URLLC and eMBB coexistence in unlicensed spectrum: A preemptive approach

We study in this paper the coexistence of Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services in unlicensed spectrum for the uplink transmission in a 5G smart-factory scenario. We first model the medium access for both services coexisting in unlicensed spectrum and evaluate their performance metrics: high reliability and stringent delay budget for URLLC and throughput for eMBB. The results show that URLLC requirements cannot be met even for low eMBB traffic load. In order to cope with this, we explore a preemptive approach where URLLC packets are transmitted with high power when their delay approaches the delay constraint, increasing their chance of being successfully received. This approach enhances URLLC performance, with a little impact on that of eMBB. We finally show that with a good calibration of some system parameters can lead to an optimal performance for both services.