In this article, the 5G New Radio (NR) physical layer evolution to support beyond 52.6 GHz communications is addressed. The performance of both OFDM based and DFT-s-OFDM based networks are evaluated with special emphasis on the phase noise (PN) induced distortion. It is shown that DFT-s-OFDM is more robust against PN under 5G NR Release 15 assumptions, specifically regarding the supported phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) designs. To further improve the PN compensation capabilities, the PTRS design for DFT-s-OFDM is revised, while for the OFDM waveform a novel block PTRS structure is introduced, providing similar link performance as DFT-s-OFDM with enhanced PTRS design. We demonstrate that the existing 5G NR Release 15 solutions can be extended to support deployments at 60 GHz bands with the enhanced PTRS structures. In addition, DFT-s-OFDM based downlink for user data could be considered for beyond 52.6 GHz communications to further improve system power efficiency and performance with higher order modulation and coding schemes. Finally, network link budget and cell size considerations are provided, showing that at certain bands with specific transmit power regulation, the cell size can eventually be downlink limited.

中文翻译：

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超越52.6 GHz的移动通信：波形，命理和相位噪声挑战

本文讨论了支持52.6 GHz以上通信的5G新无线电（NR）物理层演进。对基于OFDM和基于DFT-s-OFDM的网络的性能进行了评估，并特别强调了相位噪声（PN）引起的失真。结果表明，在5G NR版本15的假设下，DFT-s-OFDM对PN的鲁棒性更高，特别是在支持的相位跟踪参考信号（PTRS）设计方面。为了进一步提高PN补偿能力，对DFT-s-OFDM的PTRS设计进行了修改，而对于OFDM波形，引入了一种新颖的块PTRS结构，提供了与具有增强PTRS设计的DFT-s-OFDM相似的链路性能。我们证明了现有的5G NR Release 15解决方案可以通过增强的PTRS结构扩展为支持60 GHz频段的部署。此外，可以考虑将用户数据的基于DFT-s-OFDM的下行链路用于52.6 GHz以上的通信，以通过更高阶的调制和编码方案进一步提高系统功率效率和性能。最后，提供了网络链路预算和小区大小的考虑，表明在具有特定发射功率调节的某些频段，小区大小最终可能受到下行链路限制。