15 research outputs found
Performance Comparison of Dual Connectivity and Hard Handover for LTE-5G Tight Integration
Communications at frequencies above 10 GHz (the mmWave band) are expected to
play a major role for the next generation of cellular networks (5G), because of
the potential multi-gigabit, ultra-low latency performance of this technology.
mmWave frequencies however suffer from very high isotropic pathloss, which may
result in cells with a much smaller coverage area than current LTE macrocells.
High directionality techniques will be used to improve signal quality and
extend coverage area, along with a high density deployment of mmWave base
stations (BS). However, when propagation conditions are hard and it is
difficult to provide high quality coverage with mmWave BS, it is necessary to
rely on previous generation LTE base stations, which make use of lower
frequencies (900 MHz - 3.5 GHz), which are less sensitive to blockage and
experience lower pathloss. In order to provide ultra-reliable services to
mobile users there is a need for network architectures that tightly and
seamlessly integrate the LTE and mmWave Radio Access Technologies. In this
paper we will present two possible alternatives for this integration and show
how simulation tools can be used to assess and compare their performance.Comment: This paper was accepted for presentation at the ninth EAI SIMUtools
2016 conference, August 22 - 23, 2016, Prague, Czech Republi
TCP in 5G mmWave Networks: Link Level Retransmissions and MP-TCP
MmWave communications, one of the cornerstones of future 5G mobile networks,
are characterized at the same time by a potential multi-gigabit capacity and by
a very dynamic channel, sensitive to blockage, wide fluctuations in the
received signal quality, and possibly also sudden link disruption. While the
performance of physical and MAC layer schemes that address these issues has
been thoroughly investigated in the literature, the complex interactions
between mmWave links and transport layer protocols such as TCP are still
relatively unexplored. This paper uses the ns-3 mmWave module, with its channel
model based on real measurements in New York City, to analyze the performance
of the Linux TCP/IP stack (i) with and without link-layer retransmissions,
showing that they are fundamental to reach a high TCP throughput on mmWave
links and (ii) with Multipath TCP (MP-TCP) over multiple LTE and mmWave links,
illustrating which are the throughput-optimal combinations of secondary paths
and congestion control algorithms in different conditions.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figures, accepted for presentation at the 2017 IEEE
Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS
Reliable Video Streaming over mmWave with Multi Connectivity and Network Coding
The next generation of multimedia applications will require the
telecommunication networks to support a higher bitrate than today, in order to
deliver virtual reality and ultra-high quality video content to the users. Most
of the video content will be accessed from mobile devices, prompting the
provision of very high data rates by next generation (5G) cellular networks. A
possible enabler in this regard is communication at mmWave frequencies, given
the vast amount of available spectrum that can be allocated to mobile users;
however, the harsh propagation environment at such high frequencies makes it
hard to provide a reliable service. This paper presents a reliable video
streaming architecture for mmWave networks, based on multi connectivity and
network coding, and evaluates its performance using a novel combination of the
ns-3 mmWave module, real video traces and the network coding library Kodo. The
results show that it is indeed possible to reliably stream video over cellular
mmWave links, while the combination of multi connectivity and network coding
can support high video quality with low latency.Comment: To be presented at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on
Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), March 2018, Maui, Hawaii,
USA (invited paper). 6 pages, 4 figure
X-TCP: A Cross Layer Approach for TCP Uplink Flows in mmWave Networks
Millimeter wave frequencies will likely be part of the fifth generation of
mobile networks and of the 3GPP New Radio (NR) standard. MmWave communication
indeed provides a very large bandwidth, thus an increased cell throughput, but
how to exploit these resources at the higher layers is still an open research
question. A very relevant issue is the high variability of the channel, caused
by the blockage from obstacles and the human body. This affects the design of
congestion control mechanisms at the transport layer, and state-of-the-art TCP
schemes such as TCP CUBIC present suboptimal performance. In this paper, we
present a cross layer approach for uplink flows that adjusts the congestion
window of TCP at the mobile equipment side using an estimation of the available
data rate at the mmWave physical layer, based on the actual resource allocation
and on the Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio. We show that this approach
reduces the latency, avoiding to fill the buffers in the cellular stack, and
has a quicker recovery time after RTO events than several other TCP congestion
control algorithms.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for presentation at the 2017 16th Annual
Mediterranean Ad Hoc Networking Workshop (MED-HOC-NET
milliProxy: a TCP Proxy Architecture for 5G mmWave Cellular Systems
TCP is the most widely used transport protocol in the internet. However, it
offers suboptimal performance when operating over high bandwidth mmWave links.
