Inter-Numerology Interference Analysis for 5G and Beyond

One of the defining characteristics of 5G is the flexibility it offers for supporting different services and communication scenarios. For this purpose, usage of multiple numerologies has been proposed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The flexibility provided by multi-numerology system comes at the cost of additional interference, known as inter-numerology interference (INI). This paper comprehensively explains the primary cause of INI, and then identifies and describes the factors affecting the amount of INI experienced by each numerology in the system. These factors include subcarrier spacing, number of used subcarriers, power offset, windowing operations and guard bands.