Taming and Leveraging Directionality and Blockage in Millimeter Wave Communications

To cope with the challenge for high-rate data transmission, Millimeter Wave(mmWave) is one potential solution. The short wavelength unlatched the era of directional mobile communication. The semi-optical communication requires revolutionary thinking. To assist the research and evaluate various algorithms, we build a motion-sensitive mmWave testbed with two degrees of freedom for environmental sensing and general wireless communication.The first part of this thesis contains two approaches to maintain the connection in mmWave mobile communication. The first one seeks to solve the beam tracking problem using motion sensor within the mobile device. A tracking algorithm is given and integrated into the tracking protocol. Detailed experiments and numerical simulations compared several compensation schemes with optical benchmark and demonstrated the efficiency of overhead reduction. The second strategy attempts to mitigate intermittent connections during roaming is multi-connectivity. Taking advantage of properties of rateless erasure code, a fountain code type multi-connectivity mechanism is proposed to increase the link reliability with simplified backhaul mechanism. The simulation demonstrates the efficiency and robustness of our system design with a multi-link channel record.The second topic in this thesis explores various techniques in blockage mitigation. A fast hear-beat like channel with heavy blockage loss is identified in the mmWave Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communication experiment due to the propeller blockage. These blockage patterns are detected through Holm\u27s procedure as a problem of multi-time series edge detection. To reduce the blockage effect, an adaptive modulation and coding scheme is designed. The simulation results show that it could greatly improve the throughput given appropriately predicted patterns. The last but not the least, the blockage of directional communication also appears as a blessing because the geometrical information and blockage event of ancillary signal paths can be utilized to predict the blockage timing for the current transmission path. A geometrical model and prediction algorithm are derived to resolve the blockage time and initiate active handovers. An experiment provides solid proof of multi-paths properties and the numeral simulation demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed algorithm

End-to-End Simulation of 5G mmWave Networks

Due to its potential for multi-gigabit and low latency wireless links, millimeter wave (mmWave) technology is expected to play a central role in 5th generation cellular systems. While there has been considerable progress in understanding the mmWave physical layer, innovations will be required at all layers of the protocol stack, in both the access and the core network. Discrete-event network simulation is essential for end-to-end, cross-layer research and development. This paper provides a tutorial on a recently developed full-stack mmWave module integrated into the widely used open-source ns--3 simulator. The module includes a number of detailed statistical channel models as well as the ability to incorporate real measurements or ray-tracing data. The Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers are modular and highly customizable, making it easy to integrate algorithms or compare Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) numerologies, for example. The module is interfaced with the core network of the ns--3 Long Term Evolution (LTE) module for full-stack simulations of end-to-end connectivity, and advanced architectural features, such as dual-connectivity, are also available. To facilitate the understanding of the module, and verify its correct functioning, we provide several examples that show the performance of the custom mmWave stack as well as custom congestion control algorithms designed specifically for efficient utilization of the mmWave channel.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figures, submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (revised Jan. 2018

Cooperative control of relay based cellular networks

PhDThe increasing popularity of wireless communications and the higher data requirements of new types of service lead to higher demands on wireless networks. Relay based cellular networks have been seen as an effective way to meet users’ increased data rate requirements while still retaining the benefits of a cellular structure. However, maximizing the probability of providing service and spectrum efficiency are still major challenges for network operators and engineers because of the heterogeneous traffic demands, hard-to-predict user movements and complex traffic models. In a mobile network, load balancing is recognised as an efficient way to increase the utilization of limited frequency spectrum at reasonable costs. Cooperative control based on geographic load balancing is employed to provide flexibility for relay based cellular networks and to respond to changes in the environment. According to the potential capability of existing antenna systems, adaptive radio frequency domain control in the physical layer is explored to provide coverage at the right place at the right time. This thesis proposes several effective and efficient approaches to improve spectrum efficiency using network wide optimization to coordinate the coverage offered by different network components according to the antenna models and relay station capability. The approaches include tilting of antenna sectors, changing the power of omni-directional antennas, and changing the assignment of relay stations to different base stations. Experiments show that the proposed approaches offer significant improvements and robustness in heterogeneous traffic scenarios and when the propagation environment changes. The issue of predicting the consequence of cooperative decisions regarding antenna configurations when applied in a realistic environment is described, and a coverage prediction model is proposed. The consequences of applying changes to the antenna configuration on handovers are analysed in detail. The performance evaluations are based on a system level simulator in the context of Mobile WiMAX technology, but the concepts apply more generally

Simulation analysis of algorithms for interference management in 5G cellular networks using spatial spectrum sharing

In this thesis we completely overhaul past techniques to the new millimeter wave frequencies used in 5G and the aim is to study algorithm, protocols and architectures enablers to allow spatial spectrum sharing between different networks at these frequencies. With the use of specific modules of the network simulator ns-3, studies of simulations has been made in order to analyse performance of several sharing procedure with the goal of increase performance in a 5G mobile networkope

