Demo: Novel round trip time estimation in 5G NR using OpenAirInterface

The fifth generation new radio (5G NR) technology is expected to fulfill reliable and accurate positioning requirements of industry use cases, such as autonomous robots, connected vehicles, and future factories. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduced positioning techniques from Release-16 based on time, angle, and signal strength using reference signals. Timing-based 5G position methods include Enhanced cell ID (E-CID), Downlink time difference of arrival (DL-TDoA), Uplink time difference of arrival (UL-TDoA), and Multi-cell or single-cell round trip time (RTT). Unlike TDoA methods, RTT-based methods do not require tight synchronization among participating base stations. In this demo, we showcase a prototype that implements our proposed novel round trip time estimation mechanism for next-generation 5G systems. The proposed mechanism allows to obtain multiple channel measurements at the gNB that can be combined coherently. The complete 5G radio access network solution is based on open-source software from OpenAirInterface.