Channel Dynamics and SNR Tracking in Millimeter Wave Cellular Systems

The millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies are likely to play a significant role in fifth-generation (5G) cellular systems. A key challenge in developing systems in these bands is the potential for rapid channel dynamics: since mmWave signals are blocked by many materials, small changes in the position or orientation of the handset relative to objects in the environment can cause large swings in the channel quality. This paper addresses the issue of tracking the signal to noise ratio (SNR), which is an essential procedure for rate prediction, handover and radio link failure detection. A simple method for estimating the SNR from periodic synchronization signals is considered. The method is then evaluated using real experiments in common blockage scenarios combined with outdoor statistical models

Wireless Communications in the Era of Big Data

The rapidly growing wave of wireless data service is pushing against the boundary of our communication network's processing power. The pervasive and exponentially increasing data traffic present imminent challenges to all the aspects of the wireless system design, such as spectrum efficiency, computing capabilities and fronthaul/backhaul link capacity. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the design of scalable wireless systems to embrace such a "bigdata" era. On one hand, we review the state-of-the-art networking architectures and signal processing techniques adaptable for managing the bigdata traffic in wireless networks. On the other hand, instead of viewing mobile bigdata as a unwanted burden, we introduce methods to capitalize from the vast data traffic, for building a bigdata-aware wireless network with better wireless service quality and new mobile applications. We highlight several promising future research directions for wireless communications in the mobile bigdata era.Comment: This article is accepted and to appear in IEEE Communications Magazin

A Comparative Study of Prioritized Handoff Schemes with Guard Channels in Wireless Cellular Networks

Mobility management has always been the main challenge in most mobile systems. It involves the management of network radio channel resource capacity for the purpose of achieving optimum quality of service (QoS) standard. In this era of wireless Personal Communication Networks such as Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), Wireless Asynchronous Transfer Mode (WATM), Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), there is a continuous increase in demand for network capacity. In order to accommodate the increased demand for network capacity (radio resource) over the wireless medium, cell sizes are reduced. As a result of such reduction in cell sizes, handoffs occur more frequently, and thereby result in increased volume of handoff related signaling. Therefore, a handoff scheme that can handle the increased signaling load while sustaining the standard QoS parameters is required.This work presents a comparative analysis of four popular developed handoff schemes. New call blocking probability, forced termination probability and throughput are the QoS parameters employed in comparing the four schemes. The four schemes are:RCS-GC,MRCS-GC, NCBS-GC, and APS-GC. NCBS-GChas the leased new call blocking probability while APS-GC has the worst. In terms of forced termination probability, MRCS-GC has the best result, whileRCS-GChas the worst scheme.MRCS-GC delivers the highest number of packets per second while APS-GC delivers the least. These performance metrics are computed by using the analytical expressions developed for these metrics in the considered models in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet environment.http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v34i3.2