Reliability Enhancement by PDCP Duplication and Combining for Next Generation Networks

User equipment (UE), in general, has access to multiple radio access technologies (RATS). Besides, secondary base-stations can also aid the UE’s communication. Thus data can reach the UE from the primary base-station via multiple secondary base-stations. Taking advantage of the benefits of using such multiple paths, we propose in this paper a cross-layer scheme that improves block error rate (BLER) and throughput. We propose data duplication and integration at the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sublayer of layer 2 for downlink operations of 4G LTE / 5G NR. At the PDCP of ENodeB (gnodeB), the PDCP protocol data unit (PDU) is duplicated and sent to the UE via various paths. All these PDUs have the same sequence number (SN). Data from various networks are aptly linked using the PDCP assigned SN at EnodeB to obtain a composite and improved version of the PDU at UE. Although the cross-layer technique involves new procedures when combining data at PDPCP, the average delay for a PDCP-based aggregation scheme is very small compared with the standalone scheme because of the significant improvement in the block error rate (BLER) provided by the scheme over the BLER of the traditional standalone system. Finally, the BLER improvement results in throughput enhancement.