DoCoMo achieves URLLC with outdoor 5G trial

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has claimed two new world first with recent 5G trials, including the first successful outdoor trial of 5G technologies for ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC).

The trial, conducted with Huawei in the 4.5-GHz bands, involved a stationary mobile terminal receiving signals at distances of up to 1km from the base station.

DoCoMo said the trial achieved an over-the-air latency of less than 1ms with a packet transmission success rate of more than 99.999% – both prerequisites for URLLC under 3GPP and ITU-R standards.

These standards were achieved at distances of 0.3km to 0.6km from the base station when the terminal was moving at around 25km/h. Both tests achieved actual over-the-air latency of around 0.65ms downlink and 0.57ms uplink.

Separately, DoCoMo conducted a joint trial with MediaTek involves using a self-developed non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) chipset designed to increase the spectral efficiency of mobile devices by up to 2.3 times compared to existing LTE technology.

This marked the first 5G trial using a smartphone-sized NOMA chipset embedded device to increase spectral efficiency, DoCoMo said. The chipset also used MediaTek’s multi-user interference cancellation technology, a prerequisite for NOMA.

Finally, DoCoMo also announced it has teamed up with Sony to conduct a joint trial involving real-time transition of HD video over 5G to Sony’s experimental New Concept Cart high-tech vehicle (see the picture below).