NR RA Procedure

Random access (RA) is a key procedure in cellular networks, enabling an MS to initiate

communications and time alignment to a BS. Downlink synchronization is obtained after
successfully decoding SSB, In order to establish uplink synchronization and RRC
connection, UE has to perform RACH random access procedure.
In 5G ,RACH (Random Access Channel) is an uplink unsynchronized channel, used for
initial access or uplink synchronization, and a separate channel PRACH ( Physical
Random Access Channel) is provided for initial access to the network.
Two types of RACH procedure, Contention Based Random Access (CBRA) and Non
Contention or Contention Free Random Access (CFRA)
Contention Based Random Access (CBRA): In this UE randomly select the preamble( out
of 64 preambles defined in each time-frequency in 5G). So there are some possibilities
that multiple UEs can send the PRACH with the same preamble id. in this case same
PRACH preamble can be reached to the network from multiple UEs at the same time. so
at this stage PRACH collisions occur and this type of PRACH collision is called
"Contention" and the RACH process that allows this type of "Contention" is called
"Contention based" RACH Process.
Contention Free Random Access (CFRA): in these scenarios, the Network itself informs
each UE of exactly when and which preamble indexes it has to use for PRACH. Of
course, in this case, the Network will allocate these preamble indexes so that it would
not collide. This kind of RACH process is called the “Contention Free – CFRA” RACH
procedure.
RACH Scenarios and RACH Type
The RA procedure is initiated by a PDCCH order from the gNB, by the UE’s MAC entity
itself, or by RRC. The RA procedure is triggered by a number of events:
§ Initial access from RRC_IDLE (CBRA)
§ RRC Connection Re-establishment procedure (CBRA)
§ DL data arrival during RRC_CONNECTED when UL synchronisation status is "non-synchronised"
i.e., Out-of-Sync (CBRA or CFRA)
§ UL data arrival during RRC_CONNECTED when UL synchronisation status is "non-synchronised"
i.e., Out-of-Sync (CBRA)
§ UL data arrival during RRC_CONNECTED when there are no PUCCH resources for SR available
(CBRA)
§ SR failure (CBRA)
§ Request by RRC upon synchronous reconfiguration (e.g. handover) (CBRA or CFRA)
§ Transition from RRC_INACTIVE (CBRA)
§ To establish time alignment for a secondary TAG (CBRA or CFRA)
§ Request for On-demand System Information (CBRA or CFRA)
§ Beam failure recovery (CBRA or CFRA)

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5G NR Initial Access Procedure
SS Burst Summary
§ Up to 4 SS Blocks Beams for freq less than 3GHz
§ Up to 8 SS Block Beams for freq 3GHz to 6GHz
§ Up to 64 SS Block Beams for freq greater than 3GHz

When considering frequencies for which beam operations are required, each SS block
can be mapped to a certain angular direction.
To reduce the impact of SS transmissions, SS can be sent through wide beams, while
data transmission for the active UE is usually performed through narrow beams, to
increase the gain produced by beamforming 4
SSB Index (3 bits carried in PBC Pay load for FR2)

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Beam Selection Procedure
The coverage is beam-based in 5G, not cell based. There is no cell-level reference
channel from where the coverage of the cell could be measured. Instead, each cell has
one or multiple Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) beams,.
SSB beams are static, or semi-static, always pointing to the same direction. They form a
grid of beams covering the whole cell area. The UE searches for and measure the
beams, maintaining a set of candidate beams. The candidate set of beams may contain
beams from multiple cells. The metrics measured are SS-RSRP, SS-RSRQ, and SS-SINR
for each beam.
Physical Cell ID (PCI) and beam ID are the identifications separating beams from each
other. In field measurements, these metrics can be collected both with scanning
receivers and test UEs. Hence, SSB beams show up as kind of new layer of mini-cells
inside each cell in the field measurements.
The different SSBs (beams) of a cell are transmitted at different times. Therefore, there
is no intra-cell interference among the SSB beams, and at least the scanning receivers
should be able to detect also extremely weak SSB beams, even in presence of a
dominant, strong beam from the same cell.
it must be kept in mind that 5G can operate without beamforming, in which case there
would be one SSB beam covering the whole cell area, and all the coverage testing
methodology would default back to same as in LTE as SSB beam equals to cell in that
case.

