds a certain threshold
• In practice a beam failure is declared based on measurements of
the quality (L1-RSRP) of some reference signal (CSI-RS and SSB)
• Hypothetical error rate
• Candidate beam identification
• The device measures L1-RSRP for reference signals (CSI-RS and SSB)
• Beam recovery request
• Beam failure detected
• Possibly a candidate beam
• Network response
Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold "5G NR: the next generation wireless access technology", 2018.
©2019 Liangping Ma. All rights reserved. 18
