Bandwidth Partitioning and Downlink Analysis in Millimeter Wave Integrated Access and Backhaul for 5G

With the increasing network densification, it has become exceedingly difficult to provide traditional fiber backhaul access to each cell site, which is especially true for small cell base stations (SBSs). The increasing maturity of millimeter wave (mm-wave) communication has opened up the possibility of providing high-speed wireless backhaul to such cell sites. Since mm-wave is also suitable for access links, the third generation partnership project (3GPP) is envisioning an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) architecture for the fifth generation (5G) cellular networks in which the same infrastructure and spectral resources will be used for both access and backhaul. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework for IAB-enabled cellular network using which its downlink rate coverage probability is accurately characterized. Using this framework, we study the performance of three backhaul bandwidth (BW) partition strategies: 1) equal partition: when all SBSs obtain equal share of the backhaul BW; 2) instantaneous load-based partition: when the backhaul BW share of an SBS is proportional to its instantaneous load; and 3) average load-based partition: when the backhaul BW share of an SBS is proportional to its average load. Our analysis shows that depending on the choice of the partition strategy, there exists an optimal split of access and backhaul BW for which the rate coverage is maximized. Further, there exists a critical volume of cell-load (total number of users) beyond which the gains provided by the IAB-enabled network disappear and its performance converges to that of the traditional macro-only network with no SBSs.Comment: A part of this paper was presented at IEEE ICC 2018. It is available at arXiv:1710.0625

Ray Tracing Analysis for UAV-assisted Integrated Access and Backhaul Millimeter Wave Networks

The use of Millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum in cellular communications has recently attracted growing interest to support the expected massive increase in traffic demands. However, the high path-loss at mmWave frequencies poses severe challenges. In this paper, we analyze the potential coverage gains of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as hovering relays, in integrated access and backhaul (IAB) mmWave cellular scenarios. Specifically, we utilize the WinProp software package, which employs ray tracing methodology, to study the propagation characteristics of outdoor mmWave channels at 30 and 60 GHz frequency bands in a Manhattan-like environment. In doing so, we propose the implementation of amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying mechanisms in the WinProp software. We show how the 3D deployment of UAVs can be defined based on the coverage ray tracing maps at access and backhaul links. Furthermore, we propose an adaptive UAV transmission power for the AF relaying. We demonstrate, with the aid of ray tracing simulations, the performance gains of the proposed relaying modes in terms of downlink coverage, and the received signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR).Comment: in Proc. IEEE WoWMoM Workshop Wireless Netw. Planning Comput. UAV Swarms, Washington, DC, USA, Jun.201

Throughput Analysis in Cache-enabled Millimeter Wave HetNets with Access and Backhaul Integration

Recently, a mmWave-based access and backhaul integration heterogeneous networks (HetNets) architecture (mABHetNets) has been envisioned to provide high wireless capacity.Since the access link and the backhaul link share the same mmwave spectral resource, a large spectrum bandwidth is occupied by the backhaul link, which hinders the wireless access capacity improvement. To overcome the backhaul spectrum occupation problem and improve the network throughput in the existing mABHetNets, we introduce the cache at base stations (BSs). In detail, by caching popular files at small base stations (SBSs),mABHetNets can offload the backhaul link traffic and transfer the redundant backhaul spectrum to the access link to increase the network throughout. However, introducing cache in SBSs will also incur additional power consumption and reduce the transmission power, which can lower the network throughput.In this paper, we investigate spectrum partition between the access link and the backhaul link as well as cache allocation to improve the network throughput in mABHetNets. With the stochastic geometry tool, we develop an analytical framework to characterize cache-enabled mABHetNets and obtain the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) distributions in line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) paths. Then we utilize the SINR distribution to derive the average potential throughput(APT). Extensive numerical results show that introducing cache can bring up to 80% APT gain to the existing mABHetNets.Comment: 7 pages,6 figures,conference. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1911.0116

Reliability and Local Delay in Wireless Networks: Does Bandwidth Partitioning Help?

This paper studies the effect of bandwidth partitioning (BWP) on the reliability and delay performance in infrastructureless wireless networks. The reliability performance is characterized by the density of concurrent transmissions that satisfy a certain reliability (outage) constraint and the delay performance by so-called local delay, defined as the average number of time slots required to successfully transmit a packet. We concentrate on the ultrareliable regime where the target outage probability is close to 0. BWP has two conflicting effects: while the interference is reduced as the concurrent transmissions are divided over multiple frequency bands, the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) requirement is increased due to smaller allocated bandwidth if the data rate is to be kept constant. Instead, if the SIR requirement is to be kept the same, BWP reduces the data rate and in turn increases the local delay. For these two approaches with adaptive and fixed SIR requirements, we derive closed-form expressions of the local delay and the maximum density of reliable transmissions in the ultrareliable regime. Our analysis shows that, in the ultrareliable regime, BWP leads to the reliability-delay tradeoff.Comment: Accepted in IEEE Globecom 2019. 6 pages, 2 figure

Integrated Access and Backhaul in 5G mmWave Networks: Potentials and Challenges

Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) is being investigated as a means to overcome deployment costs of ultra-dense 5G millimeter wave (mmWave) networks by realizing wireless backhaul links to relay the access traffic. For the development of these systems, however, it is fundamental to validate the performance of IAB in realistic scenarios through end-to-end system level simulations. In this paper, we shed light on the most recent standardization activities on IAB, and compare architectures with and without IAB in mmWave deployments. While it is well understood that IAB networks reduce deployment costs by obviating the need to provide wired backhaul to each cellular base-station, in this paper we demonstrate the cell-edge throughput advantage offered by IAB using end-to-end system level simulations. We further highlight some research challenges associated with this architecture that will require further investigations.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Magazine, 7 pages, 4 figure

