Millimetre wave frequency band as a candidate spectrum for 5G network architecture : a survey

In order to meet the huge growth in global mobile data traffic in 2020 and beyond, the development of the 5th Generation (5G) system is required as the current 4G system is expected to fall short of the provision needed for such growth. 5G is anticipated to use a higher carrier frequency in the millimetre wave (mm-wave) band, within the 20 to 90 GHz, due to the availability of a vast amount of unexploited bandwidth. It is a revolutionary step to use these bands because of their different propagation characteristics, severe atmospheric attenuation, and hardware constraints. In this paper, we carry out a survey of 5G research contributions and proposed design architectures based on mm-wave communications. We present and discuss the use of mm-wave as indoor and outdoor mobile access, as a wireless backhaul solution, and as a key enabler for higher order sectorisation. Wireless standards such as IEE802.11ad, which are operating in mm-wave band have been presented. These standards have been designed for short range, ultra high data throughput systems in the 60 GHz band. Furthermore, this survey provides new insights regarding relevant and open issues in adopting mm-wave for 5G networks. This includes increased handoff rate and interference in Ultra-Dense Network (UDN), waveform consideration with higher spectral efficiency, and supporting spatial multiplexing in mm-wave line of sight. This survey also introduces a distributed base station architecture in mm-wave as an approach to address increased handoff rate in UDN, and to provide an alternative way for network densification in a time and cost effective manner

State-of-the-art assessment of 5G mmWave communications

Deliverable D2.1 del proyecto 5GWirelessMain objective of the European 5Gwireless project, which is part of the H2020 Marie Slodowska- Curie ITN (Innovative Training Networks) program resides in the training and involvement of young researchers in the elaboration of future mobile communication networks, focusing on innovative wireless technologies, heterogeneous network architectures, new topologies (including ultra-dense deployments), and appropriate tools. The present Document D2.1 is the first deliverable of Work- Package 2 (WP2) that is specifically devoted to the modeling of the millimeter-wave (mmWave) propagation channels, and development of appropriate mmWave beamforming and signal processing techniques. Deliver D2.1 gives a state-of-the-art on the mmWave channel measurement, characterization and modeling; existing antenna array technologies, channel estimation and precoding algorithms; proposed deployment and networking techniques; some performance studies; as well as a review on the evaluation and analysis toolsPostprint (published version

Toward End-to-End, Full-Stack 6G Terahertz Networks

Recent evolutions in semiconductors have brought the terahertz band in the spotlight as an enabler for terabit-per-second communications in 6G networks. Most of the research so far, however, has focused on understanding the physics of terahertz devices, circuitry and propagation, and on studying physical layer solutions. However, integrating this technology in complex mobile networks requires a proper design of the full communication stack, to address link- and system-level challenges related to network setup, management, coordination, energy efficiency, and end-to-end connectivity. This paper provides an overview of the issues that need to be overcome to introduce the terahertz spectrum in mobile networks, from a MAC, network and transport layer perspective, with considerations on the performance of end-to-end data flows on terahertz connections.Comment: Published on IEEE Communications Magazine, THz Communications: A Catalyst for the Wireless Future, 7 pages, 6 figure

Performance evaluation of 5G millimeter-wave cellular access networks using a capacity-based network deployment tool

The next fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication networks comes with a set of new features to satisfy the demand of data-intensive applications: millimeter-wave frequencies, massive antenna arrays, beamforming, dense cells, and so forth. In this paper, we investigate the use of beamforming techniques through various architectures and evaluate the performance of 5G wireless access networks, using a capacity-based network deployment tool. This tool is proposed and applied to a realistic area in Ghent, Belgium, to simulate realistic 5G networks that respond to the instantaneous bit rate required by the active users. The results show that, with beamforming, 5G networks require almost 15% more base stations and 4 times less power to provide more capacity to the users and the same coverage performances, in comparison with the 4G reference network. Moreover, they are 3 times more energy efficient than the 4G network and the hybrid beamforming architecture appears to be a suitable architecture for beamforming to be considered when designing a 5G cellular network