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Beam Selection Procedure

#SS
Frequency Frequency
Block/SS
Range Band
Burst
< 3 GHz 4 FR1
3 GHz<
Frequency
8 FR1
band < 6
Ghz
Higher
Frequency 64 FR2
Band

The above picture shows example of two UEs, UE#1 finds the SB# 1 as best
and UE#2 find the SB#4 as best beam.

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NR CBRA Procedure

UE gNB Prach-ConfigurationIndex
Msg1-FDM
Msg1-frequencyStart
Prach-RootSequenceIndex
zeroCorrelationZoneConfig
preambleReceivedTargetPower
System Information
totalnumberofRA-preamble
Ssb-perRACH-OccasionAndCB-PreamblePerSSB
numberOfRA-PreambleGroupA
Msg1: Random Access Preamble Msg1-SubcarrierSpacing
Transmission

Msg2 : Random Access Response(RAR) ra-ResponseWindow

In a PDSCH

Msg3-transformPrecoding
Msg3 : RRC Connection Request Msg3-SubcarrierSpacing
In a PUSCH Ra-Msg3SizeGroupA

Msg4 : Contention resolution(in PDSCH) ra-ContentionResolutionTimer

Message 1- UE–gNB or MN-eNB
UE find the good beam during the synchronization process and uses this beam to
attempts random access procedure by transmitting RACH preamble (Msg-1) on the
configured RACH resource. The preamble is referenced with the Random Access
Preamble Id (RAPID). The preamble transmission is a Zadoff-Chu sequence.
UE select the preamble which is available in CBRA access or Pool, here we have a
parameter ( totalNumberOfRA-Preambles) , Contention based preambles with
consecutive indexed associated with SS/PBCH block n, 0≤n≤N-1, per valid PRACH
occasion start from the preamble index n,where N total preamble.
Receive SSB( UE measure the RSRP on each received beams, selects the SSB and read the
system information Block.
RMSI for a standalone scenario or RRC reconfiguration for NSA to determine PRACH
configuration. Here we will check( RACH occasion: time-frequency resources, prach
preamble format, Root sequence index(RSI)
Calculate RA-RNTI: The RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH in which the Random Access
Preamble is transmitted if all condition for PRACH transmission is met.
Calculate PRACH TX power
Transmit the preambles
Frequency domain location (resource) for PRACH Preamble is determined by the RRC
parameter msg1-FDM and msg1-FrequencyStart
Time domain location (resource) for PRACH Preamble is determined by the RRC
parameter prach-ConfigurationIndex
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RA-RNTI Calculation
gNB calculates the RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion, in which the random
access preamble is transmitted.
RA_RNTI calculation is a bit different. RA_RNTI is used to address the UE on PDCCH
which in turn used for decoding of PDSCH for Random Access Response (RAR).
The MAC entity calculates RA_RNTI except for CFRA used for BFR request (in this case,
C-RNTI is used for RAR). RA_RNTI is calculation is given below:
RA-RNTI= 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id
§ s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the specified PRACH (0 £ s_id < 14)
§ t_id is the index of the first slot of the specified PRACH in a system frame (0 £ t_id < 80)
§ f_id is the index of the specified PRACH in the frequency domain (0 £ f_id < 8)
§ ul_carrier_id is the UL carrier used for Msg1 transmission (0 for NUL and 1 for SUL carrier)

MAC instructs the physical layer to transmit PRACH using preamble index, PRACH
occasion, and RA-RNTI (if available)
The frequency-domain location (resource) for PRACH preamble is determined by the
RRC parameter msg1-FDM and msg1-FrequencyStart. The time-domain location
(resource) for PRACH preamble is determined by the RRC parameter prach-
ConfigurationIndex

