Device-to-Device Communications in the Millimeter Wave Band: A Novel Distributed Mechanism

In spite of its potential advantages, the large-scale implementation of the device-to-device (D2D) communications has yet to be realized, mainly due to severe interference and lack of enough bandwidth in the microwave ($\mu$W) band. Recently, exploiting the millimeter wave (mmW) band for D2D communications has attracted considerable attention as a potential solution to these challenges. However, its severe sensitivity to blockage along with its directional nature make the utilization of the mmW band a challenging task as it requires line-of-sight (LOS) link detection and careful beam alignment between the D2D transceivers. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed mechanism which enables the D2D devices to discover unblocked LOS links for the mmW band communication. Moreover, as such LOS links are not always available, the proposed mechanism allows the D2D devices to switch to the $\mu$W band if necessary. In addition, the proposed mechanism detects the direction of the LOS links to perform the beam alignment. We have used tools from stochastic geometry to evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism in terms of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) coverage probability. The performance of the proposed algorithm is then compared to the one of the single band (i.e., $\mu$W/mmW) communication. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism considerably outperforms the single band communication.Comment: 6 Pages, 6 Figures, Accepted for presentation in Wireless Telecommunication Symposium (WTS'18

On the Benefits of Network-Level Cooperation in Millimeter-Wave Communications

Relaying techniques for millimeter-wave wireless networks represent a powerful solution for improving the transmission performance. In this work, we quantify the benefits in terms of delay and throughput for a random-access multi-user millimeter-wave wireless network, assisted by a full-duplex network cooperative relay. The relay is equipped with a queue for which we analyze the performance characteristics (e.g., arrival rate, service rate, average size, and stability condition). Moreover, we study two possible transmission schemes: fully directional and broadcast. In the former, the source nodes transmit a packet either to the relay or to the destination by using narrow beams, whereas, in the latter, the nodes transmit to both the destination and the relay in the same timeslot by using a wider beam, but with lower beamforming gain. In our analysis, we also take into account the beam alignment phase that occurs every time a transmitter node changes the destination node. We show how the beam alignment duration, as well as position and number of transmitting nodes, significantly affect the network performance. Moreover, we illustrate the optimal transmission scheme (i.e., broadcast or fully directional) for several system parameters and show that a fully directional transmission is not always beneficial, but, in some scenarios, broadcasting and relaying can improve the performance in terms of throughput and delay.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1804.0945

Interference Alignment Through User Cooperation for Two-cell MIMO Interfering Broadcast Channels

This paper focuses on two-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian interfering broadcast channels (MIMO-IFBC) with $K$ cooperating users on the cell-boundary of each BS. It corresponds to a downlink scenario for cellular networks with two base stations (BSs), and $K$ users equipped with Wi-Fi interfaces enabling to cooperate among users on a peer-to-peer basis. In this scenario, we propose a novel interference alignment (IA) technique exploiting user cooperation. Our proposed algorithm obtains the achievable degrees of freedom (DoF) of 2K when each BS and user have $M=K+1$ transmit antennas and $N=K$ receive antennas, respectively. Furthermore, the algorithm requires only a small amount of channel feedback information with the aid of the user cooperation channels. The simulations demonstrate that not only are the analytical results valid, but the achievable DoF of our proposed algorithm also outperforms those of conventional techniques.Comment: This paper will appear in IEEE GLOBECOM 201

Optimal scheduling and fair servicepolicy for STDMA in underwater networks with acoustic communications

In this work, a multi-hop string network with a single sink node is analyzed. A periodic optimal scheduling for TDMA operation that considers the characteristic long propagation delay of the underwater acoustic channel is presented. This planning of transmissions is obtained with the help of a new geometrical method based on a 2D lattice in the space-time domain. In order to evaluate the performance of this optimal scheduling, two service policies have been compared: FIFO and Round-Robin. Simulation results, including achievable throughput, packet delay, and queue length, are shown. The network fairness has also been quantified with the Gini index

Average Error Probability Analysis in mmWave Cellular Networks

In this paper, a mathematical framework for the analysis of average symbol error probability (ASEP) in millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular networks with Poisson Point Process (PPP) distributed base stations (BSs) is developed using tools from stochastic geometry. The distinguishing features of mmWave communications such as directional beamforming and having different path loss laws for line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) links are incorporated in the average error probability analysis. First, average pairwise error probability (APEP) expression is obtained by averaging pairwise error probability (PEP) over fading and random shortest distance from mobile user (MU) to its serving BS. Subsequently, average symbol error probability is approximated from APEP using the nearest neighbor (NN) approximation. ASEP is analyzed for different antenna gains and base station densities. Finally, the effect of beamforming alignment errors on ASEP is investigated to get insight on more realistic cases.Comment: Presented at IEEE VTC2015-Fal