Keilaavan millimetriaaltoradiolinkin suuntaaminen ja seuraaminen

In order to provide high-throughput mobile broadband in a dense urban information society, upcoming cellular networks will finally employ the under-utilized millimeter-wave (mmW) frequencies. The challenging mmW radio environment, however, necessitates massive cell densification with wireless backhauling using very directional links. This thesis investigates how these links between access points may be aligned efficiently, and how alignment reflects the network organization. The work provides a thorough presentation of different high-level aspects and background information required when designing a mmW small cell system. In terms of alignment functionality, both automatic link establishment and proactive tracking are considered. Additionally, the presentation includes an overview of beam steerable antennas, mmW propagation in urban environments, and network organization. The thesis further specifies requirements, proposes possible approaches and compares those with existing implementations. Most of existing mmW beam alignment solutions are intended for short-range indoor communications and do not address the issues in cellular systems. While existing functionality considers only a single link between two devices, efficient design should consider both the entire network and the underlying phenomena. The devices should further exploit the existing network infrastructure, location and orientation information, and the concepts of machine learning. Even though the world has recently seen advancements in the related fields, there is still much work to be done before commercial deployment is possible.Seuraavan sukupolven matkaviestinjärjestelmien erittäin nopeissa datayhteyksissä tullaan hyödyntämään millimetriaaltoteknologiaa. Näillä taajuuksilla radioympäristö on kuitenkin hyvin haastava, mikä edellyttää verkon solutiheyden moninkertaistamista, täysin langattomia tukiasemia ja erittäin suuntaavia antenneja. Tässä diplomityössä tutkitaan eri keinoja kuinka tukiasemien väliset linkit kohdistetaan tehokkaasti, ja miten se vaikuttaa verkon rakenteeseen ja hallintaan. Työ tarjoaa kattavan taustaselvityksen mm-aaltosoluverkon toteuttamiseen tarvittavista asioista. Keilanohjausta tarkastellaan sekä verkon automaattisen laajentamisen että kohteen aktiivisen seurauksen kannalta. Tämän lisäksi työssä tutkitaan keilattavia antenneja, mm-aaltojen etenemistä kaupunkiympäristöissä ja verkkorakennetta. Näiden lisäksi työssä rajataan edellytykset, esitetään mahdollisia ratkaisuja, ja vertaillaan näitä olemassa oleviin toteutuksiin. Nykyiset keilaustoteutukset ovat pääasiassa suunniteltu lyhyen kantaman sisäyhteyksille, eivätkä siten vastaa ongelman asettelua. Aikaisempi toiminnallisuus keskittyy yhteen ainoaan linkkiin vaikka tehokas toteutus huomioisi koko järjestelmän kohdistusongelman fysikaalista perustaa unohtamatta. Verkkolaitteiden tulisi hyödyntää olemassa olevaa radioverkkoa, sekä paikka- että suuntatietoja, ja koneoppimisen keinoja. Vaikka aiheeseen liittyvä teknologia on kehittynyt viime vuosina harppauksin, mm-aaltosoluverkot ovat kaikkea muuta kuin valmiita markkinoille

A Flexible mmWave Layer 2 Protocol Implementation for Integrated Access and Backhaul Architecture

. This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 under Project PID2020-113979RB-C21; and in part by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and the European Union-NextGenerationEU under Project TSI-063000-2021-83 (DISRADIO). The work of Randy Verdecia-Peña was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation under Contract PRE2018-085032. Publisher Copyright: © 2013 IEEEIn this paper, we present a 3GPP-inspired hardware implementation for the out-of-band Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) network, which serves as a solution to both coverage extension and capacity boosting in 5G and beyond networks. By employing an Ettus x310 software-defined radio (SDR) board, Pasternack's 60 GHz Transmitter (Tx) waveguide module, and MatlabTM software, we design and develop an easy-to-use out-of-band mmWave Layer 2 protocol. The proposed protocol decodes a frequency range 1 (FR1) 5G signal as input at 3.5 GHz, which is retransmitted to the UE as a frequency range 2 (FR2) 5G signal at 60 GHz. In the implementation of the Layer 2 protocol, the least squares (LS) estimator is adopted by considering the demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) and the channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) as pilot symbols in real-world environments. To alleviate the performance degradation in the mmWave access link, a phase noise cancellation (PNC) algorithm based on the phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS) is implemented at the UE node where a PT-RS block structure is introduced in the mmWave Layer 2 protocol transmitter stage. We review and evaluate the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the proposed Layer 2 protocol in real non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments and a comparison between the gNode-to-UE link is carried out. Our results indicate that the performance of the proposed Layer 2 protocol is similar to the obtained with the off-the-shelf equipment demonstrating the right functionality of the developed algorithms. Experimental results evidence the superiority of the proposed Layer 2 protocol over the gNodeB-to-UE link (direct link communication) and the best performance is obtained when the PNC algorithm is considered in the IAB architecture.publishersversionpublishe