Millimeter-wave Evolution for 5G Cellular Networks

Triggered by the explosion of mobile traffic, 5G (5th Generation) cellular network requires evolution to increase the system rate 1000 times higher than the current systems in 10 years. Motivated by this common problem, there are several studies to integrate mm-wave access into current cellular networks as multi-band heterogeneous networks to exploit the ultra-wideband aspect of the mm-wave band. The authors of this paper have proposed comprehensive architecture of cellular networks with mm-wave access, where mm-wave small cell basestations and a conventional macro basestation are connected to Centralized-RAN (C-RAN) to effectively operate the system by enabling power efficient seamless handover as well as centralized resource control including dynamic cell structuring to match the limited coverage of mm-wave access with high traffic user locations via user-plane/control-plane splitting. In this paper, to prove the effectiveness of the proposed 5G cellular networks with mm-wave access, system level simulation is conducted by introducing an expected future traffic model, a measurement based mm-wave propagation model, and a centralized cell association algorithm by exploiting the C-RAN architecture. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed network to realize 1000 times higher system rate than the current network in 10 years which is not achieved by the small cells using commonly considered 3.5 GHz band. Furthermore, the paper also gives latest status of mm-wave devices and regulations to show the feasibility of using mm-wave in the 5G systems.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted to be published in IEICE Transactions on Communications. (Mar. 2015

Frame Structure Design and Analysis for Millimeter Wave Cellular Systems

The millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies have attracted considerable attention for fifth generation (5G) cellular communication as they offer orders of magnitude greater bandwidth than current cellular systems. However, the medium access control (MAC) layer may need to be significantly redesigned to support the highly directional transmissions, ultra-low latencies and high peak rates expected in mmWave communication. To address these challenges, we present a novel mmWave MAC layer frame structure with a number of enhancements including flexible, highly granular transmission times, dynamic control signal locations, extended messaging and ability to efficiently multiplex directional control signals. Analytic formulae are derived for the utilization and control overhead as a function of control periodicity, number of users, traffic statistics, signal-to-noise ratio and antenna gains. Importantly, the analysis can incorporate various front-end MIMO capability assumptions -- a critical feature of mmWave. Under realistic system and traffic assumptions, the analysis reveals that the proposed flexible frame structure design offers significant benefits over designs with fixed frame structures similar to current 4G long-term evolution (LTE). It is also shown that fully digital beamforming architectures offer significantly lower overhead compared to analog and hybrid beamforming under equivalent power budgets.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions for Wireless Communication

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

An Efficient Uplink Multi-Connectivity Scheme for 5G mmWave Control Plane Applications

The millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies offer the potential of orders of magnitude increases in capacity for next-generation cellular systems. However, links in mmWave networks are susceptible to blockage and may suffer from rapid variations in quality. Connectivity to multiple cells - at mmWave and/or traditional frequencies - is considered essential for robust communication. One of the challenges in supporting multi-connectivity in mmWaves is the requirement for the network to track the direction of each link in addition to its power and timing. To address this challenge, we implement a novel uplink measurement system that, with the joint help of a local coordinator operating in the legacy band, guarantees continuous monitoring of the channel propagation conditions and allows for the design of efficient control plane applications, including handover, beam tracking and initial access. We show that an uplink-based multi-connectivity approach enables less consuming, better performing, faster and more stable cell selection and scheduling decisions with respect to a traditional downlink-based standalone scheme. Moreover, we argue that the presented framework guarantees (i) efficient tracking of the user in the presence of the channel dynamics expected at mmWaves, and (ii) fast reaction to situations in which the primary propagation path is blocked or not available.Comment: Submitted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC

Sub-6GHz Assisted MAC for Millimeter Wave Vehicular Communications

Sub-6GHz vehicular communications (using DSRC, ITS-G5 or C-V2X) have been developed to support active safety applications. Future connected and automated driving applications can require larger bandwidth and higher data rates than currently supported by sub-6GHz V2X technologies. This has triggered the interest in developing mmWave vehicular communications. However, solutions are necessary to solve the challenges resulting from the use of high-frequency bands and the high mobility of vehicles. This paper contributes to this active research area by proposing a sub-6GHz assisted mmWave MAC that decouples the mmWave data and control planes. The proposal offloads mmWave MAC control functions (beam alignment, neighbor identification and scheduling) to a sub-6GHz V2X technology, and reserves the mmWave channel for the data plane. This approach improves the operation of the MAC as the control functions benefit from the longer range, and the broadcast and omnidirectional transmissions of sub-6GHz V2X technologies. This simulation study demonstrates that the proposed sub-6GHz assisted mmWave MAC reduces the control overhead and delay, and increases the spatial sharing compared to a mmWave-only configuration (IEEE 802.11ad tailored to vehicular networks). The proposed MAC is here evaluated for V2V communications using 802.11p for the control plane and 802.11ad for the data plane. However, the proposal is not restricted to these technologies, and can be adapted to other technologies such as C-V2X and 5G NR.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Statistical Approaches for Initial Access in mmWave 5G Systems

mmWave communication systems overcome high attenuation by using multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver to perform beamforming. Upon entrance of a user equipment (UE) into a cell a scanning procedure must be performed by the base station in order to find the UE, in what is known as initial access (IA) procedure. In this paper we start from the observation that UEs are more likely to enter from some directions than from others, as they typically move along streets, while other movements are impossible due to the presence of obstacles. Moreover, users are entering with a given time statistics, for example described by inter-arrival times. In this context we propose scanning strategies for IA that take into account the entrance statistics. In particular, we propose two approaches: a memory-less random illumination (MLRI) algorithm and a statistic and memory-based illumination (SMBI) algorithm. The MLRI algorithm scans a random sector in each slot, based on the statistics of sector entrance, without memory. The SMBI algorithm instead scans sectors in a deterministic sequence selected according to the statistics of sector entrance and time of entrance, and taking into account the fact that the user has not yet been discovered (thus including memory). We assess the performance of the proposed methods in terms of average discovery time