4,478 research outputs found
A Concise Review of 5G New Radio Capabilities for Directional Access at mmWave Frequencies
In this work, we briefly outline the core 5G air interface improvements
introduced by the latest New Radio (NR) specifications, as well as elaborate on
the unique features of initial access in 5G NR with a particular emphasis on
millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency range. The highly directional nature of 5G
mmWave cellular systems poses a variety of fundamental differences and research
problem formulations, and a holistic understanding of the key system design
principles behind the 5G NR is essential. Here, we condense the relevant
information collected from a wide diversity of 5G NR standardization documents
(based on 3GPP Release 15) to distill the essentials of directional access in
5G mmWave cellular, which becomes the foundation for any corresponding
system-level analysis.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, published in proceedings of
International Conference on Next Generation Wired/Wireless Networking, NEW2AN
2018, St. Petersburg, Russi
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
Fast Cell Discovery in mm-wave 5G Networks with Context Information
The exploitation of mm-wave bands is one of the key-enabler for 5G mobile
radio networks. However, the introduction of mm-wave technologies in cellular
networks is not straightforward due to harsh propagation conditions that limit
the mm-wave access availability. Mm-wave technologies require high-gain antenna
systems to compensate for high path loss and limited power. As a consequence,
directional transmissions must be used for cell discovery and synchronization
processes: this can lead to a non-negligible access delay caused by the
exploration of the cell area with multiple transmissions along different
directions.
The integration of mm-wave technologies and conventional wireless access
networks with the objective of speeding up the cell search process requires new
5G network architectural solutions. Such architectures introduce a functional
split between C-plane and U-plane, thereby guaranteeing the availability of a
reliable signaling channel through conventional wireless technologies that
provides the opportunity to collect useful context information from the network
edge.
In this article, we leverage the context information related to user
positions to improve the directional cell discovery process. We investigate
fundamental trade-offs of this process and the effects of the context
information accuracy on the overall system performance. We also cope with
obstacle obstructions in the cell area and propose an approach based on a
geo-located context database where information gathered over time is stored to
guide future searches. Analytic models and numerical results are provided to
validate proposed strategies.Comment: 14 pages, submitted to IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computin
Initial Access in 5G mm-Wave Cellular Networks
The massive amounts of bandwidth available at millimeter-wave frequencies
(roughly above 10 GHz) have the potential to greatly increase the capacity of
fifth generation cellular wireless systems. However, to overcome the high
isotropic pathloss experienced at these frequencies, high directionality will
be required at both the base station and the mobile user equipment to establish
sufficient link budget in wide area networks. This reliance on directionality
has important implications for control layer procedures. Initial access in
particular can be significantly delayed due to the need for the base station
and the user to find the proper alignment for directional transmission and
reception. This paper provides a survey of several recently proposed techniques
for this purpose. A coverage and delay analysis is performed to compare various
techniques including exhaustive and iterative search, and Context Information
based algorithms. We show that the best strategy depends on the target SNR
regime, and provide guidelines to characterize the optimal choice as a function
of the system parameters.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, 15 references, submitted to IEEE COMMAG
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
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