Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Promoting the Evolution and Application Innovation Development of 5G Lightweight (RedCap)", which triggered heated discussions in the industry. 5G lightweight (RedCap, Reduced Capability) technology is an important path for 5G to realize the interconnection of people, machines, and things. Its accelerated evolution and application innovation will bring new infrastructure construction, transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy. play an active role. This article introduces the background, technical characteristics, application scenarios and industry progress of 5G RedCap.
Text | Kaishan
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5G slims down, taking into account performance and cost
The large-scale commercial use of 5G has promoted the development process of the Internet of Everything and driven the rapid development of the mobile Internet of Things. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the first half of 2023, the number of mobile IoT connections in my country has reached 1.845 billion, making it the first country among the world's major economies to achieve "superhumanity of things". The global mobile Internet of Things has also maintained rapid growth. According to GSMA predictions, the number of global mobile Internet of Things connections is expected to reach 5.3 billion by 2030, with an annual growth rate of more than 20%.
However, the application potential of 5G in the field of Internet of Things has not yet been fully explored, and one of the most important constraints is the high cost. In the 5G IoT technology system, 5G NR has the strongest capabilities, providing high-speed and high-performance connections to meet IoT services requiring ultra-high speeds above 100Mbps. However, the IoT application scenarios are complex, and the demands of various industries and even individual customers are obviously different, resulting in actual users having inconsistent requirements for network indicators. Some commercial scenarios do not require such extreme performance, and all use 5G NR It will cause a large performance overflow, increase terminal usage costs, affect the network popularization process, and affect the development of 5G networks.
For example, in highly automated smart factories, 5G’s ultra-large bandwidth, ultra-low latency and high reliability can meet the needs for precise control of industrial robots. However, there are often a large number of equipment in factories, such as video transmission, industrial sensing equipment, etc., which often do not require such extreme performance, but require higher performance than mMTC (NB-IoT and eMTC) and higher performance than 4G network. Supports lower latency connections.
Therefore, in order to balance 5G network performance and cost, 3GPP proposed 5G lightweight (reduced-capability, RedCap) terminals in R17. While inheriting the key features of 5G NR, RedCap reduces the requirements for data rate, latency, etc., while reducing equipment cost, complexity, and power consumption. The typical performance comparison between RedCap and eMBB, uRLLC and mMTC is shown in the figure.
Figure 1 Typical performance comparison between RedCap and eMBB, uRLLC and mMTC
In terms of latency , the target latency of uRLLC is 1ms, the target latency of RedCap application in industrial sensors is less than 100ms, and the target latency of video surveillance is less than 500ms; in terms of transmission rate , the target of eMBB Peak rates can reach 20Gbit/s in the downlink and 10Gbit/s in the uplink. The most demanding RedCap applications (such as wearable devices) have downlink requirements of 150Mbit/s and uplink requirements of 50Mbit/s; in terms of battery life , the mMTC target is 10-15 years, while for RedCap applications the target is several years for industrial sensors and one to two weeks for wearables.
The proposal of RedCap technology complements the 5G mobile IoT technology system and forms a network system that can meet different speed requirements of low, medium and high speeds, take into account different performance and cost, and have 4G/5G synergy. With the development and commercialization of 5G-Advanced technology, RedCap will also support the medium-rate scenarios currently covered by Cat1. Cellular passive Internet can support hundreds of billions of things with lower rates and zero power consumption, forming a full-scenario 5G mobile IoT. The network technology system comprehensively supports the digital transformation of the industry.
Figure 2 Mobile IoT technology system
Specifically, in the mobile IoT technology system:
-For ultra-high-speed scenarios (>100Mbps), carried by 5G NR;
-For high-speed scenarios (10-100Mbps), it is carried by 4G Cat4 and 5G RedCap, and will gradually be carried by 5G RedCap in the future;
-For medium-rate scenarios (100kbps-10Mbps), carried by 4G Cat1. In the future, as the 5G R18 standard version is improved, RedCap will also have the ability to handle this scenario;
-For low-rate scenarios (<100kbps), undertaken by NB-IOT, it is the main technology for 5G low-power large-connection scenarios;
-For lower rate scenarios (<10kDps), the cellular passive IoT technology being studied is one of the key technical directions of 5G-Advanced. With its advantages of lower cost and zero power consumption, it can support logistics warehousing management and cargo tracking. , asset inventory and other hundreds of billions of IoT scenarios.