Designing Cost- and Energy-Efficient Cell-Free Massive MIMO Network with Fiber and FSO Fronthaul Links

The emerging cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) is a promising scheme to tackle the capacity crunch in wireless networks. Designing the optimal fronthaul network in the CF-mMIMIO is of utmost importance to deploy a cost- and energy-efficient network. In this paper, we present a framework to optimally design the fronthaul network of CF-mMIMO utilizing optical fiber and free space optical (FSO) technologies. We study an uplink data transmission of the CF-mMIMO network wherein each of the distributed access points (APs) is connected to a central processing unit (CPU) through a capacity-limited fronthaul, which could be the optical fiber or FSO. Herein, we have derived achievable rates and studied the network's energy efficiency in the presence of power consumption models at the APs and fronthaul links. Although an optical fiber link has a larger capacity, it consumes less power and has a higher deployment cost than that of an FSO link. For a given total number of APs, the optimal number of optical fiber and FSO links and the optimal capacity coefficient for the optical fibers are derived to maximize the system's performance. Finally, the network's performance is investigated through numerical results to highlight the effects of different types of optical fronthaul links.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, This work has been accepted to be published in the AUT Journal of Electrical Engineerin

Multiple-Association Supporting HTC/MTC in Limited-Backhaul Capacity Ultra-Dense Networks

Coexistence of Human-Type Communications (HTCs) and Machine-Type Communications (MTCs) is inevitable. Ultra-Dense Networks (UDNs) will be efficacious in supporting both types of communications. In a UDN, a massive number of low-power and low-cost Small Cells (SCs) are deployed with density higher than that of the HTC users. In such a scenario, the backhaul capacities constitute an intrinsic bottleneck for the system. Hence, we propose a multiple association scheme where each HTC user associates to and activates multiple SCs to overcome the backhaul capacity constraints. In addition, having more active cells allows for more MTC devices to be supported by the network. Using tools from stochastic geometry, we formulate a novel mathematical framework investigating the performance of the limited-backhaul capacity UDN in terms of Area Spectral Efficiency (ASE) for both HTC and MTC and the density of supported MTC devices. Extensive simulations were conducted to verify the accuracy of the mathematical analysis under different system parameters. Results show the existence of an optimum number of SCs to which an HTC user may connect under backhaul capacity constraints. Besides, the proposed multiple association scheme significantly improves the performance of MTC in terms of both ASE and density of supported devices

Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Spectrum Allocation in Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks

We develop a framework based on deep reinforce-ment learning (DRL) to solve the spectrum allocation problem inthe emerging integrated access and backhaul (IAB) architecturewith large scale deployment and dynamic environment. The avail-able spectrum is divided into several orthogonal sub-channels,and the donor base station (DBS) and all IAB nodes have thesame spectrum resource for allocation, where a DBS utilizes thosesub-channels for access links of associated user equipment (UE)as well as for backhaul links of associated IAB nodes, and anIAB node can utilize all for its associated UEs. This is one ofkey features in which 5G differs from traditional settings wherethe backhaul networks were designed independently from theaccess networks. With the goal of maximizing the sum log-rateof all UE groups, we formulate the spectrum allocation probleminto a mix-integer and non-linear programming. However, itis intractable to find an optimal solution especially when theIAB network is large and time-varying. To tackle this problem,we propose to use the latest DRL method by integrating anactor-critic spectrum allocation (ACSA) scheme and deep neuralnetwork (DNN) to achieve real-time spectrum allocation indifferent scenarios. The proposed methods are evaluated throughnumerical simulations and show promising results compared withsome baseline allocation policies

Interference Management in UAV-assisted Integrated Access and Backhaul Cellular Networks

An integrated access and backhaul (IAB) network architecture can enable flexible and fast deployment of next-generation cellular networks. However, mutual interference between access and backhaul links, small inter-site distance and spatial dynamics of user distribution pose major challenges in the practical deployment of IAB networks. To tackle these problems, we leverage the flying capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as hovering IAB-nodes and propose an interference management algorithm to maximize the overall sum rate of the IAB network. In particular, we jointly optimize the user and base station associations, the downlink power allocations for access and backhaul transmissions, and the spatial configurations of UAVs. We consider two spatial configuration modes of UAVs: distributed UAVs and drone antenna array (DAA), and show how they are intertwined with the spatial distribution of ground users. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an average of $2.9\times$ and $6.7\times$ gains in the received downlink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and overall network sum rate, respectively. Finally, the numerical results reveal that UAVs cannot only be used for coverage improvement but also for capacity boosting in IAB cellular networks.Comment: IEEE Access, Jun. 201

Unified Analysis of HetNets using Poisson Cluster Process under Max-Power Association

Owing to its flexibility in modeling real-world spatial configurations of users and base stations (BSs), the Poisson cluster process (PCP) has recently emerged as an appealing way to model and analyze heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets). Despite its undisputed relevance to HetNets -- corroborated by the models used in industry -- the PCP's use in performance analysis has been limited. This is primarily because of the lack of analytical tools to characterize performance metrics such as the coverage probability of a user connected to the strongest BS. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework for the evaluation of the coverage probability, or equivalently the complementary cumulative density function (CCDF) of signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR), of a typical user in a K-tier HetNet under a max power-based association strategy, where the BS locations of each tier follow either a Poisson point process (PPP) or a PCP. The key enabling step involves conditioning on the parent PPPs of all the PCPs which allows us to express the coverage probability as a product of sum-product and probability generating functionals (PGFLs) of the parent PPPs. In addition to several useful insights, our analysis provides a rigorous way to study the impact of the cluster size on the SINR distribution, which was not possible using existing PPP-based models