Millimeter wave picocellular networks: capacity analysis and system design

The explosive growth in demand for wireless mobile data, driven by the proliferationof ever more sophisticated handhelds creating and consuming rich multimedia, calls fororders of magnitude increase in the capacity of cellular data networks. Millimeter wavecommunication from picocellular base stations to mobile devices is a particularly promisingapproach for meeting this challenge because of two reasons. First, there is a largeamount of available spectrum, enabling channel bandwidths of the order of Gigahertz(GHz) which are 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than those in existing WiFi and cellularsystems at lower carrier frequencies. Second, the small carrier wavelength enables therealization of highly directive steerable arrays with a large number of antenna elements,in compact form factors, thus significantly enhancing spatial reuse. Hence, we propose toemploy the 60 GHz unlicensed band for basestation to mobile communication in outdoorpicocells.We first investigate the basic feasibility of such networks, showing that 60GHz linksare indeed viable for outdoor applications. For this purpose, we provided link budgetcalculations along with preliminary simulations which show that despite the commonconcerns about higher oxygen absorption and sensitivity to movement and blockage,picocloud architecture provides availability rate of more than 99%.Next, we explore the idea of increasing spatial reuse by shrinking picocells hopingthat interference is no longer the bottleneck given the highly directive antenna arrays atthis band. Our goal is to estimate the achievable capacity for small picocells along an urban canyon. We consider basestations with multiple faces or sectors, each with one or more antenna arrays. Each such array, termed subarray can employ Radio Frequency(RF) beamforming to communicate with one mobile user at a time. We first focus oncharacterization and modeling the inter-cell interference for one subarray on each face.Our analysis provides a strong indication of very large capacity (in the order of Tbps/km)with a few GHz of bandwidth.Following this, we explore the impact of adding multiple subarrays per face. This leadsto intra-cell interference as well as additional inter-cell interference. While the effect ofadditional inter-cell interference can be quantified within our previous framework, intracellinterference has inherently different features that call for new approaches for analysisand design. We propose a cross-layer approach to suppress the intra-cell interference intwo stages: (a) Physical layer (PHY-layer) method which mitigates interference by jointprecoding and power adaptation and (b) Medium Access Control layer (MAC-layer)method which manages the residual interference by optimizing resource allocation. Wethen estimate the capacity gain over conventional LTE cellular networks and establishthat 1000-fold capacity increase is indeed feasible via mm-wave picocellular networks.Lastly, we examine fundamental signal processing challenges associated with channelestimation and tracking for large arrays, placed within the context of system designfor a mm-wave picocellular network. Maintainance of highly directive links in the faceof blockage and mobility requires accurate estimation of the spatial channels betweenbasestation and mobile users. Here we develop the analytical framework for compressivechannel estimation and tracking. We also address the system level design discussinglink budget, overhead, and inter-cell beacon interference. Simulation results demonstratethat our compressive scheme is able to resolve mm-wave spatial channels with a relativelysmall number of compressive measurements

Millimetre wave frequency band as a candidate spectrum for 5G network architecture : a survey

In order to meet the huge growth in global mobile data traffic in 2020 and beyond, the development of the 5th Generation (5G) system is required as the current 4G system is expected to fall short of the provision needed for such growth. 5G is anticipated to use a higher carrier frequency in the millimetre wave (mm-wave) band, within the 20 to 90 GHz, due to the availability of a vast amount of unexploited bandwidth. It is a revolutionary step to use these bands because of their different propagation characteristics, severe atmospheric attenuation, and hardware constraints. In this paper, we carry out a survey of 5G research contributions and proposed design architectures based on mm-wave communications. We present and discuss the use of mm-wave as indoor and outdoor mobile access, as a wireless backhaul solution, and as a key enabler for higher order sectorisation. Wireless standards such as IEE802.11ad, which are operating in mm-wave band have been presented. These standards have been designed for short range, ultra high data throughput systems in the 60 GHz band. Furthermore, this survey provides new insights regarding relevant and open issues in adopting mm-wave for 5G networks. This includes increased handoff rate and interference in Ultra-Dense Network (UDN), waveform consideration with higher spectral efficiency, and supporting spatial multiplexing in mm-wave line of sight. This survey also introduces a distributed base station architecture in mm-wave as an approach to address increased handoff rate in UDN, and to provide an alternative way for network densification in a time and cost effective manner

