Positioning of RedCap Devices in 5G Networks

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has introduced support for reduced capability (RedCap) devices in its fifth generation of wireless cellular technology (5G) for internet of things (IoT) use cases such as industrial sensor networks, wearables, and extended reality. These devices support small radio frequency (RF) bandwidth limiting their capability to achieve high positioning accuracy. This article describes the recently completed 3GPP Release 18 features, extending the effective signal bandwidth of RedCap devices by frequency hopping to enable high accuracy positioning. This article also presents simulation results based on the 3GPP channel models for indoor environments that show that RedCap devices supporting the Release 18 enhancements outperform Release 17 RedCap devices and deliver the same high positioning accuracy available to Release 16 devices with large RF bandwidth.