6,928 research outputs found
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
Multiband Spectrum Access: Great Promises for Future Cognitive Radio Networks
Cognitive radio has been widely considered as one of the prominent solutions
to tackle the spectrum scarcity. While the majority of existing research has
focused on single-band cognitive radio, multiband cognitive radio represents
great promises towards implementing efficient cognitive networks compared to
single-based networks. Multiband cognitive radio networks (MB-CRNs) are
expected to significantly enhance the network's throughput and provide better
channel maintenance by reducing handoff frequency. Nevertheless, the wideband
front-end and the multiband spectrum access impose a number of challenges yet
to overcome. This paper provides an in-depth analysis on the recent
advancements in multiband spectrum sensing techniques, their limitations, and
possible future directions to improve them. We study cooperative communications
for MB-CRNs to tackle a fundamental limit on diversity and sampling. We also
investigate several limits and tradeoffs of various design parameters for
MB-CRNs. In addition, we explore the key MB-CRNs performance metrics that
differ from the conventional metrics used for single-band based networks.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures; published in the Proceedings of the IEEE
Journal, Special Issue on Future Radio Spectrum Access, March 201
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