Modulation, Coding, and Receiver Design for Gigabit mmWave Communication

While wireless communication has become an ubiquitous part of our daily life and the world around us, it has not been able yet to deliver the multi-gigabit throughput required for applications like high-definition video transmission or cellular backhaul communication. The throughput limitation of current wireless systems is mainly the result of a shortage of spectrum and the problem of congestion. Recent advancements in circuit design allow the realization of analog frontends for mmWave frequencies between 30GHz and 300GHz, making abundant unused spectrum accessible. However, the transition to mmWave carrier frequencies and GHz bandwidths comes with new challenges for wireless receiver design. Large variations of the channel conditions and high symbol rates require flexible but power-efficient receiver designs. This thesis investigates receiver algorithms and architectures that enable multi-gigabit mmWave communication. Using a system-level approach, the design options between low-power time-domain and power-hungry frequency-domain signal processing are explored. The system discussion is started with an analysis of the problem of parameter synchronization in mmWave systems and its impact on system design. The proposed synchronization architecture extends known synchronization techniques to provide greater flexibility regarding the operating environments and for system efficiency optimization. For frequency-selective environments, versatile single-carrier frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE) offers not only excellent channel equalization, but also the possibility to integrate additional baseband tasks without overhead. Hence, the high initial complexity of SC-FDE needs to be put in perspective to the complexity savings in the other parts of the baseband. Furthermore, an extension to the SC-FDE architecture is proposed that allows an adaptation of the equalization complexity by switching between a cyclic-prefix mode and a reduced block length overlap-save mode based on the delay spread. Approaching the problem of complexity adaptation from time-domain, a high-speed hardware architecture for the delayed decision feedback sequence estimation (DDFSE) algorithm is presented. DDFSE uses decision feedback to reduce the complexity of the sequence estimation and allows to set the system performance between the performance of full maximum-likelihood detection and pure decision feedback equalization. An implementation of the DDFSE architecture is demonstrated as part of an all-digital IEEE802.11ad baseband ASIC manufactured in 40nm CMOS. A flexible architecture for wideband mmWave receivers based on complex sub-sampling is presented. Complex sub-sampling combines the design advantages of sub-sampling receivers with the flexibility of direct-conversion receivers using a single passive component and a digital compensation scheme. Feasibility of the architecture is proven with a 16Gb/s hardware demonstrator. The demonstrator is used to explore the potential gain of non-equidistant constellations for high-throughput mmWave links. Specifically crafted amplitude phase-shift keying (APSK) modulation achieve 1dB average mutual information (AMI) advantage over quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) in simulation and on the testbed hardware. The AMI advantage of APSK can be leveraged for a practical transmission using Polar codes which are trained specifically for the constellation

Interference Alignment Techniques for Multi-User MIMO Systems at Millimeter-Wave

In this work a review of the state-of-the-art of modern multi-user MIMO systems is given, presenting various algorithms that use interference alignment techniques to allocate multiple users over the same physical channel. In particular, the performance achieved with these methods over the millimeter-wave channel are evaluated. Finally, the work is completed with the description of a novel frequency domain non-linear equalizer for wideband channel

A survey on hybrid beamforming techniques in 5G : architecture and system model perspectives

The increasing wireless data traffic demands have driven the need to explore suitable spectrum regions for meeting the projected requirements. In the light of this, millimeter wave (mmWave) communication has received considerable attention from the research community. Typically, in fifth generation (5G) wireless networks, mmWave massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications is realized by the hybrid transceivers which combine high dimensional analog phase shifters and power amplifiers with lower-dimensional digital signal processing units. This hybrid beamforming design reduces the cost and power consumption which is aligned with an energy-efficient design vision of 5G. In this paper, we track the progress in hybrid beamforming for massive MIMO communications in the context of system models of the hybrid transceivers' structures, the digital and analog beamforming matrices with the possible antenna configuration scenarios and the hybrid beamforming in heterogeneous wireless networks. We extend the scope of the discussion by including resource management issues in hybrid beamforming. We explore the suitability of hybrid beamforming methods, both, existing and proposed till first quarter of 2017, and identify the exciting future challenges in this domain

Array Architectures and Physical Layer Design for Millimeter-Wave Communications Beyond 5G

Ever increasing demands in mobile data rates have resulted in exploration of millimeter-wave (mmW) frequencies for the next generation (5G) wireless networks. Communications at mmW frequencies is presented with two keys challenges. Firstly, high propagation loss requires base stations (BSs) and user equipment (UEs) to use a large number of antennas and narrow beams to close the link with sufficient received signal power. Consequently, communications using narrow beams create a new challenge in channel estimation and link establishment based on fine angular probing. Current mmW system use analog phased arrays that can probe only one angle at the time which results in high latency during link establishment and channel tracking. It is desirable to design low latency beam training by exploring both physical layer designs and array architectures that could replace current 5G approaches and pave the way to the communications for frequency bands in higher mmW band and sub-THz region where larger antenna arrays and communications bandwidth can be exploited. To this end, we propose a novel signal processing techniques exploiting unique properties of mmW channel, and show both theoretically, in simulation and experiments its advantages over conventional approaches. Secondly, we explore different array architecture design and analyze their trade-offs between spectral efficiency and power consumption and area. For comprehensive comparison, we have developed a methodology for optimal design of system parameters for different array architecture candidates based on the spectral efficiency target, and use these parameters to estimate the array area and power consumption based on the circuits reported in the literature. We show that the hybrid analog and digital architectures have severe scalability concerns in radio frequency signal distribution with increased array size and spatial multiplexing levels, while the fully-digital array architectures have the best performance and power/area trade-offs.The developed approaches are based on a cross-disciplinary research that combines innovation in model based signal processing, machine learning, and radio hardware. This work is the first to apply compressive sensing (CS), a signal processing tool that exploits sparsity of mmW channel model, to accelerate beam training of mmW cellular system. The algorithm is designed to address practical issues including the requirement of cell discovery and synchronization that involves estimation of angular channel together with carrier frequency offset and timing offsets. We have analyzed the algorithm performance in the 5G compliant simulation and showed that an order of magnitude saving is achieved in initial access latency for the desired channel estimation accuracy. Moreover, we are the first to develop and implement a neural network assisted compressive beam alignment to deal with hardware impairments in mmW radios. We have used 60GHz mmW testbed to perform experiments and show that neural networks approach enhances alignment rate compared to CS. To further accelerate beam training, we proposed a novel frequency selective probing beams using the true-time-delay (TTD) analog array architecture. Our approach utilizes different subcarriers to scan different directions, and achieves a single-shot beam alignment, the fastest approach reported to date. Our comprehensive analysis of different array architectures and exploration of emerging architectures enabled us to develop an order of magnitude faster and energy efficient approaches for initial access and channel estimation in mmW systems