1,408 research outputs found
Advanced Coordinated Beamforming for the Downlink of Future LTE Cellular Networks
Modern cellular networks in traditional frequency bands are notoriously
interference-limited especially in urban areas, where base stations are
deployed in close proximity to one another. The latest releases of Long Term
Evolution (LTE) incorporate features for coordinating downlink transmissions as
an efficient means of managing interference. Recent field trial results and
theoretical studies of the performance of joint transmission (JT) coordinated
multi-point (CoMP) schemes revealed, however, that their gains are not as high
as initially expected, despite the large coordination overhead. These schemes
are known to be very sensitive to defects in synchronization or information
exchange between coordinating bases stations as well as uncoordinated
interference. In this article, we review recent advanced coordinated
beamforming (CB) schemes as alternatives, requiring less overhead than JT CoMP
while achieving good performance in realistic conditions. By stipulating that,
in certain LTE scenarios of increasing interest, uncoordinated interference
constitutes a major factor in the performance of CoMP techniques at large, we
hereby assess the resilience of the state-of-the-art CB to uncoordinated
interference. We also describe how these techniques can leverage the latest
specifications of current cellular networks, and how they may perform when we
consider standardized feedback and coordination. This allows us to identify
some key roadblocks and research directions to address as LTE evolves towards
the future of mobile communications.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, accepted to IEEE Communications Magazin
Separation Framework: An Enabler for Cooperative and D2D Communication for Future 5G Networks
Soaring capacity and coverage demands dictate that future cellular networks
need to soon migrate towards ultra-dense networks. However, network
densification comes with a host of challenges that include compromised energy
efficiency, complex interference management, cumbersome mobility management,
burdensome signaling overheads and higher backhaul costs. Interestingly, most
of the problems, that beleaguer network densification, stem from legacy
networks' one common feature i.e., tight coupling between the control and data
planes regardless of their degree of heterogeneity and cell density.
Consequently, in wake of 5G, control and data planes separation architecture
(SARC) has recently been conceived as a promising paradigm that has potential
to address most of aforementioned challenges. In this article, we review
various proposals that have been presented in literature so far to enable SARC.
More specifically, we analyze how and to what degree various SARC proposals
address the four main challenges in network densification namely: energy
efficiency, system level capacity maximization, interference management and
mobility management. We then focus on two salient features of future cellular
networks that have not yet been adapted in legacy networks at wide scale and
thus remain a hallmark of 5G, i.e., coordinated multipoint (CoMP), and
device-to-device (D2D) communications. After providing necessary background on
CoMP and D2D, we analyze how SARC can particularly act as a major enabler for
CoMP and D2D in context of 5G. This article thus serves as both a tutorial as
well as an up to date survey on SARC, CoMP and D2D. Most importantly, the
article provides an extensive outlook of challenges and opportunities that lie
at the crossroads of these three mutually entangled emerging technologies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 201
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
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
Quantifying Potential Energy Efficiency Gain in Green Cellular Wireless Networks
Conventional cellular wireless networks were designed with the purpose of
providing high throughput for the user and high capacity for the service
provider, without any provisions of energy efficiency. As a result, these
networks have an enormous Carbon footprint. In this paper, we describe the
sources of the inefficiencies in such networks. First we present results of the
studies on how much Carbon footprint such networks generate. We also discuss
how much more mobile traffic is expected to increase so that this Carbon
footprint will even increase tremendously more. We then discuss specific
sources of inefficiency and potential sources of improvement at the physical
layer as well as at higher layers of the communication protocol hierarchy. In
particular, considering that most of the energy inefficiency in cellular
wireless networks is at the base stations, we discuss multi-tier networks and
point to the potential of exploiting mobility patterns in order to use base
station energy judiciously. We then investigate potential methods to reduce
this inefficiency and quantify their individual contributions. By a
consideration of the combination of all potential gains, we conclude that an
improvement in energy consumption in cellular wireless networks by two orders
of magnitude, or even more, is possible.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1210.843
Achieving Large Multiplexing Gain in Distributed Antenna Systems via Cooperation with pCell Technology
In this paper we present pCellTM technology, the first commercial-grade
wireless system that employs cooperation between distributed transceiver
stations to create concurrent data links to multiple users in the same
spectrum. First we analyze the per-user signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
(SINR) employing a geometrical spatial channel model to define volumes in space
of coherent signal around user antennas (or personal cells, i.e., pCells). Then
we describe the system architecture consisting of a general-purpose-processor
(GPP) based software-defined radio (SDR) wireless platform implementing a
real-time LTE protocol stack to communicate with off-the-shelf LTE devices.
Finally we present experimental results demonstrating up to 16 concurrent
spatial channels for an aggregate average spectral efficiency of 59.3 bps/Hz in
the downlink and 27.5 bps/Hz in the uplink, providing data rates of 200 Mbps
downlink and 25 Mbps uplink in 5 MHz of TDD spectrum.Comment: IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov.
8-11th 2015, Pacific Grove, CA, US
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