5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) RAN Software Suitable for Industrial Sensors Announced by Ericsson

Leading Swedish telecom provider Ericsson unveiled new reduced capability (RedCap) RAN software designed to enable new 5G use cases and enhance existing ones for an array of low-end devices, including wearables and industrial sensors, by lowering complexity and extending battery life. Known as Ericsson Reduced Capability, the solution will be made available later this year as a software-only addition to Ericsson 5G standalone (5G SA) networks.

RedCap is intended to strengthen the ecosystem for new types of devices that can be connected to 5G networks.  An expanded New Radio (NR) device ecosystem with new capabilities is in turn intended to spur the growth of even more 5G use cases. Ericsson RedCap is designed to support leaner procedures for optimizing device energy consumption that are currently only available with LTE devices.  With the new 5G radio access network (RAN) software solution, communications service providers can offer more connectivity options for diverse consumer and enterprise use cases and in industrial settings on the FDD (frequency division duplex) and TDD (time division duplex) spectrums.

Ericsson RedCap will support devices with reduced complexity such as low-end augmented reality (AR) wearables, video surveillance equipment, industrial sensors, and smart grids. The new solution is intended to be more energy-efficient than existing LTE low categories.  Ericsson is collaborating with leading chipset vendors to bring multiple types of 5G devices to the market.

What is NR RedCap?

New Radio (NR) RedCap is a device category that will help expand the 5G ecosystem, enabling significantly more connections to the 5G network. It does so by bridging the capability and complexity gap between Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) uses in existing 5G settings, with an optimized design for mid-tier use cases.

RedCap can effectively scale down the complexity, size, and capabilities of device platforms to offer cost-efficient integration into devices such as wearables and industrial sensors. Part of a concept that was originally introduced in 3GPP Release 17, RedCap brings a mix of capabilities in throughput, battery life, complexity, and device density needed to cost-effectively power diverse use cases that do not always need the high-performance capability of current 5G technology.