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Projecte llegit

Títol: Experimental Evaluation of 5G RedCap Performance

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: GÓMEZ MONTENEGRO, CARLES

Departament: ENTEL

Títol: Experimental Evaluation of 5G RedCap Performance

Data inici oferta: 03-07-2025     Data finalització oferta: 03-03-2026


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    GR ENG TELEMÀTICA
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Segon director/a (UPC): SÁNCHEZ VITAL, ROGER
 
Paraules clau:
5G, RedCap, Internet of Things, reduced capability, power consumption, eDRX, PSM, battery lifetime, experimental evaluation
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
Internet of Things (IoT) és un paradigma de xarxa que consisteix a connectar objectes de la vida quotidiana, sovint equipats amb sensors o actuadors, a xarxes com Internet. En els darrers anys, s'han dissenyat noves tecnologies de comunicacions per dispositius IoT. Aquestes tecnologies solen estar caracteritzades per velocitats de transmissió relativament baixes (ja que el throughput no sol ser un paràmetre de prestacions fonamental en escenaris IoT), i mecanismes d'estalvi d'energia (ja que molts dispositius IoT disposen de fonts d'energia limitades).

El 3GPP ha estat oferint variants de tecnologies cel·lulars orientades per casos d'ús IoT (o bé Machine-to-Machine, M2M), tals com LTE-M o NB-IoT, que consisteixen en versions simplificades, de prestacions reduïdes, i de menor cost de les variants principals d'aquestes tecnologies. Amb el 5G, i des del Release 17, el 3GPP ofereix la tecnologia 5G Reduced Capabilities (RedCap), per a usos IoT.

Aquest TFG pretén crear un escenari experimental 5G RedCap i l'ús d'aquest escenari per avaluar les prestacions d'aquesta tecnologia, tals com consum energètic, retard o capacitat. L'escenari comptarà amb una placa d'avaluació 5G RedCap com a User Equipment (UE) i un equip Amari Callbox Advanced com a xarxa d'accés i core 5G.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
3GPP introduced Reduced Capability (RedCap) devices in Release 17 to address mid range Internet of Things (IoT) applications. RedCap bridges the gap between high performance 5G New Radio (NR) devices and low power wide area (LPWAN) technologies, targeting industrial wireless sensors, video surveillance, and wearable devices. This thesis presents an experimental evaluation of 5G RedCap performance using a hardware testbed comprising an Amarisoft Callbox Advanced as the 5G Standalone core and base station, a Quectel RG255C GL RedCap module as the device under test, and a Joulescope JS220 precision energy analyser for current consumption measurements.

The evaluation encompasses the complete operational flow of the module, from initial cell search and RRC connection establishment to NAS registration, validated through detailed inspection of logs captured directly from the core network. The characterisation covers idle and sleep mode current profiles, revealing a baseline sleep current of approximately 2.9 mA and pronounced current peaks during authentication and registration procedures. Two traffic scenarios involving ICMP and UDP transmissions emulate realistic sensor and surveillance workloads under varying payload sizes and periodicities, enabling direct comparison between measured and theoretically derived energy expenditure per operational state.

Analytical modelling of energy consumption further examines the impact of extended Discontinuous Reception (eDRX) and Power Saving Mode (PSM) mechanisms, quantifying how paging time window configuration and inactivity timer values influence the overall duty cycle. Battery lifetime is then estimated using a model that combines the measured active window energy with the low power current corresponding to each power saving configuration. The framework is evaluated parametrically across multiple battery capacities and reporting periods; for a 5000 mAh battery and a 60 second reporting period, the projected operational lifetime ranges from approximately 9.5 to 75.4 days depending on the selected power saving mechanism.

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