Millimeter Wave Cellular Networks: A MAC Layer Perspective

The millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency band is seen as a key enabler of multi-gigabit wireless access in future cellular networks. In order to overcome the propagation challenges, mmWave systems use a large number of antenna elements both at the base station and at the user equipment, which lead to high directivity gains, fully-directional communications, and possible noise-limited operations. The fundamental differences between mmWave networks and traditional ones challenge the classical design constraints, objectives, and available degrees of freedom. This paper addresses the implications that highly directional communication has on the design of an efficient medium access control (MAC) layer. The paper discusses key MAC layer issues, such as synchronization, random access, handover, channelization, interference management, scheduling, and association. The paper provides an integrated view on MAC layer issues for cellular networks, identifies new challenges and tradeoffs, and provides novel insights and solution approaches.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Communication

Coverage Analysis of Relay Assisted Millimeter Wave Cellular Networks with Spatial Correlation

We propose a novel analytical framework for evaluating the coverage performance of a millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular network where idle user equipments (UEs) act as relays. In this network, the base station (BS) adopts either the direct mode to transmit to the destination UE, or the relay mode if the direct mode fails, where the BS transmits to the relay UE and then the relay UE transmits to the destination UE. To address the drastic rotational movements of destination UEs in practice, we propose to adopt selection combining at destination UEs. New expression is derived for the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) coverage probability of the network. Using numerical results, we first demonstrate the accuracy of our new expression. Then we show that ignoring spatial correlation, which has been commonly adopted in the literature, leads to severe overestimation of the SINR coverage probability. Furthermore, we show that introducing relays into a mmWave cellular network vastly improves the coverage performance. In addition, we show that the optimal BS density maximizing the SINR coverage probability can be determined by using our analysis

Self-Sustaining Caching Stations: Towards Cost-Effective 5G-Enabled Vehicular Networks

In this article, we investigate the cost-effective 5G-enabled vehicular networks to support emerging vehicular applications, such as autonomous driving, in-car infotainment and location-based road services. To this end, self-sustaining caching stations (SCSs) are introduced to liberate on-road base stations from the constraints of power lines and wired backhauls. Specifically, the cache-enabled SCSs are powered by renewable energy and connected to core networks through wireless backhauls, which can realize "drop-and-play" deployment, green operation, and low-latency services. With SCSs integrated, a 5G-enabled heterogeneous vehicular networking architecture is further proposed, where SCSs are deployed along roadside for traffic offloading while conventional macro base stations (MBSs) provide ubiquitous coverage to vehicles. In addition, a hierarchical network management framework is designed to deal with high dynamics in vehicular traffic and renewable energy, where content caching, energy management and traffic steering are jointly investigated to optimize the service capability of SCSs with balanced power demand and supply in different time scales. Case studies are provided to illustrate SCS deployment and operation designs, and some open research issues are also discussed.Comment: IEEE Communications Magazine, to appea