Standard completion, terminal complexity reduced by 60%
In June 2022, the 3GPP R17 standard version will be frozen, and the RedCap standard will be officially completed. The standard mainly covers the following contents: terminal complexity reduction, parking and access control, mobility, terminal identification, BWP configuration and power consumption, etc.
Compared with traditional 5G terminals, RedCap reduces the complexity of the terminal compared to traditional eMBB terminals by reducing the maximum transmission bandwidth to 20MHz, cutting the number of transceiver antennas (minimum 1T1R), and reducing the maximum uplink and downlink modulation order (such as 64QAM). About 60% . In addition, the Extended Discontinuous Reception (eDRX) mechanism and Relaxed Radio Resource Management (RRM) are introduced for RedCap terminals to extend battery life.
Of course, RedCap also continues the various excellent features of 5G NR, such as large bandwidth, low latency, high reliability, business guarantee, data does not leave the factory, low power consumption, strong coverage and many other advantages, and can be used on demand for different application scenarios. Introduced to effectively meet business needs.
In the future R18 standard, RedCap will benchmark 4G Cat1/1bis and will further reduce terminal complexity by reducing service bandwidth and peak rates, while further expanding its support for medium-rate IoT services. The R18 version of RedCap is expected to be completed in Q1 of 2024. Domestic standards CCSA is also simultaneously promoting RedCap research, and is conducting discussions on the draft for comments on industry standards such as RedCap base stations, terminals, and modules.
Focus on industrial, video, wearable devices and power scenarios
Among the many 5G application scenarios, 3GPP has proposed three typical application scenarios for RedCap: industrial wireless sensors, video surveillance, and wearable devices. The key indicator requirements are shown in the table below.
Table 1 3GPP RedCap typical scenarios and key indicator requirements
Application scenarios |
data rate |
end-to-end delay |
Availability/Reliability |
Battery Life |
Industrial Wireless Sensors |
<2Mbps |
<100ms safety related sensors 5-10ms |
Availability 99.99% |
at least a few years |
Video Surveillance |
Economical 2-4Mbps High-end type 7.5-25Mbps |
<500ms |
reliability 99%-99.9% |
—— |
Wearable device |
reference rate Downlink 5-50Mbps Uplink 2-5Mbps peak rate Downstream 150Mbps Uplink 50Mbps |
—— |
—— |
How many days (1-2 weeks) |
Industrial wireless sensor scenarios cover a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, steel, mining, petrochemical and other industries. RedCap mainly focuses on data collection applications in the industrial field. Such data collection applications are connected to enterprise platform systems and are characterized by large quantities and strict requirements on terminal cost control. Equipment includes industrial control, sensor data acquisition, predictive maintenance, logistics AGV, code scanners, printers, AI machine vision, etc. in the industrial environment. Data rates tend to be less than 2Mbps, and battery life is required to last at least a few years. The market space of 5G is estimated to be 200,000/year, gradually increasing to one million/year connections.
Wide-area video surveillance scenarios are an important area for RedCap's scale development. It is estimated that the scale of surveillance cameras can exceed 100 million. By integrating 5G terminal modules with surveillance cameras, a flexible and low-cost backhaul method is provided for video surveillance. The typical business requirements are as follows: the reference rate requirement for economical video surveillance is 2-4Mbps, and the rate requirement for high-end video surveillance It is 7.5-25Mbps, and the business volume is higher than the main line; the delay requirement of the video surveillance service is less than 500ms; the communication reliability requirement is between 99% and 99.9%.
The main characteristics of the wearable device scenario are that it is relatively small in size and powered by batteries. It has high requirements on the size and power consumption of 5G modules, and requires wide coverage. Mainly include smart watches, smart bracelets, medical monitoring equipment, etc., which generally require small size and low power consumption. The downlink reference rate is 5-50Mbps, the uplink reference rate is 2-5Mbps, the downlink peak rate is 150Mbps, and the uplink peak rate is 50Mbps; the ideal working life of the battery is several days or even 1-2 weeks.
