Introduction to Modern Cellular Networks

Part 4: 5G NR Network Architecture and

Radio Access Network (RAN) Protocols

Dejan Vukobratovic, Professor

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Outline of the Lecture
• Overview of 3GPP NR System Architecture

• NR Radio Access Network (RAN) Protocols

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 Preliminaries

• 4G LTE is based on split architecture: RAN + EPC

• The same principle is preserved in 5G NR: 5G Core + 5G RAN
• 5G RAN can be connected to 4G LTE EPC
• Non-Stand-Alone (NSA) 5G NR (first stage of 5G deployment)
• 5G RAN connected to 5G Core will represent Stand-Alone (SA)
deployment
• 4G LTE will be also compatible with 5G Core
• This is in contrast with transition from 3G to 4G where RAN/Core
networks of different technologies were not compatible

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 5G Core Network

• Three major features of 5G Core:

• Service-based architecture
• Architectures focuses on services and functionalities, not on nodes
• Due to virtualization of core network functions
• Support for network slicing
• Slice is a logical network deployed on a same physical core and RAN and providing
specific services (e.g., two slices could be eMBB and URLLC)
• Control-plane/User-plane split
• Independent deployment and management of control and user plane functionality

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High-Level 5G Core Network Architecture

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.1, page 74) 5
User Plane Function (UPF)

User Plane Function

• Gateway between RAN and
external networks (Internet)
• Packet routing and forwarding
• QoS handling
• Packet inspection and filtering
• Traffic measurements
• Anchor point for intra-RAT
handover

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.1, page 74) 6
Session Management Function (SMF)

Session Management Function

• Handles IP address allocation to
User Equipment
• Control of policy enforcement
• General session management

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.1, page 74) 7
Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)

Access and Mobility Management

Function
• Control Signaling between the
Core and the device
• User data security
• Authentication
• Idle-state mobility
• Functionality operating between
AMF and device – Non-Access
Stratum (NAS)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.1, page 74) 8
Various Network Management Functions

Policy Control Function (PCF)

• Definition of Policy Rules
Unified Data Management (UDM)
• Authentication Credentials and
access authentication
Network Exposure Function (NEF)
NR Repository Function (NRF)
Application Function (AF)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.1, page 74) 9
 5G Core Network Function Virtualization

• 5G Core Network Functions can be implemented as:

• A single physical node
• A set of distributed physical nodes
• Virtualized in a centralized cloud platform
• Virtualized and distributed across edge/fog/cloud

• Mobile operators are transitioning to cloud-based virtualized CN

• All CN functions are software-based and virtualized
• Flexible deployment and scaling (adding additional virtual machines)

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 4G and 5G Interworking
• To allow early 5G deployment, NR RAN can be supported by 4G EPC
• Non-Stand-Alone deployment (Option 3)
• All control-related functions are handled by LTE, NR is used for user-data
• With 5G Core deployment, NR RAN can directly connect to 5GC
• Stand-Alone operation (Option 2)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.2, page 75) 11
Outline of the Lecture
• Overview of 3GPP NR System Architecture

• NR Radio Access Network (RAN) Protocols

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 5G Radio Access Network Elements

• 5G Radio Access Network contains two types of base stations:

• gNB – serving NR devices using both NR user- and control-plane
• ng-eNB – serving LTE devices using LTE user- and control-plane

• Next-Generation RAN (NG-RAN): 5G RAN consists of ng-eNB to

serve LTE devices and gNB to serve NR devices

• Flat architecture with ng-eNB/gNB elements

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 5G RAN gNB Element

gNB Element
• All radio-related functions in one or several cells
• Radio resource management, admission control, connection establishment
• Routing of user data to UPF and control information to AMF
• QoS management per packet flow
• gNB is a logical node and not a physical implementation
• Standard three-sector macro-cellular site
• Baseband processing unit (BBU) with a number of remote radio heads
(RRH)
• Disagregated gNB based on Open-RAN (O-RAN) specifications

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5G RAN gNB Splitting
NG Interface
• Connects gNB to 5G Core
• Separate user-plane (NG-u)
and control-plane (NG-c)
• One gNB can have multiple
NG interfaces for load
sharing and redundancy
Xn Interface
• Similar to X2 in LTE
• Active mode mobility
• Dual-connectivity
• Joint gNB signal processing
Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.3, page 77) 15
5G RAN gNB Element F1 Interface
• Enables gNB Functional Split
• gNB Central Unit (gNB-CU)
• gNB Distributed Unit (gNB-
DU)
• gNB-CU: Higher layer
protocols (SDAP, PDCP, RRC)
• gNB-CU: Lower layer
protocols (RLC, MAC, PHY)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.3, page 77) 16
5G gNB Dual Connectivity Dual Connectivity
• Allowing the device (UE) to
connect to multiple cells
• Useful to increase aggregate
data rate of the user
• Useful also for Non-Stand-Alone
(NSA) deployment (figure)
• LTE master cell handles C-plane
connection
• NR secondary cell handles U-plane
connection