The main issues introduced by communications at such high frequencies are (i)
the sensitivity to blockage and (ii) the high bandwidth fluctuations due to
Line of Sight (LOS) to Non Line of Sight (NLOS) transitions and vice versa. In
particular, TCP has an abstract view of the end-to-end connection, which does
not properly capture the dynamics of the wireless mmWave link. The consequence
is a suboptimal utilization of the available resources. In this paper we
propose a TCP proxy architecture that improves the performance of TCP flows
without any modification at the remote sender side. The proxy is installed in
the Radio Access Network, and exploits information available at the gNB in
order to maximize throughput and minimize latency.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, presented at the 2017 51st Asilomar
Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, Pacific Grove, CA, 201
ns-3 Implementation of the 3GPP MIMO Channel Model for Frequency Spectrum above 6 GHz
Communications at mmWave frequencies will be a key enabler of the next
generation of cellular networks, due to the multi-Gbps rate that can be
achieved. However, there are still several problems that must be solved before
this technology can be widely adopted, primarily associated with the interplay
between the variability of mmWave links and the complexity of mobile networks.
An end-to-end network simulator represents a great tool to assess the
performance of any proposed solution to meet the stringent 5G requirements.
Given the criticality of channel propagation characteristics at higher
frequencies, we present our implementation of the 3GPP channel model for the
6-100 GHz band for the ns-3 end-to-end 5G mmWave module, and detail its
associated MIMO beamforming architecture
Integration of Carrier Aggregation and Dual Connectivity for the ns-3 mmWave Module
Thanks to the wide availability of bandwidth, the millimeter wave (mmWave)
frequencies will provide very high data rates to mobile users in next
generation 5G cellular networks. However, mmWave links suffer from high
isotropic pathloss and blockage from common materials, and are subject to an
intermittent channel quality. Therefore, protocols and solutions at different
layers in the cellular network and the TCP/IP protocol stack have been proposed
and studied. A valuable tool for the end-to-end performance analysis of mmWave
cellular networks is the ns-3 mmWave module, which already models in detail the
channel, Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers, and extends the
Long Term Evolution (LTE) stack for the higher layers. In this paper we present
an implementation for the ns-3 mmWave module of multi connectivity techniques
for 3GPP New Radio (NR) at mmWave frequencies, namely Carrier Aggregation (CA)
and Dual Connectivity (DC), and discuss how they can be integrated to increase
the functionalities offered by the ns-3 mmWave module.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, submitted to the Workshop on ns-3 (WNS3) 201
Performance Comparison of Schedulers in MmWave Communication using NS-3
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) has proven to provide the bandwidth requirement for the new radio (NR) on 5G. MmWave has been developed as a new technology to support enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communication (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC). Since using a high frequency, mmWave also has some disadvantages that could not be avoided, such as small coverage, high signal attenuation, limited against some obstacles, and sensitive to the influence of signal quality. This paper discusses the effect of signal quality on 5G performance using mmWave while sending or receiving packet data by using three types of the scheduler, such as Round Robin, Proportional Fairness, and Max Rate scheduler. Signal quality will impact the value of modulation and coding scheme (MCS) that will be used. Our experiments using NS-3 based on the scenario showed that in the same location and number of UEs, performance throughput using Round Robin and Max Rate with excellent signal strength could reach the maximum throughput. The use of Proportional Fairness could lead only to reaching 50% of the maximum throughput. On the other hand, the use of the Proportional Fairness scheduler causes the weak signal to be unstable. Using Round Robin scheduler, the throughput is more stable. Different from the result using the Max Rate scheduler, the UE with the best signal quality compared to other UEs, was the only UE that get the resources allocation