Empirical Comparison of Power Consumption and Data Rates for 5G New Radio and RedCap Devices

The new 5G category RedCap has been introduced to address small, energy-efficient 5G devices with relaxed requirements on data rates. This work performs an empirical study on the performance and the impact of complexity reduction in 5G RedCap devices on data rates and power consumption. For this purpose, measurements were carried out with first off-the-shelf 5G RedCap devices in a hardware-in-the-loop laboratory setup using a channel emulator for realistic signal conditions. The results demonstrate that 5G RedCap devices can provide up to 80 Mbit/s downlink data rates in TDD networks even under multipath and fading conditions. In terms of energy efficiency, the reduced complexity enables up to two times longer battery life compared to 5G NR devices. Considering new power saving techniques, a case study demonstrates that future 5G RedCap devices require even lower power consumption for years of battery life. However, current devices already provide more than two months of battery life under good coverage conditions. Comparing the eDRX power consumption in 5G RedCap devices, we find that the RRC Idle state does not provide significant power saving benefits, and thus using the RRC Inactive state for longer battery life and good network reachability is recommended.