3GPP Release 18 Wake-up Receiver: Feature Overview and Evaluations

Enhancing the energy efficiency of devices stands as one of the key requirements in the fifth-generation (5G) cellular network and its evolutions toward the next generation wireless technology. Specifically, for battery-limited Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices where downlink monitoring significantly contributes to energy consumption, efficient solutions are required for power saving while addressing performance tradeoffs. In this regard, the use of a low-power wake-up receiver (WUR) and wake-up signal (WUS) is an attractive solution for reducing the energy consumption of devices without compromising the downlink latency. This paper provides an overview of the standardization study on the design of low-power WUR and WUS within Release 18 of the third-generation partnership project (3GPP). We describe design principles, receiver architectures, waveform characteristics, and device procedures upon detection of WUS. In addition, we provide representative results to show the performance of the WUR in terms of power saving, coverage, and network overhead along with highlighting design tradeoffs.