From Radio Design to System Evaluations for Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communication

Ultra-reliable and low-latency communication is the enabler for many new use cases, including wireless industrial automation. Fulfilling varying requirements of these use cases demands a flexible radio design. To address this, a holistic approach needs to be adopted. Therefore, this paper presents the radio access concepts affecting the communication reliability and latency, and comprehensively evaluates link and system level considerations through simulations. In particular, we describe the choice of suitable modulation and coding schemes, and discuss the impact of different numerologies and waveform candidates. We also point out the key principles for radio frame design to reduce the end-to-end latency. The presented concepts are then used to evaluate the performance at system level for an industrial scenario. It is shown that by an appropriate design of the radio interface for 5G system, the required low-latency and high reliability for industrial applications and many other use cases can be achieved.