RRM Relaxation in Connected State for Reduced Capability (RedCap) NR UEs

3GPP Release 16 describes two UE criteria for radio resource management (RRM) relaxation, ‘low mobility’ and ‘not at the cell edge’. This work presents a simulation analysis of RRM relaxation for reduced capability (RedCap) new radio (NR) UEs. Two categories are simulated, namely ‘low mobility’ and ‘low mobility + not at the cell edge’ to find the most suitable relaxation criteria for the RRC-Connected state. This work quantifies the energy savings that RRM relaxation brings for stationary and low mobility RedCap UEs with different relaxation intervals varied from 40 ms to 5120 ms. Furthermore, it identifies the cost of energy-saving in terms of radio link failures and handover failures. The simulation analysis shows that the ‘low mobility + not at the cell edge’ criteria is the most suitable for RedCap UEs in comparison to only ‘low mobility’ criteria. Also, high relaxation interval (i.e. 5120 ms) is suitable up to pedestrian UEs speeds.