The LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) is terminated between a target device (the UE in the control-plane case or SET in the user-plane case) and a positioning server (the LMF in the control-plane case or SLP in the user-plane case). It may use either the control- or user-plane protocols as underlying transport. In this specification, only control plane use of LPP is defined. User plane support of LPP is defined in
[15] and
[16].
LPP messages are carried as transparent PDUs across intermediate network interfaces using the appropriate protocols (e.g., NGAP over the NG-C interface, NAS/RRC over the LTE-Uu and NR-Uu interfaces). The LPP protocol is intended to enable positioning for NR and LTE using a multiplicity of different position methods, while isolating the details of any particular positioning method and the specifics of the underlying transport from one another.
The protocol operates on a transaction basis between a target device and a server, with each transaction taking place as an independent procedure. More than one such procedure may be in progress at any given moment. An LPP procedure may involve a request/response pairing of messages or one or more
"unsolicited" messages. Each procedure has a single objective (e.g., transfer of assistance data, exchange of LPP related capabilities, or positioning of a target device according to some QoS and use of one or more positioning methods). Multiple procedures, in series and/or in parallel, can be used to achieve more complex objectives (e.g., positioning of a target device in association with transfer of assistance data and exchange of LPP related capabilities). Multiple procedures also enable more than one positioning attempt to be ongoing at the same time (e.g., to obtain a coarse location estimate with low delay while a more accurate location estimate is being obtained with higher delay).
An LPP session is defined between a positioning server and the target device, the details of its relation with transactions are described in
clause 4.1.2 of TS 37.355.
For the 3GPP 5GS Control Plane solution defined in
TS 23.501,
TS 23.502 and
TS 23.273, the UE is the target device and the LMF is the server. For SUPL 2.0 support, the SUPL Enabled Terminal (SET) is the target device and the SUPL Location Platform (SLP) is the server. The operations controlled through LPP are described further in
clause 7.1.
LPP defined data structures for assistance data information are reused for supporting RRC broadcast of assistance data information which are embedded in positioning SIBs. This enables broadcast assistance data using the same data structures which are used for point to point location.
The RRC protocol for NR is terminated between the gNB and the UE. It provides transport for LPP messages over the NR-Uu interface.
In addition to providing transport for LPP messages over the NR-Uu interface, it supports transfer of measurements that may be used for positioning purposes through the existing measurement systems specified in
TS 38.331.
The RRC protocol for NR also supports broadcasting of assistance data via positioning System Information messages.
The RRC protocol for NR is also used to configure UEs with a sounding reference signal (SRS) for SRS transmission in RRC_CONNECTED and RRC_INACTIVE to support NG-RAN measurements for NR positioning, provide pre-configured measurement gap configuration(s) and pre-configured PRS processing window for DL-PRS measurement and report the UE TxTEG (Tx Timing Error Group) for UL-TDOA.
The RRC protocol for LTE is terminated between the ng-eNB and the UE. In addition to providing transport for LPP messages over the LTE-Uu interface, it supports transfer of measurements that may be used for positioning purposes through the existing measurement systems specified in
TS 36.331.
The RRC protocol for LTE also supports broadcasting of assistance data via positioning System Information messages.
The MAC protocol for NR supports activation and deactivation of configured semi-persistent SRS resource sets as specified in
TS 38.321 to support NG-RAN measurements for NR positioning.
The MAC protocol for NR also supports request of positioning measurement gap activation and deactivation from a UE, and activation and deactivation of pre-configured measurement gap from the NG-RAN as specified in
TS 38.321.
The MAC protocol for NR can also be used to activate and deactivate of PRS Processing Window as specified in
TS 38.321.