Phase Noise Compensation for 5G NR System with DFT-s-OFDM in the Presence of Timing Errors

Millimeter wave (mmWave) systems beyond 52.6 GHz carrier frequency are considered as one of the ways to notably improve the data rate of fifth generation New Radio (5G NR) systems. A large amount of spectrum available in such frequency bands can address the capacity demands of the current and future cellular systems. However, the performance of the practical devices operating in the mmWave bands is degraded by phase noise (PN) due to the impairments of the transceiver local oscillators. To address this issue, phase tracking reference signals (PT-RS) are introduced in 5G NR system to mitigate the PN impact at the receiver side. In this paper, we analyze the performance of the conventional PN tracking algorithms with discrete-Fourier-transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-s-OFDM) waveform and demonstrate significant performance losses of 5G NR uplink transmission in the presence of timing synchronization errors and PN. A novel PN compensation algorithm and a new PT-RS structure robust to timing errors is proposed. The PN tracking technique and PT-RS enhancements presented in the paper can be efficiently realized in 5G NR system.