NRPos: A Multi-RACH Framework for 5G NR Positioning

The objective of this paper is to propose a new framework for determining the geographical location of a New Radio (NR) user. The proposed new NR-RACH Positioning (NRPos) uses the timing advance parameter in random access response (RAR) of a random-access request to achieve better accuracy than state-of-the-art localization systems like observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA), enhanced cell identity (ECID). NRPos framework incorporates two key novel technical contributions. First, a mobile station algorithm for acquiring timing advance (TA) from each of three or more NR cells. Second, it incorporates a novel estimation technique, weighted shrinking and growing circles technique (WSGC) to determine geolocation. Our simulations in a dense base station environment show that NRPos achieves 30-40% better location accuracy with mean as 33% over legacy OTDOA technique in urban/dense environments and also satisfy the E911 location accuracy benchmarks from federal communications commission (FCC).