5G • 5G-Advanced (Rel-18)
Low-Power Positioning for Wearables
Energy-Constrained Positioning Profiles for Asset Tags and Smartwatches
Duty-cycled positioning protocols allowing smartwatches, livestock collars, and logistics tags to report locations for months without battery depletion.
Technical Explanation
Continuous PRS monitoring quickly drains the battery of small IoT tags. Rel-18 Low-Power Positioning introduces on-demand reference signal transmission and sparse measurement intervals: the device only wakes to measure a single comb-burst when triggered by internal motion sensors or geofence boundary events, conserving battery power.
Key Functions
- Reduces positioning energy consumption by over 80% for battery-constrained wearables
- Triggers location fixes dynamically based on internal accelerometer motion thresholds
- Supports sparse periodic reporting intervals matching pet collars and asset tags
- Enables multi-month operation on compact rechargeable wearable batteries
Specifications
3GPP TR 38.857, TS 38.305 (Rel-18)
Interfaces
Uu (Low-Power LPP)
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