A 5G NR Millimeter-Wave-Based AoD Positioning Field Experiment

The global deployment of 5G new radio (NR) cellular networks has unlocked new opportunities for enhanced services, with NR positioning emerging as a promising solution for indoor and dense urban environments. NR spectrum in millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands stands out due to its short wavelength and narrow beams, enabling high-resolution Angle of Departure (AoD) estimation, and thus accurate positioning using AoD. This paper investigates mmWave AoD positioning in an outdoor urban canyon environment, which is generally a challenging environment for satellite-based positioning. We describe AoD estimation and positioning algorithms and demonstrate the role of outlier rejection in improving accuracy. We validate our approach by conducting field tests using an outdoor over-the-air 5G NR prototype system. The results demonstrate that mmWave-based AoD positioning achieves a horizontal positioning error of 2.5 meters at the 80
^th
percentile, meeting the positioning accuracy requirements set by the 3
^rd
generation partnership project (3GPP). We also discuss extensions of the approach to RF sensing.