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NR RACH Configuration Parameters
prach-ConfigurationIndex : This value Points to Table for prach-ConfigurationIndex In
38.211. The table defines which PRACH format to use and when to send PRACH in time
domain and number of RACH occasions available.
msg1-FDM: The number of PRACH transmission occasions FDMed in one time instance.
Upto eight RACH occasions can be used in one time instance.
msg1-FrequencyStart: This value refers to the Offset of lowest PRACH transmission
occasion in frequency domain with respective to PRB 0. The value is configured so that
the corresponding RACH resource is entirely within the bandwidth of the UL BWP.
preambleTransMax : Max number of RA preamble transmission performed before
declaring a failure. How many times a UE can transmit MSG1 before declaring RACH
failure.
powerRampingStep : Power ramping steps for PRACH. This value indicates the amount
of power UE needs to increase for RACH transmissions if previous RACH attempt failed.
ra-ResponseWindow: Msg2 (RAR) window length in number of slots. UE scans for
PDCCH looking for msg2 response from gNB within the ra-ResponseWindow, if UE did
not receive msg2 within the window it will consider RACH failure and start msg1
transmission again.
NR RACH Configuration Parameters
totalNumberOfRA-Preambles: totalNumberOfRA-Preambles indicates the total number
of preambles available per PRACH occasion for both contention based and contention
free RACH. This IE has a range of 0-63, If this IE is missing then All 64 preambles are
available and If this IE is present then less than 64 preambles are available to UE’s. In
this case 8 Preambles are available to UE.
ra-ContentionResolutionTimer : The initial value for the contention resolution timer.
value sf16 corresponds to 16 subframes, and so on.
msg1-SubcarrierSpacing: Defines Subcarrier spacing of PRACH.
ssb-perRACH-OccasionAndCB-PreamblesPerSSB : The meaning of this field is two
fold: ssb-perRACH-Occasion conveys the information about the number of SSBs
mapped per RACH occasion and CB-PreamblesPerSSB indicates the number of
Contention Based preambles available per SSB
Msg 2: Random Access Response(RAR)
Once the RA preamble is transmitted, the UE waits for the acknowledgement from the
gNB in the form of Random Access Response (RAR).
The UE monitors for RAR by attempting to detect a DCI format 1_0 with CRC scrambled
by RA-RNTI/C-RNTI within a window configured by ra-ResponseWindow.
The RAR-Window is configured by rar-WindowLength IE in a SIB message and in
Contention free rach procedure RAR window length IE is present in rrcReconfiguration
with sync msg.
The ra-ResponseWindow is picked from RACH-ConfigCommon. and within the RAR
window, the UE monitors for RAR (PDCCH addressed to RA-RNTI).
If RAR contains a MAC subPDU with RAPID equal to the transmitted preamble ID, then
the UE considers RAR reception is successful.
Except for the case where RA procedure is not initiated for “SI request”, the MAC RAR is
included in the MAC subPDU and it contains
 RAPID: Random Access Preamble Identifier detected by the network
 Timing Advance Command: Timing advance calculated by the network based on the received
timing of the RA preamble.
 UL Grant: Grant required for the UE’s subsequent UL transmission (Msg3)
 Temporary C-RNTI: Temporarily used for communication between UE and the gNB for the rest
of the RA procedure
If UE successfully decoded the PDCCH, it decodes PDSCH carrying RAR data.
MAC PDU Data Structure For RA(RAR Msg)
MAC Subheaders

E: The Extension field is a flag indicating if the MAC subPDU including this MAC
subheader is the last MACsubPDU or not in the MAC PDU.
§ E field is set to “1” to indicate at least another MAC subPDU follows
§ E field is set to “0” to indicate that the MAC subPDU including this MAC
subheader is the last MAC subPDU in the MAC PDU
T: The Type field is a flag indicating whether the MAC subheader contains a Random
Access Preamble ID or a Backoff Indicator.
§ The T field is set to “0” to indicate the presence of a Backoff Indicator field in
the subheader (BI)
§ The T field is set to “1” to indicate the presence of a Random Access Preamble
ID field in the subheader (RAPID)
R: Reserved bit, set to “0”
MAC RAR Payload

RAPID:

§ A subPDU signalling the Random Access Preamble Identifier (RAPID) only.

§ This subPDU is used to acknowledge the System Information (SI) request.

§ It consists of a MAC subheader for the RAPID

§ The MAC subheader for RAPID of size 1 byte, T is set to 1.

§ RAPID field is 6 bits that signal the preamble identifier.

§ A SubPDU signalling the RAPID with a MAC RAR.

§ This subPDU consist of MAC subheader for RPAID followed by MAC RAR.

E T RAPID

T = 1 for MAC subheader carrying the RAPID

MAC RAR Payload
R: Reserved bit, set to “0”;
Timing Advance Command: The Timing Advance Command field indicates the index
value TA used to control the amount of timing adjustment that the MAC entity has to
apply in TS 38.213 [6]. The size of the Timing Advance Command field is 12 bits
UL Grant: The Uplink Grant field indicates the resources to be used on the uplink i.e.
Msg3. The size of the UL Grant field is 27 bits and content of UL grant is shown in
below.