In addition, 5G is crucial to the digital transformation of all aspects of the power industry’s generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, and use. According to data from China Southern Power Grid, it is expected that the number of access terminal devices will exceed 200 million in 2025, and the number of terminals is expected to reach 400 million in 2030. Electric power digital business can be divided into intelligent control and intelligent collection. The control business includes intelligent distributed energy regulation, power load demand response, and distribution automation; the collection business includes advanced metering, substation inspection, and transmission line drone inspection. Inspection and distribution room video comprehensive monitoring, etc. These scenarios have lower requirements for speed and higher requirements for latency and reliability. They are the key application scenarios of RedCap.
Table 2 Energy and power business requirements applicable to RedCap
Industrial development will accelerate in 2023
Operator accelerated verification
In order to accelerate the maturity of the industry, in July 2022, the IMT-2020 5G Promotion Group took the lead in completing the formulation of RedCap key technologies and test standards , guiding the terminal and network equipment industries to quickly meet commercial conditions.
China Mobile will establish 6 RedCap teams in the first half of 2023 to jointly carry out RedCap commercial research. At present, five major network equipment manufacturers, including Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, and CITIC, have participated in the RedCap technology verification organized by China Mobile, supporting basic functions such as terminal access, user identification, mobility, and data service transmission, and are promoting multiple Enhanced features such as BWP. By connecting all links in the end-to-end industrial chain and shortening the cycle from product development to application implementation, it is expected to launch a commercial version of RedCap before the end of 2023 and begin to have commercial capabilities. In terms of pilots, the 5G RedCap "1+5+5" Innovation Demonstration City was released on August 30 to provide technology testing and application demonstration platforms for the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, and accelerate the large-scale commercialization of RedCap.
China Telecom has been continuously exploring the application scenarios of RedCap since 2021. At the beginning of 2022, China Telecom launched RedCap network verification of industry application scenarios in enterprises such as Jiangsu Zhenjiang Port, Zhejiang State Grid Power, Hebei Aosen Steel, Inner Mongolia Zhuneng Coal Mine, Jiangxi Xing Chemical Industry. In 2023, in order to further verify the expansion and synergy of RedCap in industry applications on a wide regional scale, China Telecom conducted a "RedCap City" pilot in Shenzhen and simultaneously launched 15 industry pilot units across the country for scenario verification. . Currently, China Telecom has connected with more than 50 RedCap industry terminals and verified more than 20 industry application scenarios.
China Unicom launched its first 100-site connection test network, and simultaneously launched network trials in multiple provincial and municipal branches to conduct technical verification of RedCap functions, performance, network optimization, terminal-network collaboration, etc. covering its own frequency bands and relevant manufacturers. .
In July 2023, China Telecom and its industrial partners carried out end-to-end testing of key commercial functions and performance of RedCap in the 700MHz and 4.9GHz frequency bands based on China Telecom’s 5G network configuration, and collaborated on RedCap technology research and deployment methods. Case optimization, business scenario construction and analysis, etc.
Increase research and development efforts on chips and modules
Chip manufacturers pay great attention to RedCap technology and actively plan related commercial products. In 2022, chip manufacturers have launched prototypes and participated in technical verification.
In February this year, Qualcomm announced the launch of the world's first 5G NR-Light (also known as "5G RedCap") Snapdragon®X35 5G modem and radio frequency system. Since the second quarter of 2023, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, Unisoc, and Aojie Technology have continued to increase their research and development efforts on RedCap chips, and the commercialization of chips has accelerated. Among them, MediaTek participated in the tests of almost all overseas mainstream operators RedCap this year. It is expected that some chip manufacturers are expected to launch pre-release products in the second half of 2023 and meet the conditions for commercial use. In 2024, more chip manufacturers will launch commercial Redcap chips.
The overall module plan is closely related to the chip rhythm. Module manufacturers including Quectel, Fibocom, TD Tech, SIMCom, Hisense, Meige, Youfang, ZTE, and China Mobile IoT are all conducting RedCap module research and development. . In the first half of 2023, the number of RedCap modules has increased from 1 to 6, including: China Mobile IoT RedCap module MR880A series, which is targeted at smart factories, video surveillance, smart power, smart wearables, car communications, etc. Various industrial applications; the world's first 5G RedCap low-power positioning module jointly released by China Telecom Tianyi IoT and core module manufacturers Zhilian and Lierda; Quectel Communications is based on Qualcomm Snapdragon X35 5G modem and 5G RedCap module Rx255C series of radio frequency systems; China Unicom released the first universal 5G RedCap commercial module product NX307, etc.
