Zero-Mobility Assistance Information for Power Saving in Beyond 5G Static IoT Devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly present in our lives. Connected devices and sensors of all kinds, surveillance cameras or connected objects are just a few examples that use cellular connectivity nowadays. Most of these devices are battery-powered, and therefore energy efficiency becomes a crucial aspect. The third generation partnership project (3GPP) has recently studied ways to improve energy efficiency in user equipments (UEs), with special focus on Releases 16 and 17. In Rel-16, a UE assistance mechanism for power saving and a novel Radio Resource Management (RRM) measurement were introduced for optimizing the consumption, being tailored to the specific UE characteristics. However, some IoT devices are static by nature, what has not been considered in current 3GPP standards. This could allow them to save energy by not performing certain measurements of nearby cells. This paper reviews the current energy-saving mechanisms for UEs in this regard and proposes a new technique for solving the mentioned problem, i.e. the so-called Zero-Mobility Assistance Information mechanism. A complete description, implementation details and performance comparison are presented in the manuscript, achieving up to a 15.41% reduction in power consumption per device compared to 3GPP standards.