UL grant (27 bits)

Msg3 PUSCH
Freq Hopping Msg3 PUSCH TPC for Msg3
Time MCS CSI Request
Flag Freq Resource Resource PUSCH

1 bit 14 bit 4 bit 4 bit 3 bit 1 bit

Frequency Hopping Flag : If the value of the frequency hopping flag is 0, the UE
transmits the PUSCH without frequency hopping; otherwise, the UE transmits the
PUSCH with frequency hopping.
MCS: The UE determines the MCS of the PUSCH transmission from the first sixteen
indexes of the applicable MCS index table for PUSCH
Msg3 Transmission
For CBRA procedure, the UE transmits Msg3 over PUSCH using UL grant received in the
MAC RAR. The UE includes an identity in the Msg3 which is used later in the process of
contention resolution.
The UE uses Temporary_C-RNTI for the transmission of Msg3.
The contents of Msg3 varies depending on whether the UE already has a C-RNTI or not
as discussed below.
Case1: UE already had a C-RNTI
The UE may already have a C-RNTI (e.g. UE in RRC_CONNECTED) at the time of RA
procedure initiation. The applicable cases and the associated Msg3 contents are given
below.
§ RA procedure was initiated for BFR – UE sends C-RNTI MAC CE in Msg3.
§ RA procedure was initiated by a PDCCH order (this case is CBRA if the network sets the preamble
ID in PDCCH order to 0b000000) - UE sends C-RNTI MAC CE in Msg3.
§ RA procedure was initiated by the MAC sublayer itself or by the RRC sublayer – UE sends C-RNTI
MAC CE in Msg3, in addition, the following is applicable;
• In case of CBRA during synchronous RRC reconfiguration (e.g. handover) - UE
transmits RRCReconfigurationComplete message in Msg3
• When UE needs to transmit uplink data and if SR is not configured or SR failure or uplink Out-of-Sync – In
this case, the UE may also include BSR MAC CE to indicate buffer status to get appropriate uplink resources
from the network

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Msg3 Transmission
Case2: UE didn’t have a C-RNTI
The UE sends CCCH SDU in Msg3 if it didn’t have a C-RNTI (e.g. during initial access)
at the time of initiation of RA procedure. The applicable cases and the associated
Msg3 contents are given below.
§ UE is transitioning from RRC_IDLE to RRC_CONNECTED – UE sends RRCSetupRequest (UL CCCH)
message in Msg3
§ UE is transitioning from RRC_INACTIVE to RRC_CONNECTED – UE
sends RRCResumeRequest or RRCResumeRequest1 (UL CCCH) message in Msg3
§ During RRC Connection Re-establishment procedure – UE sends RRCReestablishmentRequest (UL
CCCH) message in Msg3
§ When using CBRA for On-demand SI – UE sends RRCSystemInfoRequest message in Msg3

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Contention Resolution
Case1: UE already had a C-RNTI
§ The UE may already have a C-RNTI (e.g. UE in RRC_CONNECTED) at the time of RA
procedure initiation.
§ If the C-RNTI MAC CE is included in Msg3, the network resolves contention just by
transmitting PDCCH addressed to UE’s C-RNTI (uplink grant or downlink assignment).
At this point, the UE considers that the RA procedure is successfully completed and
discards Temporary_C-RNTI.
§ Note that there is no need for the network to explicitly transmit contention resolution
information in the downlink.
§ The UE considers the contention resolution as not successful if it doesn’t detect
PDCCH addressed to C-RNTI during ra-ContentionResolutionTimer.
Case2: UE didn’t have a C-RNTI
§ In this case, as the UE doesn’t have a valid C-RNTI, the gNB transmits Msg4 (“UE
Contention Resolution Identity MAC CE”) using Temporary_C-RNTI.
§ “UE Contention Resolution Identity” MAC CE is identified by MAC subheader with
Logical Channel ID:62, fixed 48-bit size and consists of single field “UE Contention
Resolution Identity”. In this MAC CE, the gNB replays first 48-bits of UL CCCH SDU
received in Msg3.

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Contention Resolution

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Thank You