This year, RedCap terminals such as Unicom Yan, Meige, Fibocom, Nari Distribution Automation Terminal, China Mobile IoT Enterprise Gateway, and China Micro Industrial Gateway have been launched one after another, and the number of RedCap terminals has increased to 21 . It is expected that in the second half of 2023, terminal prototypes for power, video surveillance, industrial Internet, geophysical prospecting and other scenarios will be launched. From 2024, RedCap terminals will be implemented in more industries, and terminal types will become increasingly rich and applied in all walks of life.
In terms of price, the cost of RedCap-related chip modules is also expected to drop significantly. The initial commercial price of RedCap modules is expected to be 200-300 yuan. As the commercial pace accelerates and the market scale develops, it is expected to drop to 100 yuan. It is expected that it will eventually be sold. The price is the same as the current 4G Cat4 module.
Many foreign countries have tested
On August 24, 2023, Verizon announced the successful completion of the RedCap test, which used Ericsson's software and MediaTek's RedCap test platform to complete data and voice sessions based on the Verizon 5G network. The testing was completed on C-band TDD spectrum and 850 MHz FDD spectrum, through Verizon's 5G SA core network.
Previously, AT&T, another operator in the United States, announced that it had completed the first RedCap data communication test The test was based on the AT&T 5G SA existing network. AT&T's test was implemented in cooperation with Nokia and MediaTek, based on Nokia's AirScale platform and MediaTek's RedCap test platform.
Australia's two major operators have also completed 5G RedCap testing . Telstra announced that it had completed the first RedCap-based VoNR test with Ericsson and MediaTek, using Ericsson's pre-commercial RedCap software and MediaTek's RedCap test equipment on Telstra's 5G live network. This VoNR test session was carried by FDD, marking the beginning of Telstra's continuous testing and verification of 5G functions; Optus, Australia's second largest operator, cooperated with Ericsson and MediaTek to complete the first RedCap remote data session.
Asian operators have also followed suit. South Korea's SK Telecom announced that it has cooperated with Nokia and MediaTek to complete the development and field testing of RedCap based on commercial frequency bands.
The number of connections is expected to grow by tens of millions in 2025
According to the "Notice on Promoting the Evolution of 5G Lightweight Technology and Application Innovation and Development", China plans to realize the continuous evolution of the 5G RedCap standard by 2025, with technical capabilities meeting the needs of diverse scenarios, and promoting the continued reduction of the costs of industrial chips, modules, terminals, etc. There are more than 100 terminal products, the number of connections has increased by tens of millions, and more than five 5G RedCap application fields have been created to achieve millions of connections. The development of 5G RedCap is expected to further activate the 5G market, solve the current problem of high power consumption and high cost of IoT terminals, cover 40%-50% of 5G medium-rate scenarios, and bring new opportunities for 5G scale development.
The introduction of RedCap technology requires only network software upgrades, but it also affects many aspects such as network access management, resource management, signaling overhead, and network coverage. The next step is to ensure that the network adopts appropriate management strategies. , developing 5G RedCap while avoiding negative impacts on non-RedCap terminals poses new challenges to network operation, maintenance and optimization.
In short, the development of 5G RedCap has entered the fast lane. It is necessary to continue to promote the formulation of 5G RedCap standards, improve the industrial system, and accelerate network capability upgrades and application innovation. Let us wait and see whether future development can meet expectations.
references
[1] Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, "Notice on Promoting the Evolution and Application Innovation Development of 5G Lightweight (RedCap)", 2023
[2] China Mobile, "China Mobile 5G-RedCap Technology Industry White Paper", 2023
[3] China Mobile, "China Mobile 5G-RedCap Technology White Paper", 2022
[4] China Unicom, "China Unicom 5G RedCap White Paper", 2022
[5] Communications World, "When 5G "Meets" RedCap: 5G Commercial Wheel Turns", 2023
[6] Communications World, "Can 5G RedCap Technology Help Operators Gain Confidence?", 2023
[7] Internet of Things Think Tank, "5G RedCap shipments will exceed 1/4 in 2030, and testing will be intensive overseas", 2023
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