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

Recent Advances in RF Propagation Modeling for 5G Systems

Stefanovic, M.; Panic, SR.; De Souza, RAA.; Reig, J. (2017). Recent Advances in RF Propagation Modeling for 5G Systems. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation (Online). 2017(4701208):1-5. doi:10.1155/2017/4701208S152017470120

Millimeter Wave Hybrid Beamforming Systems

The motivation for this thesis is the design of millimetre wave (mmWave) hybrid beamforming systems for supporting high user density. mmWave systems with hybrid digital-to-analogue beamforming (D-A BF) have the potential to fulfil 5G traffic demands. However, the capacity of mmWave systems is severely limited as each radio frequency (RF) transceiver chain in current sub-array mmWave base station (BS) architectures support only a particular user. Therefore, two new algorithms have been proposed for broadband mmWave systems. The algorithms operate on the principles of selection combining (SC) and principal component (PC). SC is a spatio-temporal hybrid D-A BF which has been designed to exploit multipath diversity, which is a characteristic feature of broadband propagation at mmWave. A novel low-complexity variant of SC, called low-complexity selection combining (LC-SC) has also been proposed for supporting high user density for such sub-array mm-Wave BS. mmWave lens-antenna systems are an emergent beamforming technology. They are novel because they eliminate the requirement of traditional analog beamformers. In this context, a low-complexity beam allocation (LBA) algorithm, proposed in an earlier research, has been applied to solve the challenging problem of maximizing sum data-rates in switched-beam mmWave systems. However, there are practical limitations, such as restrictions in the number of available RF chains at the BS, sensitivity to sidelobe interference and the beam generation techniques. Using generalized beam-patterns, the maximum sum data-rates achievable in switched-beam mmWave systems is compared to fixed-beam systems by applying LBA. Then, the impact on maximum sum data-rates of actual beam-patterns, obtained from a practical mmWave lens-antenna, which have higher and non-uniform sidelobes compared to the theoretical beams, is assessed. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) relay with hybrid digital-to-analog precoding (D-A P) as a promising solution for supporting high user densities in overloaded millimeter wave (mmWave) systems is investigated. To support high user densities in current mmWave hybrid D-A P systems, an idea based on exploiting the concept of NOMA relay to support 2K users per RF chain is proposed, where 2K M. To design the hybrid D-A P systems, the SC and PC algorithms are combined with NOMA relay to support significantly higher user densities. In future research, performance impairments in beamforming assistedmmWaveNOMA systems due to far-user's angle-of-departure (AoD) divergence with respect to the near-user is being investigated. This investigation is novel since most literature in NOMA considers both the near-user and far-user pairs static with respect to one another

Radio Channel Characterization for Future Wireless Networks and Applications

The new frontier of Above-6GHz bands is revolutionizing the field of wireless telecommunications, requiring new radio channel models to support the development of future Giga-bit-per-second systems. Recently, deterministic ray-based models as Ray Tracing are catching on worldwide thanks to their frequency-agility and reliable predictions. A modern 3D Ray Tracing developed at University of Bologna has been indeed calibrated and used to investigate the Above-6GHz radio channel properties. As starting point, an item-level electromagnetic characterization of common items and materials has been achieved successfully to obtain information about the complex permittivity, scattering diagrams and even de-polarization effects, both utilizing Vector Spectrum Analyzer (at 7-15GHz) and custom Channel Sounder (at 70GHz). Thus, a complete tuning of the Ray Tracing has been completed for Above-6GHz frequencies. Then, 70GHz indoor doubledirectional channel measurements have been performed in collaboration with TU Ilmenau, in order to attain a multidimensional analysis of propagation mechanisms in time and space, outlining the differences between Below- and Above-6GHz propagation. Furthermore, multi-antenna systems, as Multiple-Input-Multiple- Output (MIMO) and Beamforming have been taken into considerations, as strategic technologies for Above-6GHz systems, focusing on their implementation, limits and differences. Finally, complex system simulations of Space-Division-Multiple- Access (SDMA) networks in indoor scenarios have been tested, to assess the capabilities of Beamforming. In particular, efficient Beam Search and Tracking algorithms have been proposed to assess the impact of interference on Multi-User Beamforming at 70GHz and, also, novel Multi-Beam Beamforming schemes have been tested at 60GHz to investigate diversity strategies to cope with NLOS link and Human Blockage events. Moreover, the novel concept of Ray-Tracing-assisted Beamforming has been outlined, showing that ray-based models represent today the promising key tools to evaluate, design and enhance the future Above-6GHz multi-antenna systems

Millimetre-wave radio-over-fibre supported multi-antenna and multi-user transmission

In this thesis, various features of the RoF supported mmW communication for future wireless systems have been analysed including photonic generation of mmW for MIMO operation, performance analysis of mmW MIMO to achieve spatial diversity and spatial multiplexing with analog RoF fronthaul, and multi-user transmission in the 60 GHz-band using multiplexing-over-fibre transport and frequency-selective antenna. A low cost mmW generation system for two independent MIMO signals has been presented, consisting of a single optical Phase Modulator (PM). The different aspects of experimental analysis on RoF-supported mmW MIMO in this thesis, which were not considered before, include use of specific MIMO algorithm to understand the amount of improvement in coverage and data rate for a particular MIMO technique, performance comparison with SISO at several user locations, and verification of optimum RAU physical spacing for a particular transmission distance with the theoretical results. The results show that flexible and wider RAU spacings, required to obtain optimum performance in a mmW MIMO system, can be achieved using the proposed analog RoF fronthaul. The investigation was extended to verification of a method to individual measurement of mmW channel coefficients and performing MIMO processing, which shows that mmW channels are relatively static and analysis can be extended to much longer distances and making projections for N×N MIMO. For mmW multi-user transmission, a novel low cost, low complexity system using single RoF link and single RF chain with single transmitting antenna has been presented and characterized, which was based on large number of RF chains and multiple antenna units previously. The setup involves generation and RoF transport of a composite SCM signal, upconversion at the RAU and transmission of different frequency channels towards spatially distributed users using a frequency-selective Leaky-Wave-Antenna (LWA), to convert Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) in to Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA). Analysis on low user-signal spacing for the SCM shows the feasibility to serve a large number of users within a specific transmission bandwidth and experimental demonstration to achieve sum rate of 10Gb/s is shown by serving 20 users simultaneously. Furthermore, investigation on SNR degradation of high bandwidth signals due to beamsteering effect of the LWA and theoretical calculations of the sum data rate for different number of users is performed, which shows that the proposed system can provide much higher sum rates with high available SNR. It was also experimentally demonstrated that improvement in coverage and spectral efficiency is obtained by operating multiple LWAs using single RF chain. Finally, an experimental demonstration of a DWDM-RoF based 60 GHz multi-user transmission using single LWA is presented to show the feasibility to extend the setup for a multiple RAU based system, serving each at distinct optical wavelength and performing direct photonic upconversion at the RAU for low cost mmW generation