Recently, China Telecom Guangdong Company and China Telecom Research Institute, together with Huawei, completed a 5G indoor low-cost high-precision positioning commercial pilot in Guangzhou. This is the first commercial case in China to achieve indoor high-precision positioning based on the 5G UTDOA low-cost 1-point X solution. While ensuring the positioning service experience, it greatly reduces the cost of achieving high-precision positioning based on the 5G cellular network.
5G network naturally has the advantages of one network for communication positioning and one network for indoor and outdoor. It can support high-precision positioning capabilities based on the deployed 5G network upgrade. 5G high-precision positioning is also one of the core capabilities of 5G-A.
For indoor scenarios with low capacity requirements, such as parking lots, 5G network deployment usually adopts a low-cost 1-point X solution, that is, the deployment method of active indoor pRRU with external passive antennas; for scenarios with high capacity requirements, such as stations and hospitals, a pure active indoor solution is used. 5G UTDOA positioning products with pure active indoor deployment have been widely used in commercial applications, while the low-cost UTDOA positioning solution has not been commercialized due to technical difficulties such as signal identification and time synchronization of external passive antennas.
According to the announcement of China Telecom, relying on the Beidou+5G national key R&D plan project led by China Telecom, China Telecom Guangdong Company, China Telecom Research Institute and Huawei will cooperate to carry out Beidou+5G technology research and development and application promotion. On the basis of jointly completing the first verification of 5G macro and micro station positioning in 2023, it will further promote the maturity of low-cost solutions. Based on Huawei's 5G commercial equipment, the equipment deployment and technical verification will be completed in two typical indoor application scenarios: the parking lot and floor shops of Guangzhou Taihe Jinbo Tiandi Shopping Mall.
Test data show that in the open area of the parking lot, the overall positioning accuracy reached 1.35 meters @ 90%, while the overall positioning accuracy in the light partition area of the shop was 2.97 meters @ 90%. These data show that 5G networks can not only provide high-quality communication services, but also effectively support the realization of high-precision positioning.
China Telecom has been committed to the construction of Beidou + 5G integrated high-precision location service capabilities. During the 2024 World Mobile Communications Conference Shanghai (MWC Shanghai), China Telecom and industry partners released the "5G + Beidou High Trust Space-Time System", and released the "Beidou + 5G Space-Time System Empowering Digital Economy High-Quality Development White Paper", and took the lead in establishing the first Beidou + 5G Special Committee and Industry Alliance in the national communications industry, aiming to achieve the deep integration of Beidou and 5G dual strategies and promote the large-scale application of PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing).
In the past two years, China Telecom and its partners have jointly completed the interoperability of 5G UTDOA indoor pure active positioning solutions among different manufacturers and the promotion and implementation of commercial cases. In the future, China Telecom will continue to promote the standardization of 1-point X products together with companies in the industry, realize the decoupling of base stations and positioning core network elements LMF, further reduce network transformation costs, and improve the 5G low-cost positioning industry chain. It will also carry out verification of integrated positioning technology in combination with more scenarios to promote the widespread application of Beidou + 5G integrated positioning technology.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
