Experimental 5G New Radio Transmission Over an LED-Based Optical Wireless Link

5G New Radio (NR) is the de facto global standard for 5G mobile networks. 5G NR was developed by 3GPP and designed to provide new kinds of mobile services across very large geographical areas. One of the main challenges that evolutions of 5G NR must face is the limited radio frequency resources that are available for Beyond-5G mobile connectivity. Optical wireless bands have been already considered for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies, where they are denoted as Light Fidelity (Li-Fi). However, and in order to make optical wireless an integral part of Beyond 5G mobile standards, it is convenient to first assess the performance that is feasible when an actual 5G NR waveform is transmitted over an optical wireless frequency band. This paper presents the first experimental proof-of-concept for the transmission of a 5G NR frame over an LED-based optical wireless link. The obtained results are very motivating, as the 5G NR data rates that would be feasible over optical wireless links are very similar to the ones observed nowadays over the n78 RF band (centered around 3.5 GHz, with 100 MHz bandwidth). However, the most important difference is that the spectrum of the optical wireless signal will be reusable in very small cells of radius not larger than few meters, with the possibility of deploying many remote optical units for ultra-densification in indoor service areas without notable inter-cell interference.