A Thermal Aware Approach to Enhance 5G Device Performance and Reliability in mmWave Networks

Abstract

5G NR (New Radio) mmWave networks are creating novel avenues of numerous possibilities and improving mobile broadband in terms of capacity, throughput, and performance, driven by the insatiable demand for faster and better user experience. However, one of the critical problem areas for User Equipment (UE) in mmWave networks is the fast depletion of UE battery power, increase in thermal levels caused by limited coverage and lot of overhead signaling due to rapid radio frequency (RF) and environment changes. With the growing inclusion of advanced functionality on mobile devices, power consumption is growing in parallel, which causes devices to increase thermal temperature, causing an impact on overall system performance. This paper presents system-level change proposal on control signaling between UE and network elements along with changes in UE thermal algorithms based on device battery levels and the coverage of the 5G mmWave networks to deliver the best device performance and user experience. Furthermore, we present real-world field results captured on mmWave networks showing impacts on UE performance with respect to thermal generation in different RF conditions. Our proposal will allocate optimal network resources by modifying the system selection on both UE and base stations. Without the proposed model, realizing the benefits of the 5G NR system along with achieving seamless cellular user experience would be near impossible.