5G NR Radio Protocol Stack (Layer 2 and Layer 3)

5G NR Radio Protocol Stack (Layer 2 and Layer 3)
September 4, 2017admin5G
3GPP has released specification 38.300 V1 this month about NR and NG-RAN Overall Description:
Stage 2, This standard comes with the detailed descriptions about 5G NR network and Protocol
architecture.
NR Radio User plane and Control Protocol Stack is shown in below figures:
Figure #1 User Plane Protocol Stack Figure #2 Control Plane

Protocol Stack
When we closely see both the protocol stack we could see many similarities between LTE protocol
stack and 5G-NR protocol stack because LTE protocol stack is being taken as the base line for the
development 5G-NR.
5G-NR User plane contains Phy, MAC, RLC, and PDCP same as LTE and has introduced a new
layer named as SDAP (Service Data Adaptation Protocol).
On another side, the control plane of 5G-NR is identical to LTE, here MME equivalent node named
as AMF (Access and Management Mobility Function).
5G-NR Layer 3 (RRC) Functions:
The main services and functions of the RRC sub layer include:
 Broadcast of System Information related to AS and NAS;

 Paging initiated by 5GC or NG-RAN;
 Establishment, maintenance, and release of an RRC connection between the UE and NG-
RAN including Addition, modification, and release of carrier aggregation, Addition,
modification, and release of Dual Connectivity in NR or between E-UTRA and NR.
 Security functions including key management;
 Establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of Signalling Radio Bearers (SRBs)
and Data Radio Bearers (DRBs);
 Mobility functions including Handover and context transfer; UE cell selection and reselection
and control of cell selection and reselection; Inter-RAT mobility.
 QoS management functions;
 UE measurement reporting and control of the reporting;
 Detection of and recovery from radio link failure;
 NAS message transfer to/from NAS from/to UE.
5G-NR Layer 2 Functions:
The layer 2 of NR is split into the following sub layers:
 Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP)

 Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
 Radio Link Control (RLC)
 and Medium Access Control (MAC)
The two figures below depict the Layer 2 architecture for downlink and uplink, where:
 The physical layer offers to the MAC sublayer transport channels;

 The MAC sub layer offers to the RLC sublayer logical channels;
 The RLC sub layer offers to the PDCP sublayer RLC channels;
 The PDCP su blayer offers to the SDAP sublayer radio bearers;
 The SDAP su blayer offers to 5GC QoS flows;
 Comp. refers to header compression and segm. to segmentation;
 Control channels (BCCH, PCCH are not depicted for clarity).
Figure #3 Downlink Layer 2 Structure Figure #4 Uplink Layer 2
Structure
SDAP (Service Data Adaptation Protocol) Protocol Functions :
The main services and functions of SDAP include:
 Mapping between a QoS flow and a data radio bearer (Due to new QoS framework)
 Marking QoS flow ID (QFI) in both DL and UL packets ( DL: due to reflective QoS and UL:
due to new QoS framework)
A single protocol entity of SDAP is configured for each individual PDU session, except for DC where
two entities can be configured.
PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) Layer Functions:
The main services and functions of the PDCP sublayer for the user plane include:
 Sequence Numbering
 Header compression and decompression: ROHC only
 Transfer of user data
 Reordering and Duplicate detection (if in order delivery to layers above PDCP is required)
 PDCP PDU routing (in case of split bearers)
 Retransmission of PDCP SDUs
 Ciphering and Deciphering
 PDCP SDU discard
 PDCP re-establishment and data recovery for RLC AM
 Duplication of PDCP PDUs
The main services and functions of the PDCP sublayer for the control plane include:
 Sequence Numbering;
 Ciphering, deciphering and integrity protection;
 Transfer of control plane data;
 Duplicate detection;
 Duplication of PDCP PDUs.
RLC (Radio Link Control ) Layer Functions:
The main services and functions of the RLC sublayer depend on the transmission mode and include:
 Transfer of upper layer PDUs

 Sequence numbering independent of the one in PDCP
 Error Correction through ARQ
 Segmentation and re-segmentation
 Reassembly of SDU
 RLC SDU discard
 RLC re-establishment
Note: no concatenation and no reordering
MAC (Media Access Control) Layer Functions
The main services and functions of the MAC sub layer include:
 Mapping between logical channels and transport channels

 Multiplexing/demultiplexing of MAC SDUs belonging to one or different logical channels
into/from transport blocks (TB) delivered to/from the physical layer on transport channels
 Scheduling Information Reporting
 Error correction through HARQ
 Priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling
 Priority handling between logical channels of one UE by means of logical channel
prioritization
 Padding
A single MAC entity can support one or multiple numerologies and/or TTI durations and mapping
restrictions in logical channel prioritization controls which numerology and/or TTI duration a logical
channel can use.

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5G NR Radio Protocol Stack (Layer 2 and Layer 3)

Figure #1 User Plane Protocol Stack Figure #2 Control Plane

5G-NR Layer 3 (RRC) Functions:

 Broadcast of System Information related to AS and NAS;

5G-NR Layer 2 Functions:

The layer 2 of NR is split into the following sub layers:

 Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP)

 The physical layer offers to the MAC sublayer transport channels;

SDAP (Service Data Adaptation Protocol) Protocol Functions :

The main services and functions of SDAP include:

PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) Layer Functions:

RLC (Radio Link Control ) Layer Functions:

 Transfer of upper layer PDUs

Note: no concatenation and no reordering

MAC (Media Access Control) Layer Functions

 Mapping between logical channels and transport channels

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