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.4, page 78) 17
 Radio Access Network Architecture

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.6, page 80)
 RAN Protocols
• Similar to 4G LTE
• Most notable difference
is a new SDAP layer for
QoS handling
• SDAP is not used in case
gNB is connected to EPC

Figure: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll:

“5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.7, page 81)
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Service Data Application Protocol SDAP
 New layer in 5G NR RAN
 Maps QoS flows to Radio bearers according
to their QoS requirements

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Service Data Application Protocol (SDAP)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.5, page 79) 21
Packet Data Convergence Protocol PDCP
 Performs IP header compression using ROHC
(Robust Header Compression)
 Data ciphering
 Integrity check of control data packets
 In-sequence delivery and duplicate removal
(during handover)
 One PDCP entity per radio bearer

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Radio Link Control Protocol RLC
 Segmentation to create variable size RLC PDUs
based on scheduler decisions
 Concatenation is removed due to delay
 RLC retransmission using ARQ mechanism
 Duplicate detection
 Unlike LTE, NR does not support in-sequence
delivery to PDCP to reduce delay
 One RLC entity per radio bearer

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Radio Link Control Protocol (RLC)

Figures: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.10, page 85) 24
Medium Access Control Protocol MAC
 Provides services to RLC in the form of logical
channels
 Performs multiplexing of logical channels
 Uplink and downlink scheduling (located at
eNB for both UL/DL)
 Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) retransmissions
 MAC frame size aligned to PHY transport block
(TB) size which depends on PHY configuration
 Minor changes in header format in 5G NR to
allow for support for low-latency processing
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Physical Layer Protocol PHY
 Provides services to MAC layer in the form of
physical channels
 Error correction coding and decoding
 Adaptive modulation and OFDM resource grid
mapping
 MIMO antenna system signal processing

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 DL Packet Flow in 5G NR RAN Protocols

Figure: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.7, page 81)
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5G NR Logical Channels
MAC layer provides service to RLC layer in the form of logical channels
• Logical channels defined by the type of information they carry
• Control channels (control information) and Traffic channels (user data)
• BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel)
• Delivers system information to all devices in the cell
• PCCH (Paging Control Channel)
• Paging devices in the network whose location is not known
• CCCH (Common Control Channel)
• Delivery of control information and for random access
• DCCH (Dedicated Control Channel)
• Delivery of control information to/from a device
• DTCH (Dedicated Traffic Channel)
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• Delivery of user data to/from a device
5G NR Transport Format Selection
PHY layer provides service to MAC layer in the form of transport channels
• How and with what characteristics are data transmitted over radio interface?
• Data is organized into Transport Blocks (TB)
• Transport Block is transmitted within Transmission Time Interval (TTI)
• Details on how TB is transmitted are placed in Transport Format (TF)
associated to each TB
• TF contains information about: Transport Block Size (TBS), Modulation and
Coding Scheme (MCS), Antenna Mapping
• Transport Format Selection: MAC scheduler varies Transport Format in order
to realize different data rates

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5G NR Transport Channels
• BCH (Broadcast Channel)
• Uses fixed transport format to transmit Master Information Block
• PCH (Paging Channel)
• Transmission of paging information
• DL-SCH (Downlink Shared Channel)
• Main transport channel used for DL data. It supports dynamic data rate adaptation,
channel dependent scheduling, HARQ, spatial multiplexing, etc.
• UL-SCH (Uplink Shared Channel)
• Transport channel used for UL data.
• RACH (Random Access Channel)
• Dedicated for random access procedure

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Logical, Transport and Physical Channels

Figure: The figure is taken from E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skoll: “5G NR: The Next Generation Wireless Access Technology,”
Academic Press (Elsevier), 2017 (Figures 6.11, page 88)
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Takeaway Message
• We reviewed 3GPP 5G LTE system architecture and
explained the role of all logical blocks in 5G Core Network
and differences with 4G LTE EPC

• Then, we focused on Radio Access Network and investigated

protocols that enable RAN connection and pointed out to
the minor differences compared to 4G LTE RAN

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Further Reading
• 5G Book, Chapter 6

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Introduction to Modern Cellular Networks
Part 4: 5G NR Network Architecture and
Radio Access Network (RAN) Protocols

Dejan Vukobratovic, Professor

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