Positioning Key Elements for Increasing Localization Precision of the VRUs in 5G NR Environments

The growing number of road accidents and fatalities created a necessity for applications exploiting communication between traffic actors like vehicles, vulnerable road users (VRUs), and infrastructure. To determine the vehicle position and to communicate this data to the traffic users, the vehicles and user’s smart devices are equipped with communication modules and positioning modules. The fifth generation (5G) cellular network promises to respond to the requirements of a city traffic management by: ultra-low latency, reliability, and position determined with high precision. The 3GPP Release 16 mobile communications standard details the use-cases of the industrial verticals and their requirements, the most important key performance indicators (KPIs), and technologies that the new radio (NR) architectural component uses to obtain the position information. 3GPP Release 16 targets a positioning accuracy between 1 and 3 meters for traffic monitoring and control, as well as for wearable devices. Moreover, the standard specifies the most common solutions that the 5G technology can support. This paper aims at presenting the context of the positioning essentials that the 5G NR can support, which are necessary to achieve road users’ protection and congestion avoidance within an urban area.