5G New Use Case: NR-Lite (a.k.a.

NR-Light)

After numerous 5G presentations, we all are aware of 3 major 5G Use-Cases:

1. Enhanced Mobile Broadband

2. Massive machine-type communications (mMTC)
3. Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC)

So, why do we need a new Use-Case rather than using the above three?

In the 3GPP study, it was confirmed that NB IoT and LTE M fulfill the IMT-2020 requirements for mMTC
and can be certified as 5G technologies.

For cMTC(time critical machine-type communication) support, URLLC was introduced in Release 15 for
both LTE and NR, and NR URLLC is further enhanced in Release 16 within the enhanced URLLC (eURLLC)
and Industrial IoT work items.

One important objective of 5G is to enable connected industries. 5G connectivity can serve as catalyst
for next wave of industrial transformation and digitalization, which improves flexibility, enhances
productivity and efficiency, and improves operational safety.

Industrial sensors and actuators are prevalently used in many industries. Vast variety of sensors and
actuators are also used in automotive, transport, power grid, logistics, and manufacturing industries.
They are deployed for analytics, diagnostics, monitoring, asset tracking, process control, regulatory
control, supervisory control, safety control, etc. It is desirable to connect these sensors and actuators to
5G networks.

The massive industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN) use cases and requirements- NR-Lite (a.k.a.
NR-Light)
Initially the name was NR-Lite, which was later changed to NR-Light.

✓ What is NR-Lite?
NR-Lite should address new use cases with IoT-type of requirements that cannot be met by eMTC and
NB-IoT:
• Higher data rate & reliability and lower latency than eMTC & NB-IoT
• Lower cost/complexity and longer battery life than NR eMBB
• Wider coverage than URLLC

Requirements and use cases –

• Data rates up to 100 Mbps to support e.g. live video feed, visual production control, process
automation
• Latency of around [10-30] ms to support e.g. remote drone operation, cooperative farm
machinery, time-critical sensing and feedback, remote vehicle operation
• Module cost comparable to LTE
• Coverage enhancement of [10-15]dB compared to URLLC
• Battery life [2-4X] longer than eMBB
• Enable single network to serve all uses in industrial environment
• URLLC, MBB & positioning

✓ Then, question arises, why do we need to intriduce NR-Lite, rather than sticking back to LTE?

Reason- The understanding in the industry is that over the next 5 years, a lot of 4G spectrum, in addition
to 2G/3G spectrum, would have been re-farmed for 5G. By introducing NR-Lite, there would be no
requirement to maintain multiple RATs. Also, NR-Lite can take advantage of 5G system architecture and
features such as slicing, flow-based QoS, etc.
Key-Notes on the same-

• No need to support 3 different Networks- NR, e-MTC/NB-IOT and LTE: Same spectrum can be
used for both URLLC and NR-Lite on the same carrier as well as deploy eMTC/NB-IOT.
• Better system efficiency with NR compared to LTE: NR features like Beam-forming, higher Sub-
Carrier spacing for Latency reduction, massive MIMO, etc.
• Deploy URLLC and NR-Lite also in FR2 Spectrum: FR2 will widely be used for private networks
due to its limited range and high spatial reuse.

Spider-Diagram- 5G:

The 5G Spider diagram is very useful while comparing the pros and cons of each use case and get the
idea all at a single glance.

The following chart shows the various Use-Cases along with their features in which they are majorly
focussed for. We can clearly see that NR-Light is forming a good balance between all the Key
requirements thus justifying the need of this new vertical in 5G.