Initial Access, Mobility, and User-Centric Multi-Beam Operation in 5G New Radio

5G radio access networks are expected to provide very high capacity, ultra-reliability and low latency, seamless mobility, and ubiquitous end-user experience anywhere and anytime. Driven by such stringent service requirements coupled with the expected dense deployments and diverse use case scenarios, the architecture of 5G New Radio (NR) wireless access has further evolved from the traditionally cell-centric radio access to a more flexible beam-based user-centric radio access. This article provides an overview of the NR system multi-beam operation in terms of initial access procedures and mechanisms associated with synchronization, system information, and random access. We further discuss inter-cell mobility handling in NR and its reliance on new downlink-based measurements to compensate for a lack of always-on reference signals in NR. Furthermore, we describe some of the user-centric coordinated transmission mechanisms envisioned in NR in order to realize seamless intra/inter-cell handover between physical transmission and reception points and reduce the interference levels across the network.