What Are 5G Physical Design Considerations?

January 11, 2019

Many researchers from industry and academia are actively working on addressing the requirements for a robust and reliable 5G implementation.
The following key features have played a defining role in the 5G NR physical layer:

1. Supporting a wide range of operation bands, a variety of channel bandwidths within those bands, and multiple deployment options.
2. Serving applications with very low latency, which requires short subframes and puncturing and bursty interference from mission-critical transmissions.
3. Sharing the spectrum dynamically to provision uplink (UL), downlink (DL), sidelink, and backhaul links.
4. Implementing multiantenna technology (multiple input, multiple output or MIMO) for larger spectral efficiency.
5. Maintaining limited-time operation and more efficient frequency usage for better TDD and FDD deployments.
6. Having symmetrical DL and UL requirements to enable operation at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies of compact, low-cost base stations.

Source: NI